Two boxers who were previously barred from a women’s competition over gender concerns are set to compete in the Paris Olympics.
Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu‑ting of Taiwan were disqualified from the Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi last year after their chromosome tests came back as XY. Men typically have XY chromosomes, while women have XX chromosomes.
“Based on DNA tests, we identified a number of athletes who tried to trick their colleagues into posing as women,” Umar Kremlev, president of the International Boxing Association, which governs the World Boxing Championships, said at the time.
“According to the results of the tests, it was proved that they have XY chromosomes. Such athletes were excluded from competition,” Kremlev said.
However, both boxers have been cleared to fight in the women’s 66-kilogram and women’s 57-kilogram matches this week at the Paris Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed.
Khelif is set to fight Italy’s Angela Carini on Thursday. Carini said in an emotional tribute after one of her victories recently that she wanted to win for her father, who has passed away.
Yu‑ting is scheduled to fight Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova on Friday.
In 2021, the IOC changed its transgender rules, allowing each sport’s governing body to decide whether a trans-identifying athlete should compete. The Paris 2024 Boxing Unit is in charge of eligibility standards for this year’s Olympic boxing.
On social media, backlash mounted over a viral video of Khelif pummeling a female opponent, Mexico’s Brianda Sandoval, during a December 2022 fight.
Cruz spoke out recently about the viral fight, saying that afterwards, she had “never felt like that in my 13 years as a boxer, nor in my sparring with men.”
“When I fought her I felt very out of my depth,” Cruz told The Telegraph. “Her blows hurt me a lot. Thank God that day I got out of the ring safely, and it’s good that they finally realized.”
Trans-identifying males competing with women has become a hot button issue in recent years. Female athletes have spoken out about how competing against biological males affected them, saying they missed out on opportunities and scholarships because they lost competitions, and they felt uncomfortable sharing locker rooms with their male competitors.
Critics have also raised serious concerns about biological males playing alongside women and girls, including high school girls getting physically injured. Last year in North Carolina, a female high school volleyball player suffered severe trauma after a trans-identifying male player spiked a volleyball that hit her head.
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