Imane Khelif

Gender attribution, sports, and transphobia.

#TransparentTuesdays

Hey friend,

Have you been following the weird media coverage and “debate” around Olympic boxer Imane Khelif’s gender?

If not, the very short version of the story is that the female Algerian boxer hit her opponent (Italian boxer Angela Carini) so hard that Carini forfeited the round in under a minute, and Carini fell to her knees, crying and saying “this is unjust!” before refusing to shake Khelif’s hand. 

Then a ridiculous slew of rightwing “journalists,” politicians, and people with huge anti-trans platforms—including Elon Musk, JK Rowling, and JD Vance—took to the internet to decry that Khelif is “biologically a man,” and fear-monger about the unfairness of letting transgender women in sports.

This situation is notable and upsetting for so many reasons, including the fact that Khelif is, and has always been, biologically female. 

She is a cisgender woman who was assigned female at birth, and has always been (and competed as) a woman. So while I think there is still an interesting and nuanced conversation to be had about transgender people in sports, Khelif isn’t transgender, so this particular situation has nothing whatsoever to do with that.

What the hell is going on here, then?

Well, I’m glad you asked! Because after spending way too much time researching the specific details of the situation, I can confidently announce that it’s nothing but good old fashioned transphobia, gender essentialist misogyny, and racism. (Of course!)

It’s so predictable that I feel like an idiot even writing this, but essentially people are accusing Khelif of being a man because… well… she doesn’t look “enough like a woman.”

Granted, people probably wouldn’t be out here accusing her of being a man if she wasn’t succeeding so well in her sport, so it’s not just about how she looks, but it all comes down to the same thing– with her strong jawline, powerful physique, and no makeup, Khelif just doesn’t strike people as a woman.

Photo by Sora Shimazaki

As a non-binary body image coach with a focus on body neutrality, I am fascinated by this, both because honestly what does a woman look like, and because the question of how (and why) we attribute gender to people is a super interesting one. 

Essentially, we’ve all learned to do a bit of an “instant assessment” of a person’s appearance, looking for relevant data to help us place them into the category of “man” or “woman” as quickly as possible. We might instantly and confidently say someone is a woman if we can see they’re short, with long flowing hair, breasts and hips, delicate facial features, and are styled in feminine clothing, and makeup, for example, because they strike us as a woman. But we might feel less confident (or take a bit longer to come to a conclusion) about their gender if they check boxes associated with both men and women in our minds, like if we see that they’re 5’9 with small breasts and hips, an angular face and square jaw but no obvious facial hair, and androgynous styling. 

We might take other information into account if we have it, too, like their vocal pitch, energy, attitude, and interests, but gender attribution (the way our brains categorize someone as a man or woman) tends to happen pretty quickly and automatically, based mostly on visual information. 

This process ends up being incredibly harmful and problematic, because a lot of transgender and non-binary folks end up subject to disproportional levels of disrespect, exclusion, and violence, simply don’t strike people as their gender. It’s often used to support and justify transphobia, as well as traditional (read: sexist and patriarchal) gender roles and ideals focused on prescribing and controlling how men and women “should” look and behave. 

This is one reason the situation with Khelif is so important to talk about– there is obviously a conversation to be had here about rightwing transphobic violence, but it also brings up questions and topics around gender attribution and definition that impact everyone. And in this situation, one of those is the incredibly negative impact that transphobic rhetoric, fear-mongering, and policy-making have on cisgender women.

Another such question comes from the fact that a lot of people calling Khelif a man are trying to justify their position by talking about how she has naturally elevated levels of testosterone, which give her an “unfair advantage” in her sport. And like… sure. She might, although from what I can tell, there’s no actual evidence for this, so the conversation about her testosterone levels seem to be nothing but speculation. 

Note that this brings up another interesting conversation, around why on earth women should be penalized or disqualified from their sport because something about their natural biology is considered an “unfair advantage,” instead of being celebrated as part of what makes them an exceptional athlete, as it is for men. There is no “upper testosterone limit” for men in sports for example, as long as their bodies are making that testosterone naturally (as Khelif’s is), and athletes like Michael Phelps have long been celebrated for the unique biological qualities that help him excel in his sport, like the fact that his lung capacity is well above average, and his body produces a fraction of the lactic acid of most of his competitors. 

It also brings up a question around hormones and how to categorize “biological gender” in the first place, since there are tons of cisgender women whose bodies produce a higher-than-average testosterone level, including women with hirsutism, polycystic ovary syndrome, and congenital adrenal hyperplasia. This is just part of natural body diversity, kind of like how some people are tall and some are short– some people have higher levels of certain hormones, and some have lower. 

Going back to the double standard around this, we know that there are plenty of lower-than-average-testerone and higher-than-average estrogen men out there, but we don’t go around calling them women, or disqualifying them from manhood, or their sport. So why the hell would we do that for women? Do these rightwing weirdos think a woman should no longer be considered a woman if she has PCOS?!

Anywayyy, while many transphobes seem more than happy to spread rumors and disinformation around Khelif without any evidence, one thing we do know is that she was cleared to compete in the Olympics. 

Photo by Anthony 🙂

There have been issues of hormone-level-based disqualification in the Olympics before (like Caster Semeya, a woman who is sometimes called intersex, who was forced to take testosterone-suppressing medication for years in order to compete in track and field), and there still are natural testosterone limits placed on women in sports. So if Khelif was deemed eligible to participate, according to the specific requirements of the organization, then we can safely assume her hormone levels didn’t break any rules. 

Speaking of which, the question of how to categorize and qualify intersex athletes is a whole other conversation being brought up here, because nearly 2% of the worldwide population are born with some version of sex differences that fall under the intersex umbrella, including differences in genitalia, chromosomes, gonads, internal sex organs, hormone production, and secondary sex traits. 

Fun fact: that’s about the same percentage worldwide as natural redheads, which is to say… sure it’s rare, but not that rare. And as a culture, we’re ok with those people being disqualified from competitive sports, or forced to undergo unnecessary and invasive medical treatment like Semenya did, just to ensure an “even” playing field?? What does that say about who we’re keeping the playing field “even” for?

On top of all that, I think it’s interesting that most of the people currently asserting that Khelif is a man due to (purely hypothetical) sex differences like her chromosomes or hormones are the same ones who normally argue that “biological sex”/gender is determined exclusively by genitals! So… which is it? 

Can you even imagine the backlash Khelif would get if she came forward and was like “ok everyone, you got me! I was born with a vagina but I’m secretly a man!”??

Under any other circumstances, transphobes like Elon Musk, JK Rowling, and JD Vance would be talking about how she couldn’t possibly be a man, because she was born with a vagina and that proves that she’s biologically a woman!

Y’all, this whole thing has my head spinning, and we haven’t even touched on the implicit racism at play, evidenced by the fact that nearly all the female athletes who have been accused of being a man have been women of color, including Khelif, Semanya, and Serena Williams, who dominating their sport against white women!

So yes, this topic is both incredibly complex, in that it touches on many important and nuanced conversations, and it’s incredibly simple, in that it all boils down to transphobia, misogyny, and racism. 

I’m curious to hear if you’ve been following along with any of this, and if so if you have any questions! Feel free to hit reply and let me know– I always love to hear from you!

Big hug,

Jessi