Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen
Stop talking rubbish. She is a female boxer and always has been female.
Honestly  |
Yeah … no. Not really. You need to stop swallowing trans rights kool aid so uncritically.
It speaks volumes that the TRA have casually exploited this boxer by raising strawman arguments and deliberately misusing language in ways designed to undermine ‘female’ as a simple, clear biological category.
There is more than enough evidence in the public domain to conclude that Imane Khelif has XY chromosomes with a disorder of sexual development that results in internal testes and, critically as far as sport goes, male puberty.
There is evidence that the IOC *knew* this before the competition began and therefore they knowingly allowed someone with male physical advantage to beat up female competitors in the ring and steal the gold medal from an actual female boxer.
Khelif’s DSD quite probably did lead to an incorrect observation of sex as female at birth, leading to ‘her’ being raised as a girl. Frankly if Khelif wishes to live private life as a woman then that’s none of anyone else’s business. In this case, in particular, it isn’t even a ‘trans rights’ issue, although some similar issues are raised. The line, however, comes when the very reason female sporting categories exist is crossed in the name of ‘inclusion’. Female sporting categories exist because it is the only way of ensuring inclusion of women in physical sports they could never win if they were compelled to compete only in a male or ‘open’ category.
The IOC however seems to have become fixated on making a political statement and whatever it knew about Khelif’s physiology, it had determined it was not going to use any such information in determining qualification for the female category. The only qualification the IOC seemed interested in was what was stamped in a passport - an obvious nonsense given the number of countries that now make it increasingly easy for men to create the legal fiction that they are women.
Sex is binary and immutable, and while people may have rights to dress and act however they choose in a liberal democracy, that right does not extend to stealing the rights and opportunities of others. Someone with a disorder of sexual development deserves compassion and support but not to the extent that they are allowed to exercise unfair advantage in sport. The IOC ought to have behaved very differently and ought to be ashamed.