by Vincent Juico
When the controversy first broke out about boxers Algerian welterweight Imane Khelif and Taiwanese featherweight Lin Yu-Ting about their gender.
My first thought was to have their testosterone levels checked then a friend of mine from high school quickly put me in my place by saying, “If you’re going to have two of them tested then test them all” which is fair and also expensive for the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit or PBU.
This controversy, brought out the best and the worst in all of us. A lot of misinformation was an understatement. A lot of judgments without getting facts straight.
![boxing representation image [Photo by Nemesia Production on Unsplash]](http://sportsbytes.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/nemesia-production-F-rQyigh1BE-unsplash-scaled.jpg)
In this edition of this writer’s column, we will be quoting, in my opinion, the most unbiased, neutral, and impartial piece written on the issue, “ In what follows, I offer a primer on the underlying facts so that readers can follow the story as it unfolds and understand its historical, medical, and political context” according to Doriane Lambelet Coleman of quillette.com.
“Who are the boxers at the heart of the current storm?
Imane Khelif is a 25-year-old welterweight from Algeria. Lin Yu-ting is a 28-year-old featherweight from Taiwan. Both have medalled at previous world championships in the female category, and both are participating in their second Olympic Games having already competed in Tokyo.
Why is their eligibility for the female category in question?
The International Boxing Association (IBA) stated on 31 July that a “recognized” test had established that Khelif and Lin do not meet the eligibility standards for female competition. The IBA says this was not a testosterone test, which means it’s referring to a genetic test.”
To this writer, it isn’t clear what are the eligibility standards for female competition.
“Officials from the IBA have separately added that both fighters have XY chromosomes and high testosterone (“high T”) levels.
“High T” is one of the ways that testosterone levels outside of the female range tend to be described when one is speaking about an athlete in the female category.
Doping and being male are two ways that an adult athlete might have “high T.”
It’s important to note that the IBA’s statements about Khelif and Lin are doubted by the IOC and others because the IBA has a reputation for being less than reliable and because the IOC says it hasn’t seen the results of the tests that were the basis for the IBA’s decision to declare them ineligible. Alan Abrahamson reports, however, that the IBA sent them Khelif’s results back in June 2023.”
Are both boxers transgender? They are not. They are reportedly “genetically male” but biologically female.
“Like Caster Semenya, there’s no indication that either Khelif or Lin identifies as transgender. This makes sense given that they were apparently assigned female at birth—meaning that this is what was written on their birth certificates—and because being transgender is generally a matter of self-identification.
Understandably, people are confused, however, because the word transgender is also sometimes used to mean a male who identifies as female. Khelif and Lin both identify as female based on their identity documents and their sex of rearing.
In any event, in sport at least, it seems their cases are being treated by everyone concerned as DSD cases.”
Readers, we need you to read this part repeatedly okay especially those who have a medical background, “Athletes with 5-ARD and PAIS have an XY chromosomal complement; they have testes; their testes produce testosterone well outside of the normal female range; their androgen receptors read and process their “high T”; and as a result, their bodies masculinize through childhood and puberty in the ways that matter for sport. Thereafter, their circulating T levels continue to have their usual performance-enhancing effects.
When they enter female competition, they carry male advantage.”
Both boxers have DSD (Differences in Sex Development). What is DSD? “Differences in sex development (DSD) is a group of rare conditions involving genes, hormones and reproductive organs, including genitals. It means a person’s sex development is different to most other people’s.” – www.nhs.uk
I’m a women’s sports purist and coming from a women’s sports perspective, “The point of the female category is to ensure that females only compete against each other and not against those with male biological advantage, and androgens are the primary driver of sex differences in athletic performance.” – quillette.com
Both boxers do not have a male biological advantage but they may have a male genetical advantage.
We go back to the article, “Athletes with 5-ARD and PAIS have an XY chromosomal complement; they have testes; their testes produce testosterone well outside of the normal female range; their androgen receptors read and process their “high T”; and as a result, their bodies masculinize through childhood and puberty in the ways that matter for sport. Thereafter, their circulating T levels continue to have their usual performance-enhancing effects.
When they enter female competition, they carry male advantage.”
Notice the words “performance enhancing effects“ and “male advantage”. The two women boxers fortunately or unfortunately have these but they shouldn’t be punished and discriminated against.
Do testosterone levels matter in women’s sports? It sure does as the article says, “At the same time, on the substance, the IOC has acknowledged that after Khelif’s first win on Thursday, it scrubbed from its website the notation that at least Khelif—if not also Lin—has high T. To explain this, it said in part that T levels don’t matter and that lots of females also have high T. This is intentionally misleading.
Female athletes with high T—including those with polycystic ovaries—have T levels towards the top of the female range, not outside of the female range or inside the male range. Their sex is not in doubt. As I explained above, “high T” in an athlete who seeks to compete in the female category is coded in international sports for either doping with exogenous androgens or being biologically male with bioavailable endogenous androgens. There’s no indication that either Khelif or Lin is doping.
As an aside, the reason many federations and the IOC itself for years used T as a proxy for sex is that it’s an excellent one: neither ovaries nor adrenal glands produce T in the male range, only testes do. If you’re looking for biological sex rather than legal gender, it’s certainly more accurate than a passport.”
Before I say my piece, no pun intended, quoting the last two parts of the brilliantly written article, “Any eligibility standard—like the IOC’s framework—that denies or disregards sex-linked biology is necessarily category-defeating.
Federations that are committed to the female category and to one-for-one equality for their female athletes must step up and do two things. They must craft evidence-based rules and then stick to them consistently. And they must seriously embrace other opportunities to welcome gender diversity within their sports.”.
As of August 11, 2024, according to ESPN.com, “ Boxing is not currently on the program for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and the International Olympic Committee has repeatedly said the sport must find a suitable new governing body, likely by early 2025, to be restored to the lineup for the Games. An IOC unit ran the past two Olympic boxing tournaments.”
The politics between the IOC and the IBA is another story.
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