Boxers Who Failed Gender Tests Make It To Gold Medal Match. Here’s What You Need To Know.

 Two Olympic boxers who’ve failed past gender tests have easily made their way to gold-medal matches in their respective weight classes at the Paris Games.

Lin Yu‑Ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria failed gender tests facilitated by the International Boxing Association (IBA). Still, the Olympics permitted both fighters to compete in women’s boxing.

Lin and Khelif have notably dominated female opponents. Both have won every single round, and Khelif has even won every judge’s card. They’re now guaranteed either a gold or a silver medal. 

Here’s what you need to know about the controversy.

Protests From Female Opponents 

Unsurprisingly, the fighters’ path to the finals has sparked much outrage and debate. Two of Khelif’s opponents, for example, have made comments about the glaring gender issue. Angela Carini of Italy initially called her match “unjust,” and Hungarian fighter Anna Luca Hamori published numerous posts on social media about Khelif allegedly being male.

As for Lin, Bulgarian fighter Svetlana Staneva made an “X” gesture two times with her hands after losing to Lin – an apparent reference to having two X chromosomes as a female. Staneva’s coach also protested, sharing a note with the press that read, “I only want to play with women I am XX.” Moreover, on Wednesday, Lin’s opponent from Turkey also made the double-X hand gesture after the semifinal match. 

What The IBA Is Saying 

Members of the IBA held a press conference in Paris on Monday and said that Lin and Khelif failed two gender tests, one in 2019 and one in 2023. Chris Roberts, the IBA CEO, said the tests were given to the fighters after they were made aware of concerns about safety from a number of fighters, coaches, and medical staffers.

 

“Both boxers were asked to take a further blood test,” he said. “That happened the 23rd of March, the results came through and it demonstrated the chromosomes we refer to in competition rules that make both boxers ineligible.”

The presser notably turned testy when Dr. Ioannis Filippatos, the former Chair of the IBA Medical Committee, told reporters that biology and nature cannot change. 

“Why [do] you attack me? Why [do] you attack me?” he asked reporters. “I tried to say that the medical result, blood result, looks and says – the laboratories – that this boxer is male.” 

Moreover, IBA President Umar Kremlev went after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for permitting the boxers to compete with women. He said in a press release that he doesn’t understand why the IOC is “killing” women’s boxing and emphasized that “only eligible athletes should compete in the ring for the sake of safety.”

What The IOC Is Saying

The IOC is sticking by its decision to allow Lin and Khelif to compete against women. IOC spokesman Mark Adams has said that the IBA gender tests are “not credible” because the IBA is not credible, and the reasoning for the gender tests are not credible.

Adams has made it clear that the tests, even if the IBA is right about them, don’t matter to the IOC. “There was no consideration of whether they were correct or not correct because they had no bearing for the eligibility of boxing here,” he stated. 

IOC Gender Standards 

To determine gender, the IOC goes by whatever is listed on a fighter’s passport. “As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport,” Adams stated at a press conference. 

Aside from not testing for sex, Adams has said that testosterone levels don’t really matter, either. “Many women can have testosterone which will be called ‘male levels’ and still be women and still compete as women,” he said. “This idea that you do one test for testosterone and that sorts everything out? Not the case I’m afraid.” 

The IOC, however, has released statements asserting that the fighters are female and were born female. It seems no medical tests are the basis for those statements.  

Do The Fighters Have DSD?

No one has claimed that either boxer has a condition called DSD, though media reports have covered the disorder in relation to the Olympics after speculation swirled online.

DSD stands for “differences of sex development,” and it’s another term for “intersex.” Someone with DSD will have some sort of mismatch between their chromosomes and their genitals. A person could have XY chromosomes, which is the pattern for males, and have ambiguous genitalia, for example.

When Are The Final Matches? 

Khelif will face Yang Liu of China on Friday, at 4:50 p.m. Eastern. Lin’s final match is against Polish fighter Julia Szeremeta on Saturday, at 3:30 p.m. Eastern.