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Journalism of Courage
Italy’s Angela Carini withdrew from her Round of 16 boxing bout against Algeria’s Imane Khelif after only 46 seconds and a couple of punches to her face on Thursday (August 1), triggering the Olympics’ biggest controversy yet.
Since her victory, Khelif has been the target of a wave of abuse, with many calling her a “biological man” who had an “unfair advantage” over Carini. Some people also wrongly identified Khelif as a transgender woman.
The participation of trans women, and women having certain “masculine” biological characteristics like higher testosterone levels, in women’s sports has long been a subject of polarising debate. Here is a look at the ongoing controversy, in the context of the larger debate on the matter.
In 2023, Khelif and Chinese Taipei boxer Lin Yu-ting were banned from competing in the International Boxing Association’s (IBA’s) World Championship in New Delhi after failing a “gender eligibility” test, the details of which remain confidential. The IBA, in a statement on Thursday, said that the two boxers did not “meet eligibility criteria to compete within the female category”.
However, both are now competing at the Paris Olympics. This is because the IBA was derecognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last June over governance and financial issues. In Paris, the IOC-appointed unit which is governing the competition has set very different rules. The only determinant for eligibility is the gender stated in an athlete’s passport — Khelif’s passport says she is female.
Following Khelif’s win, and the subsequent abuse, the IOC said in a statement that all boxers in the Olympics had complied with “the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations”, and that both Khelif and Lin have participated in women’s competitions for many years, including in the Tokyo 2020 Games. It also said that IBA’s “arbitrary decision” to ban the two women had been taken without following proper procedure.
It added that “misleading information” was being reported “about two female athletes”, and that the IOC was “saddened by the abuse that the two athletes are currently receiving,” it said.
Modern sports are organised on the basis of sex, with men and women competing in different categories. This is because men, on average, have certain physiological advantages over women.
Sex is determined based on chromosomes, which carry genes. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes — 22 are identical in men and women; one, the sex chromosome, is different. The XX sex chromosomes result in the development of female sex organs, and XY in male sex organs.
The SRY gene, found on the Y chromosome, is responsible for testosterone production. Multiple studies have attempted to decode the impact that this hormone has on physical characteristics. A 2017 paper (‘Circulating Testosterone as the Hormonal Basis of Sex Differences in Athletic Performance’) published in the journal Endocrine Reviews supported the link between testosterone and athletic performance.
“The available, albeit incomplete, evidence makes it highly likely that the sex difference in circulating testosterone of adults explains most, if not all, the sex differences in sporting performance,” it said. This is due to the effect of testosterone in increasing “muscle mass and strength, bone size and strength (density), and circulating haemoglobin”. Other studies also note that data on the matter is inadequate at present.
Crucially, some people born with female reproductive organs may also carry the XY chromosome, in what is known as Swyer syndrome, one of many “Disorders of Sex Development”, or DSDs.
This is at the heart of the debate surrounding gender eligibility in women’s sports. Many argue that in order to prevent some athletes from having an unfair advantage in women’s sports, women with DSDs which facilitate greater testosterone production, and other consequent athletic advantages, must not be allowed to compete with other women.
Such cases are not the first of their kind. In 2021 the IOC decided to leave it to international sports federations to develop their own set of eligibility rules, based on an “evidence-based approach” keeping in mind principles of “fairness”, “inclusion”, “non-discrimination”, “no presumption of advantage”, and “prevention of harm”. Previously, it used to take into account testosterone levels — below 10 nanomoles per litre (nmol/L) for women athletes who had transitioned from male to female.
The eligibility regulations of World Athletics still use testosterone levels as an eligibility determinant. DSD athletes need to keep their testosterone level below 2.5 nmol/L for at least 24 months before they become eligible to participate in any event. This is stricter than what it was before 2023, when there was a 5 nmols/L restriction for events ranging from 400 metres to a mile, and no restrictions on other events.
FINA, the world swimming body, the International Cycling Union, and the International Rugby Union have all instituted varying degrees of bans on trans women athletes, again linking it to testosterone levels. The need for such bans across sports has been questioned, given the different sets of skills required. An “open category”, specifically for trans athletes, has also been suggested but may have difficulties given the small number of elite-level trans athletes.
Many have described the debate as a battle between inclusion (of all women, no matter their biological differences) and fairness (towards women who do not have high levels of testosterone). It has garnered further attention as issues related to diverse gender and sexual identities have become ideological battlegrounds in politics in recent years.
At the end of the day, there is still a lot that is not known about the impact of testosterone on sporting performance. Many question if the case of women who are born with higher levels of testosterone is any different from that of people with other genetic advantages — like LeBron James’ height or Michael Phelps’ massive fin-like hands.
