Thank you for using your platform to bring more sunlight onto the horrible treatment that Imane Khelif has been subjected to. As you wrote: "It's about women athletes only being valid when they meet arbitrary standards of femininity as defined through the male gaze." This is absolutely true and, unfortunately, it's also long been true about every girl and woman. We have to step up and step in when we see girls and women being subjected to this kind of hatred.
Even if she WAS a woman with XY chromosomes, intersex people/people with sex chromosome disorders are everywhere and you’d have no idea. I had a surprise pregnancy when I was 41 so we did all the genetic testing, it’s how we found out she has 47 XXX, meaning she has 3 X chromosomes and you’d never know just looking at her.
I hope I am, not breaking any laws. The following is a massive extract from the Bulwarks newsletter that lands in my inbox daily.
The Bulwark is staffed by former Never Trumper Conservative Republicans, I think you all will enjoy the followiing
“The Olympics allow men to beat up women,” wrote Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik.
“Kamala Harris is in favor of women like Angela Carini getting abused and brutalized by men who think they are women,” thundered Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk. Viral posts mockingly recirculated an old tweet from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro: “Trans women are women, pass it on.”
Lost in all this noise was a simple fact: Khelif is not transgender. She was born a girl and raised as a girl in Algeria. It’s a country not exactly known for its expansive views on LBGT issues: homosexuality is illegal and gender-transition medicine is banned.
What’s actually going on here is difficult to discern. In part, that’s because the IBA isn’t necessarily a reliable narrator: In fact, it is a corrupt enough organization that the International Olympic Committee earlier this year stripped it of its role overseeing boxing at the Paris games. The tests that disqualified Khelif (and another boxer, Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting) last year were highly unusual, coming as they did in mid-competition. And it’s still not totally clear on what criteria they were even tested. The IBA said this week that “the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential.”
In a statement yesterday, the IOC said the IBA’s testing decision had not given Khelif and Lin appropriate due process. Hence why they were permitted to compete.
“The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure,” the statement said, “especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years.”
But even assuming it is true that Khelif was born with XY chromosomes, it would mean not that Khelif is a man, but that she had been born intersex—in other words, with biology not fitting neatly into the male/female binary. Some intersex people—those with Swyer syndrome, for instance—are anatomically female but chromosomally male.
You get the idea: The whole situation is complicated and opaque. If Khelif does have XY chromosomes, it’s perfectly possible she has genetic advantages other women lack, and it’s perfectly reasonable for the bodies overseeing a violent sport like boxing to have rules governing or even limiting such edge cases.
But it’s nothing short of insane to be making Khelif herself—a person who, I cannot stress enough, has lived as a woman from the moment of her birth—into a villain for wanting to participate in women’s sports. Or to argue that a president should be directly intervening in these matters.
Imagine how jarring this week must be for Khelif: You lace up to do the same thing you’ve been doing for years and suddenly find yourself a figure of fear and loathing halfway around the world. The culture war is fast becoming America’s primary export.
Thank you for all the detail concerning this important topic. I thought you hit all the relevant issues of stupid ass white men who support the orange Cheeto...or any right wing nut job!
Great, great, GREAT piece, what a terrific educator, advocate and writer you are. Deepest gratitude and a humble bow, we are lucky to have you, Charlotte.
Thank you for using your platform to bring more sunlight onto the horrible treatment that Imane Khelif has been subjected to. As you wrote: "It's about women athletes only being valid when they meet arbitrary standards of femininity as defined through the male gaze." This is absolutely true and, unfortunately, it's also long been true about every girl and woman. We have to step up and step in when we see girls and women being subjected to this kind of hatred.
Even if she WAS a woman with XY chromosomes, intersex people/people with sex chromosome disorders are everywhere and you’d have no idea. I had a surprise pregnancy when I was 41 so we did all the genetic testing, it’s how we found out she has 47 XXX, meaning she has 3 X chromosomes and you’d never know just looking at her.
I hope I am, not breaking any laws. The following is a massive extract from the Bulwarks newsletter that lands in my inbox daily.
The Bulwark is staffed by former Never Trumper Conservative Republicans, I think you all will enjoy the followiing
“The Olympics allow men to beat up women,” wrote Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik.
“Kamala Harris is in favor of women like Angela Carini getting abused and brutalized by men who think they are women,” thundered Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk. Viral posts mockingly recirculated an old tweet from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro: “Trans women are women, pass it on.”
Lost in all this noise was a simple fact: Khelif is not transgender. She was born a girl and raised as a girl in Algeria. It’s a country not exactly known for its expansive views on LBGT issues: homosexuality is illegal and gender-transition medicine is banned.
What’s actually going on here is difficult to discern. In part, that’s because the IBA isn’t necessarily a reliable narrator: In fact, it is a corrupt enough organization that the International Olympic Committee earlier this year stripped it of its role overseeing boxing at the Paris games. The tests that disqualified Khelif (and another boxer, Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting) last year were highly unusual, coming as they did in mid-competition. And it’s still not totally clear on what criteria they were even tested. The IBA said this week that “the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential.”
In a statement yesterday, the IOC said the IBA’s testing decision had not given Khelif and Lin appropriate due process. Hence why they were permitted to compete.
“The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure,” the statement said, “especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years.”
But even assuming it is true that Khelif was born with XY chromosomes, it would mean not that Khelif is a man, but that she had been born intersex—in other words, with biology not fitting neatly into the male/female binary. Some intersex people—those with Swyer syndrome, for instance—are anatomically female but chromosomally male.
You get the idea: The whole situation is complicated and opaque. If Khelif does have XY chromosomes, it’s perfectly possible she has genetic advantages other women lack, and it’s perfectly reasonable for the bodies overseeing a violent sport like boxing to have rules governing or even limiting such edge cases.
But it’s nothing short of insane to be making Khelif herself—a person who, I cannot stress enough, has lived as a woman from the moment of her birth—into a villain for wanting to participate in women’s sports. Or to argue that a president should be directly intervening in these matters.
Imagine how jarring this week must be for Khelif: You lace up to do the same thing you’ve been doing for years and suddenly find yourself a figure of fear and loathing halfway around the world. The culture war is fast becoming America’s primary export.
Source: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/gold-medaling-in-the-culture-war
Thank you for all the detail concerning this important topic. I thought you hit all the relevant issues of stupid ass white men who support the orange Cheeto...or any right wing nut job!
Great, great, GREAT piece, what a terrific educator, advocate and writer you are. Deepest gratitude and a humble bow, we are lucky to have you, Charlotte.