Imane Khelif is just the latest case of female athletes being questioned over their sex

[Jilly_in_VA]

Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif is fighting more than just her Hungarian counterpart in the ring Saturday.

She’s now fighting to defend her career as a female athlete amid conservative accusations that she and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting are not women. Both athletes identify as women and have long competed in boxing as female athletes.

Questions arose after the International Boxing Association said both athletes were disqualified from the IBA’s 2023 world championships after failing eligibility tests.

It's the latest controversy in a long history of female athletes being questioned over their sex.

“This whole spectacle is not unique to the Paris Olympics,” said Payoshni Mitra, the executive director of Humans of Sport, which supports athletes with sex variation.

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/02/nx-s1-5061548/imane-khelif-boxer-female-athletes-sex-tests

The Russian-controlled IBA, the outfit "questioning" her gender and that of the Chinese boxer, will not release the results of their supposed "test". They are spurious at best and disingenuous otherwise. Anyone old enough to remeber their Press "sisters", who disappeared the moment gender testing hove on the horizon? I am.

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. "Amid conservative accusations" I assume they mean from "conservatives"

either way, FUCK YOU assholes who would stand by and watch school children shot dead but what upsets you is someone's sexuality or physical appearance.

SO SICK of you FUCKING CHILDREN

[getagrip_already]

2. She has bona fide lady bits, and has since birth, that is not at issue

The thing that the wierdos are complaining about is an old dna test that shows an unusual combination of genes for a woman.

But she is a woman.

Its just dogma for the sake of a news cycle, at the expense of real people.

[Pamela Troy]

4. Do those "lady bits"

include a uterus? Ovaries?

Khelif plainly went through male puberty, and likely has 5-ARD, a DSD that causes undescended testicles and can lead to infants being mistakenly recorded as female. It is really fair for athletes who went through male puberty to compete with athletes who did not?

[getagrip_already]

5. Well now im not a doctor, and didnt examine her

But the olympic committe does have doctors andnputs each athlete throuhh physical exams.

I assume they would have found a penis.

[Pamela Troy]

6. Not if the athlete has a DSD.

Lacking a penis does not mean you are not male, or that you lack the physical advantages of being male.

Male puberty confers significant physical advantages. That's why many sports are sexually segregated. Khelif shows every sign of having gone through it -- greater height & upper body strength, broader shoulders, etc. Again, is it fair for an athlete who has the advantages of male puberty to compete with an athlete who lacks those advantages?

And if it IS fair, should women's sports exist at all?

[getagrip_already]

7. Im not going there......

But feel free to start a thread exploring it.

Its not my wheelhouse, regardless of personal opinion.

[Pamela Troy]

8. Why is this so controversial?

The physical differences between males and females are an observable and scientific fact.

[getagrip_already]

9. All i can council you is that you will find it a very emotional discussion

And since im not a part of the community, i will defer to their expertise and advice.

You are welcome to have a discussion. Just be respectful.

[Pamela Troy]

10. I am always respectful.

I don't treat disagreement as an affront.

[GiqueCee]

3. Republicans cannot resist...

... trying to scrape the bottom of an apparently bottomless barrel of malice and mendacity. They care nothing for policy issues that actually matter, when they can grab the attention of room-temperature IQs by attacking anyone that doesn't conform to their narrow view of how genders are supposed to look and feel.
Fuck them to death. They are rotten down to their DNA.