Thread by @MForstater

What do we know about Imane Khelif & Lin Yu Ting who won Olympic gold medals in women's boxing?

1) We know there is a condition called 5-ARD which leads to males being born with undescended testes and female looking genitals.

The 3 women's medal winners at Rio in 800m had it.

World Athletics adopted DSD regulations after that.

We know a lot about this because Caster Semenya challenged @WorldAthletics to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The court said the regulations are proportionate to maintain fairness for women.

tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user…

We know that some people disagree.

@Nike for example says Semenya is a victim of discrimination and should have the "right to run" against women.

wkams.com/work/right-to-…

2) We know the two Olympic boxers have female passports and we are told they were registered female at birth and brought up as girls.

thetimes.com/uk/society/art…

3) We know that at puberty children w 5-ARD virilise: Their voice drops, muscles grow, their penis grows.

They dont become young women starting their period. They become young men.

It must be distressing for a child raised a girl. They would notice. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK53990…

Scouts and trainers look out for these children, born in rural areas of developing countries, who have papers that say female but who have male bodies.

4) We know female boxers and coaches complained.

According to the International Boxing Association there were complaints about both boxers.

iba.sport/news/iba-clari…

Rafa Lozano, former Olympic boxer and the Technical Commissioner of the Spanish boxing team said that at a training camp in Spain, Khelif caused injuries to every woman.
marca.com/radio/2024/08/…

Mexican Brianda Tamara Cruz boxed Khelif at the Golden Belt Series Finals in Guadalajara in 2022. She said "I was hurt a lot by [the] punches, I think I had never in my 13 years as a boxer felt like this, not even in my sparring with men." elespanol.com/deportes/juego…

Joana Nwamerue who sparred with Khelif in Bulgaria said she recognised "male power" but was told by members of the Algerian National Team that Khelif was a woman who had "been biologically altered by living in the mountains"
reduxx.info/khelif-is-a-ma…

5) We know that the two boxers underwent a sex test in May 2022 in Istanbul and failed.

3wiresports.com/articles/2024/…

6) University biology professor George Cazorla says that Khelif's manager contacted him in late 2022 and asked him to help prepare Khelif for competition.

archive.ph/Nrnw0#selectio…

7) We know that in March 2023 Khelif and Lu Ting were disqualified by the IBA from the women's world championships in New Delhi after failing the sex test again.
reuters.com/lifestyle/spor…

We know what the lab results from the new Delhi lab said.

A karyotype means an individual’s complete set of chromosomes. Females have XX chromosomes, males XY.

The lab results for each athlete depict the XY chromosomes photographically.

3wiresports.com/articles/2024/…

8) We know that both Khelif and Lin were informed about their exclusion from the Championships for not meeting the IBA eligibility criteria. The athletes received a copy of their testing and were informed about the possibility of appealing to the CAS within 21 days.

9) We know that Lu Ting did not challenge this to the CAS, and that Khelif started a challenge and then dropped it.

10) We know that Cazorla got independent tests done by an endocrinologist from the Parisian University Hospital confirmed "a problem w her hormones, her chromosomes"

11) Cazorla said that Khelif was put on drugs to reduce testosterone to "within the female norm."
archive.ph/Nrnw0#selectio…

The IBA say Khelif provided a number of medical documents, which were examined by the IBA Medical Committee.

But ultimately the IBA's criteria were no XY males.

12) We know the IBA wrote to the @iocmedia about the test results in June 2023

13) We know the IOC received the letter but said they couldn't look at it because GDPR

14) But in any case the IOC says that passport sex is what counts in boxing, despite knowing that males with 5-ARD (as well as transgender males) can have a passport that says "F".

The IOC's rules allow males to compete in women's boxing.

This is not fair and not safe.

It is *possible* to argue (as @nike do about Semenya) that boxers with "F" on their passport but XY chromosomes & testes producing T should have the right to compete as women.

This appears to be the position of @hrw @ILGAWORLD @Sport_Rights @amnesty
hrw.org/news/2024/08/0…

But what it is not possible to do is to avoid that this is what you are arguing:

"The right to punch" women in the face with the force of a male body.

It's not "misinformation"

I think this is unforgivable.

With thanks to @ReduxxMag @oliverbrown_tel and @alanabrahamson for reporting the news and @FondOfBeetles @Scienceofsport @runthinkwrite for science explanations.

Yu Ting (sp!)