Photo created to @Imane_khelif_10 on instagram
In the face of gender discrimination and transphobia, discourse around sports and their gender rules is a hot topic. Algerian athlete Imane Khelif was caught in such debates when she won her match against Angela Carini. The controversy surrounding the athlete questions the validity of gender testing in sports and sequentially asks: should all women be allowed to compete in women’s sports?
Imane Khelif received a lot of criticism online for competing against Angela Carini after many accused her of being transgender. Because of this, Angela Carini did not shake her hand at the end of their match, for which she later apologized. The International Olympic
Committee deemed that Imane Khelif was allowed to compete, though the International Boxing Association (IBA) had previously disqualified her based on her gender. In the wake of this controversy, many influential people, such as J. K. Rowling, and Logan Paul, have commented on the ambiguity of Khelif’s birth-assigned sex.
Historically, there have been different types of gender testing in sports in order for athletes to compete. Early on in women's sports, women had to walk in front of judges to crudely verify their sex by their physical characteristics. More recently, one component of gender testing now measures the amount of testosterone in athletes’ blood. Even after being subjected to these tests, there have been cisgender women (women who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth) who have failed part or all of the components of each test.
Is it that important to test for gender? Is it an unfair advantage to naturally have more testosterone? At what point do we draw the line? If cisgender women are not able to pass gender tests in sports, is it possible that transgender women can?
Many people are supporting Imane Khelif’s right to compete because she is cisgender. Others are enraged that a ‘man’ is competing against a woman but at the same time are erasing her gender identity. Sex can be seen as more of a spectrum, rather than a binary, which makes it difficult to separate athletes into two neat boxes. There is no perfect way to ‘prove’ that a woman is cisgender.
Whether or not you believe that transgender women belong in women’s sports, this issue has transformed into a wide discussion of complex ideas that cannot be solved easily. People cannot control how they are born, but the fairness of women’s sports must be maintained. If the problem is high levels of testosterone then testosterone blockers may be a solution. Yet transgender and cisgender women alike have varying levels of testosterone, therefore we cannot generalize by saying that high amounts mean that they are biologically male. It remains a work in progress to find a solution.
