The rhetoric that to be a woman, you have to look and act a certain way is an ancient one. That rhetoric looks something like a 1950s handbook to ‘pleasing your husband’ and goes something like this: a woman has to be gentle, she has to be petite and delicate. A woman cannot be strong, cannot be powerful, cannot be broad or take up too much space. A woman cannot permeate outside this box without being shamed and shunned from society.
So when Algerian Boxer Imane Khelif won against her opponent Angela Carini this week during the Paris Olympics, naturally society – namely the TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist) community – erupted.
Imane Khelif and Angela Carini exchanged a few brisk punches in their 46 seconds of competition in the ring before Carini abruptly walked away from her Algerian opponent and went to her corner, abandoning her fight. Carini didn’t shake Khelif’s hand after the referee raised it, but she sank to her knees and cried in the ring. Minutes later, still in tears, Carini explained that she quit because of the intense pain from the opening punches.
Later Carini said that she “wants to apologise” to her opponent for how she handled the moments after the fight, and added that if she met Khelif again, she would “embrace her”.
So what has this got to do with TERF’s? If I didn’t know the context, I would say I have no idea, because the two are completely unrelated. As a human who has evolved passed the 1950s mindset, I would have watched that fight and not batted an eyelid. Unfortunately for Khelif, that was not the case for many. I want to first ask that we not pretend that this didn’t get people’s attention because Khelif doesn’t fit conventional societal standards of feminity. If your brain resembles that of a Koala’s, you may have seen it like this: a societally masculine-looking person punches a societally feminine-looking person and makes said feminine-looking person cry. However, if you even have one crease in your brain you will have enough critical thinking to work out that only women can compete in a women’s sport (shocking, I know).
And yet, that didn’t stop the biggest misinformation wildfire I have ever seen in my 26 years of life. Transphobes swiftly flooded the internet with claims that Carini had to withdraw because Khelif is transgender (a completely unfounded lie), arguing that this would give Khelif an unfair advantage. The queen of the transphobes herself, J.K Rowling, tweeted about the situation saying, “Could any picture sum up our new men’s rights movement better? The smirk of a male who knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered.”
This sentiment was quickly followed by other high-profile alt-right, red-pilled, transphobes like Elon Musk who retweeted a post from swimmer Riley Gaines that claimed “men don’t belong in women’s sports.” The X owner co-signed the message by writing: “Absolutely.”
This toxic spout of misinformation was fuelled by the fact that Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 World Championships after failing an unspecified gender eligibility test. Despite the eligibility test being “unspecified” and the fact that the IOC (International Olympic Committee) had cleared her to compete, there have been countless baseless claims that Khelif is trans or that she is intersex. Umar Kremlev, president of the IBA, stated that Khelif was “proven” to possess XY chromosomes. Even if these claims are true, they still do not negate the fact that Imane Khelif is a woman (yes, women can have Y chromosomes due to medical conditions).
Khelif has always competed in the women’s division and is recognised by the IOC as a female athlete. In fact, this online outburst has caused such a fuss that Mark Adams, a spokesperson from the IOC has had to release a statement confirming her gender identity: “The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport.”
I can’t help but question the intelligence of the transphobes attacking Khelif online, because even without this very clear-cut statement, could they not have figured out that there is no way Khelif could be trans because it is illegal to transition in Algeria, where she is from? And by spreading this false information, could you not even be putting her in danger?
Fortunately, there has been pushback from the non-smoothed-brained humans of the internet, with one user replying to J.K Rowling’s tweet, saying “I just don’t understand what you want any more, Joanne. You seem so obsessed with hating on trans people, that you’re now throwing a biological woman under the bus. And for what? There’s literally a child rapist competing in The Olympics and you waste your Tweets on this?”
British MP Nadia Whittome also raised her concerns, tweeting “Imane Khelif was assigned female at birth…the attacks on her show that transphobia doesn’t only hurt trans people, but also other women who don’t fit conventional ideas of femininity.”
Many have pointed out that Khelif has faced numerous defeats in her career without ever being accused of being trans or too masculine. This sudden scrutiny now that she’s winning is a clear double standard that proves how society is quick to question and undermine women’s achievements when they excel, especially in ways that defy traditional gender norms.
This is not the first time a female athlete has been criticised for their perceived “masculinity”. Simone Biles and Aly Raisman have both shared their experiences of being bullied for their muscular arms. Caster Semenya, an Olympic runner, has faced significant challenges regarding her gender, including being legally required to take medication to reduce her natural testosterone levels to compete. Meanwhile, Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer, was barred from participating in the Olympics despite meeting NCAA hormone regulations.
Back in 2022, American rugby player, Ilona Maher spoke out about the abuse she was getting online and from the media. She tearfully explained that she had an influx of comments calling her a man, she went on to say: “They think women should be fragile and petite and quiet and meek, but that’s not the case. Women can be strong and they can have broad shoulders and they can take up space and they can be big.”
The attacks on Khelif are not just about her; they are about controlling women’s bodies and their right to compete on equal footing. It’s this deep-rooted sexism in our society that leads to this intense scrutiny of female athletes’ performances and appearances.
Women in sports have always faced criticism, especially those who don’t fit within traditional gender norms. The history of sex testing in sports, which began in the Cold War era, has evolved into a modern-day witch hunt against women who are perceived as too strong, too fast, too good.
Imane Khelif’s journey to the Olympics should be celebrated. Growing up in a rural village in Algeria, Khelif had to commute to a neighbouring village to train, often selling scrap metal to afford the bus fare. Her father initially banned her from boxing, telling her it wasn’t for girls. Yet even through all of that, Khelif persevered, ultimately reaching the highest levels of her sport. Imagine, after all of that struggle, after persevering through all of that to reach her dreams, after succeeding and being a literal Olympian, she ends up here – a punching bag for brain-dead transphobes.
By relegating women into this box of petiteness and softness, we are saying to all women who don’t adhere to societal standards of femininity “Sorry, but there simply isn’t a place for you in this world.” And that just isn’t good enough in 2024.
