Imane Khelif has drawn controversy due to her masculine appearance, an occurrence which has led to the widespread belief she is actually a male. But behind the curtains of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision not to administer relevant sex testing themselves, the culpability in the International Boxing Association (IBA) not divulging details on their separate created test for Khelif appears to be the resounding issue in what led to the controversy in the first place.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) raised plenty of eyebrows with their refusal to test the sexes of Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting ― both fighters who were barred from competing in a International Boxing Association (IBA) competition due to failing to meet the IBA’s gender eligibility tests.
Both the IOC and IBA appear to be on two opposing sides of extremes. The former refused to acknowledge that the consternation surrounding the sexes perhaps warranted testing when they allowed the two to compete in the 2024 Olympics without any sex testing, arguing that the IBA’s test was arbitrary as it had not gone through the needed procedures.
The IBA, in turn, did nothing to dispel the IOC’s position with their own statements having indicated that the two fighters failed their sex verification tests to denote them as female; even though the IBA admittedly did not administer testosterone tests and instead conducted separate tests that they refused to divulge anything about.
How these tests were administered is unknown to this day, leading to the IOC concluding Khelif and Yu-Ting were females due to their years in competing as female athletes. The IOC did not administer any gender eligibility tests to both fighters neither before or after they qualified for the 2024 Olympics.
Neither of the two organizations helped clear up the matter of the sexes of Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting; a matter that is relevant given both competitors do appear to have more masculine traits physically. While such views would normally be considered as discriminative, the two fighters’ appearances unfortunately do cause doubt as to what their natural genders are.
This might be one reason why World Boxing’s initiative to administer compulsory sex testing to amateur boxers aged 18 appears to be the best solution for this conundrum, with the organization’s position as the new and most prevalent official amateur governing body worldwide seeming much more reasonable given their tests are claimed to be administered by global-recognized experts and specialists. Though the tests will remain confidential, the medical personnel involved will presumably administer tests that are both valid and approved ― which erases doubts regarding the dubiousness of such tests unlike with the IBA.
Despite the hope of fair and clear sex testing by World Boxing, the organization seems to still be in its infancy, having yet to host a major amateur competition and still needing to prove it is a worthy replacement to the IBA which it has overtaken. Now set to organize and regulate amateur boxing for and during the 2028 Olympics, Khelif’s intentions to compete in the 2028 Olympics will likely see her undergo World Boxing’s testing at some point.
This would determine the much-needed truth about Khelif’s sex; something that can be determined earlier if she decides to compete in any of World Boxing’s competitions. Her absence in the organization’s Eindhoven Cup, the result of World Boxing divulging privacy-related information regarding Imane Khelif, did raise some suspicion, however, as it provided a convenient excuse for Khelif to avoid testing.
Conversely, Imane Khelif has not attempted to dispel the rumors of her being male with her having purportedly not undergone any official sex testing, which continues to raise concerns.
Despite the uncomfortable nature of being in such a conversation, Khelif’s own future seems to be in the hands of herself as continuing to compete in the amateurs will prove difficult regardless of whether she participates in IBA-sanctioned bouts or those regulated by World Boxing. With the IBA proving to be relatively biased and vague in their approach to gender testing, World Boxing seems to be the only eligible organization for her to compete as an amateur.
And that will require sex testing, sooner or later, something that Khelif will not be able to avoid unless she heads into the professional ranks of boxing of which well-defined gender tests seems very much up to whichever governing body she would fall under, in this case the Algerian Boxing Federation who would likely protect her interests.
