Claim: Olympic athlete Imane Khelif of Algeria is transgender and a “biological male”.
Fact: There is no evidence of Imane Khelif being transgender nor does she identify as intersex. She is cisgender, as her gender identity is consistent with the sex she was assigned at birth, as was proved by a certificate shown to the media by her father, as well as her passport.
On 2 August 2024, Facebook page ‘Mandi Bahauddin’ posted (archive) pictures of boxers Imane Khelif and Angela Carini after their fight during the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, in which the Italian athlete secured victory over her Italian opponent. The visuals were accompanied by the following caption:
“’میں نہیں لڑتی اس سے‘ 😀 اٹالین لیڈی باکسر انجیلا نے اولمپک میں محض 46 سیکنڈ بعد روتے ہوئے لڑائی چھوڑ دی۔ اس کا کہنا تھا بڑے بڑے مکے کھائے ہیں مگر اس جیسا ’مکا‘ پہلے کبھی نہیں کھایا 😀 ہوا یوں کہ کہ سرخ شرٹ والی ایمان خلیف کا تعلق الجزائر سے ہے، اور وہ ٹرانسجینڈر ہے۔ وہ طبی طور پر حیاتیاتی مرد ہے مگر خود کو عورت کہتا ہے۔ اور یورپی ممالک کے قوانین کے مطابق جو ٹرانسجینڈر خود کو جیسا کلیم کرے اسے وہی تصور کیا جاتا ہے۔
[‘I won’t fight her’ 😀 Italian lady boxer Angela [Carini] left the fight crying after just 46 seconds at the Olympics. She said she had taken major punches but never had a ‘punch’ like this before 😀 It transpired that the Imane Khelif in the red shirt is from Algeria and he is a transgender. He is medically a biological male but calls himself a woman. And according to the laws of European countries, a transgender is considered the same as he claims himself.]”
The claim that Imane Khelif is a “biological male” and now identifies as a transgender woman has spread rapidly on social media and mainstream news outlets, with many criticising the Algerian boxer for allegedly inflicting violence on her Italian opponent, as well as the Olympics for allowing a fight between a female and a male boxer.
Multiple conservative and right-wing individuals with considerable influence have furthered the assertion. Among these are Harry Potter author J K Rowling, X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk, British media personality Piers Morgan, former US president Donald Trump and his now-running mate for the 2024 elections JD Vance, American boxer Claressa Shields, radio show host Charlie Kirk, American swimmer Riley Gaines, former UK boxer Nicola Adams, Internet personality Oli London, Scottish tennis coach Judy Murray, Czech-American former tennis player Martina Navratilova, and British former swimmer Sharron Davies.
Users who bolstered the claim through their huge followings include X accounts @EndWokeness, @libsoftiktok, and @RadioGenoa.
The 2024 Olympics fight lasted only 46 seconds as Khelif delivered blow after blow and Carini abandoned the bout shortly afterwards, falling on her knees to cry. The Italian said her nose was injured and bleeding, that she “couldn’t breathe anymore”, and that she was never “hit with such a powerful punch”.
Both boxers competed in the boxing weight division called welterweight, where professional athletes are between 63.5 and 66.5 kilogrammes. On 29 July 2024, they were cleared by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which said, “All athletes participating in the boxing tournament of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations, as well as all applicable medical regulations in accordance with rules 1.4 and 3.1 of the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit.”
Before the fight, Italy’s family and sports ministers, Eugenia Roccella and Andrea Abodi, respectively, had also voiced concerns.
On 31 July 2024, the BBC reported that Comité Olympique et Sportif Algérien (COA), or the Algerian Olympic Committee, condemned the “unethical targeting and maligning of” Khelif with “baseless propaganda from certain foreign media outlets”, saying the attacks were “deeply unfair”.
Italy’s right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, reiterated a talking point often used by people against trans rights, saying such incidents “risk impacting women’s rights”, that “athletes who have male genetic characteristics should not be admitted to women’s competitions”, and that it was “not a fair contest”. In an X post, she hoped Carini would win “in a competition that is finally fair”.
The surprising showdown, the quitting, and Carini’s comments later fueled the accusations against Khelif, whom the International Boxing Association (IBA) had disqualified from last year’s championships over suspicious gender test results that the organisation never revealed nor explained.
On 9 August, Khelif emerged the victor in 2024 Olympics boxing, bagging gold in the women’s welterweight division after defeating China’s Yang Liu in Paris. “I sent them a single message with this gold medal and I say my dignity and my honour is above everything,” she said (archive).
Days later, news emerged (archive) that the Algerian champion filed a criminal complaint for alleged “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” to French authorities through her Paris-based attorney, Nabil Boudi, who confirmed that both Rowling and Musk are among the defendants in the case and that Trump would eventually also be one.
Difference between sex and gender
Before diving in any further, it is important to understand that sex and gender are two distinct concepts and have different meanings. While the former is a biological construct, the latter is a social one.
According to the World Health Organisation, “Gender interacts with but is different from sex, which refers to the different biological and physiological characteristics of females, males and intersex persons, such as chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs. Gender and sex are related to but different from gender identity. Gender identity refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth.”
Further, according to the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH), sex is “based on anatomy, physiology, genetics, and hormones” — collectively known as sex traits or biological attributes. Sex is used for all animals, including humans, while gender does not apply to non-human animals. Gender, it says, is “a multidimensional construct that encompasses gender identity and expression, as well as social and cultural expectations” about behaviour and characteristics associated with sex traits.
These definitions were made distinct back in 2001 when the nonprofit Institute of Medicine (IOM) — now merged with the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) — set up a committee to take up the issue, according to Yale School of Medicine. It concluded that there was “more than sufficient evidence” of differences in men and women’s biology beyond the reproductive biology “that greatly affected their health and influenced treatment and prevention strategies”.
The committee advised scientists to use the term sex as a classification as per the reproductive organs and functions based on chromosomal complement (XX/XY). Gender, on the other hand, was to be used “to refer to a person’s self-representation as male or female”. The terminologies have become more inclusive and more accurate with time.
The Yale School of Medicine also states that “rare biological syndromes can result in genital ambiguity” and that “resistance to a sex hormone can result in traits typical of the opposite biological sex”. Some people identify as a gender that is the same as the one assigned at birth, meaning they are cisgender. Other individuals identify as nonbinary — which is neither female nor male — or as a gender that is different from the one they were assigned at birth, meaning they are transgender, which is also an umbrella term for people whose gender expression does not conform to cultural norms. All of these terms are completely different from an individual’s sexual orientation.
Encyclopedia Britannica highlights that it is usually the sperm cell, which carries the X or Y chromosome, that determines the sex after it fuses with an egg carrying an X chromosome. According to Planned Parenthood, sex is the label that “goes on your birth certificate” but gender is complex and is “a social and legal status”.
IBA’s 2023 disqualification of Khelif?
The Russian boxing organisation, which hosts the World Boxing Championships, apparently tested and disqualified (archive) Khelif back in 2023 right after she defeated the country’s boxer, Azalia Amineva, during the event held in New Delhi, in a “suspicious” decision that raised eyebrows, according to a report, which added that the Algerian termed the move a “conspiracy”.
After defeating Amineva in 2023, Khelif was scheduled to face China’s Yang Liu but could not do so due to the disqualification. The Algerian and the Chinese eventually ended up competing for gold in the 2024 Olympic Games.
The IBA refused to explain which rule was breached, citing athletes’ “personal and medical privacy”, AFP had written (archive) at the time, adding that “Algerian media reported the 23-year-old had failed a hormone test, returning an elevated testosterone level”.
In a statement issued 31 July 2024, the IBA stood by its decision taken on 24 March 2023 to disqualify both Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan for “their failure to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition”. “The athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential”, it said, adding that both boxers “were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors”.
The IBA said the disqualification was based on unspecified tests conducted during the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships held in Istanbul in 2022 and in New Delhi in 2023. It never revealed the results of these tests nor named the “independent” laboratories that performed them. However, it reinstated Thailand’s Janjaem Suwannapheng, who was defeated by the Algerian boxer.
Some reports — here, here, here, here, and here — have quoted the IBA’s president, a Russian sports businessman named Umar Kremlev, as saying the body reached its conclusion based on DNA test results that proved the two athletes had XY chromosomes and they tried to “fool their colleagues and pretended to be women”.
The IBA’s credibility has been questioned time and again and it was dropped and stripped of its status by the IOC, which now oversees boxing for the time being via the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit (PBU) but is looking for a new body to do so. The Russian body is marred by “a history of judging and bribery scandals”, match-fixing at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, concerns over a lack of transparency, corruption and financial mismanagement, questionable ethics, and the support it receives from the Russian energy company Gazprom, as well as its marketing expenditures that appear to focus on its president, Kremlev, and his linkages (archive) “to the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin”.
The Washington Post quoted people familiar with the cases of Khelif and Lin as saying the 2023 disqualifications were evidence of “classic IBA disinformation” and suspiciously made only after Amineva was defeated.
On 2 August 2024, the IBA announced that it would award $50,000 to Carini after she exited the boxing ring in less than a minute following a humiliating defeat by Khelif. The body’s president, Kremlev, “couldn’t look at her [Carini’s] tears”, he said, adding, “I do not understand why they kill women’s boxing. Only eligible athletes should compete in the ring for the sake of safety.”
In addition, Kremlev announced (archive) that his organisation would also support Sitora Turdibekova of Uzbekistan, who was defeated by Lin, whom the IBA disqualified back in 2023. The moves come despite the Russian body having nothing to do with Olympic boxing anymore.
The IBA’s top officials — including Kremlev and George Yerolimpos, its secretary-general and chief executive at the time — have persistently repeated the allegations about Khelif and Lin having XY chromosomes but never provided any proof.
In what has been termed a “bizarre” (archive) press conference held on 5 August 2024, IBA officials once again asserted the same accusations against Khelif and Lin, with Kremlev calling the 2024 Olympic Games “outright sodomy” (archive) and labelling the IOC’s president, Thomas Bach, the “chief sodomite”. None of them provided any clarification for their allegations against Khelif and Lin.
The same day, the IBA issued another statement, identifying the laboratories that conducted the tests. It wrote:
- “Blood sample collection was made on 17 May 2022. Sistem Tip Laboratory from Istanbul (License Number: 194-MRK) issued its report on 24 May 2022, after the competition ended. The laboratory detected results that didn’t match the eligibility criteria for IBA women’s events.”
- “Blood sample collection was made on 17 March 2023. Dr Lal PathLabs from New Delhi issued its report on 23 March 2023. The findings were absolutely identical to the first test results.”
The body acknowledged that Khelif and Lin had been participating in the IBA’s competitions since 2018 and 2017, respectively. “IBA’s main concern is that their hormonal imbalance affords them a distinct advantage over their female counterparts within their respective weight categories. It can be dangerous for other female boxers that we have already seen during the Olympic Games,” it said.
In an official correspondence with the IOC in 2023 in the context of the Olympic qualification tournaments and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the Russian organisation said Khelif was “not medically eligible” to participate in the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships 2023.
In July 2024, Irish outlet Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) published an extensive article about the fiasco over the genders of Khelif and Lin. Information about the 2023 tests “was only released via Telegram unofficially”, becoming the only source of the past and ongoing allegations, it said, adding that Kremlev alleged on 25 March 2023 that the two athletes “tried to deceive their colleagues and pretended to be women”.
This was corroborated by another report, which said, “The IBA only posted information on a Russian channel of Telegram, a social media network. It claims there were tests in 2022 and 2023, and that the boxers had failed an unspecified test ‘because they have XY chromosomes.’ That was picked up by Russian state media outlet TASS.”
The IBA refused to provide RTÉ any further information about the tests and said it had “no further comments” when asked to give details of a comprehensive review that led to the two boxers’ disqualification.
It is also important to note that the IBA revised its Technical and Competition Rules after disqualifying Khelif. On 23 March 2023, the body’s medical committee issued its report on the Algerian boxer and informed her about it on 12 April. The regulations, however, were amended on 12 May 2023, with the organisation stating, “Participation of DSD athletes (‘differences of sexual development’) in boxing competitions were found dangerous for health and security of the boxers.”
To add to this, Istvan Kovacs — a Hungarian ex-boxer who is currently the World Boxing Organization’s (WBO) vice president for Europe and was associated with the IBA as its former secretary-general, also claimed that Khelif was “biologically male”.
Speaking to the Hungarian media outlet Magyar Nemzet, Kovacs said, “The problem was not with the level of Khelif’s testosterone, because it can be adjusted nowadays, but with the result of the gender test, which clearly revealed that the Algerian boxer is biologically male.” The tests of the boxers “examined” during the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics and the 2023 World Championships “came out with the same result, they were indeed men”, he added.
Fact or Fiction?
Khelif is neither transgender nor was she assigned male at birth. She does not identify as intersex either.
On 3 August 2024, the Algerian boxer said (archive), “I want to tell the entire world that I am a female and I will remain a female.”
The same day, her father, Amar Khelif, came forward (archive) in her support and issued a video (archive), in which he says, “My child is a girl. She was raised as a girl… The Italian opponent she faced was unable to defeat my daughter.” He also shared with Reuters an official document dated 2 May 1999 that confirmed Khelif was born a female. Pictures published by Daily Mail’s website, MailOnline, show the Algerian athlete as a young girl with her siblings.
“This is our family official document, May 2, 1999, Imane Khelif, female. It is written here you can read it, this document doesn’t lie,” Reuters quoted Khelif’s father as saying. The document can be seen at the 0:05 mark in the video available here and at 2:25 mark here.
Moreover, the Associated Press also reported that Khelif’s passport says she was assigned female at birth.
The IOC’s stance
The IOC also issued a statement (archive) in this regard, terming the reports about Khelif and Lin as “misleading” and saying both female athletes “have been competing in international boxing competitions for many years in the women’s category”. The Olympics organisers labelled the IBA’s 2023 move a “sudden and arbitrary decision” that was taken “without any proper procedure”.
IOC President Thomas Bach also defended the two women, saying (archive), “Let’s be very clear here: We are talking about women’s boxing. We have two boxers who are born as a woman, who have been raised a woman, who have a passport as a woman, and who have competed for many years as women. And this is the clear definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman.”
Multiple reports quoted Mark Adams, the spokesperson for the Olympics organisers, as saying in a press conference on 4 August, “They were born as girls, registered as female passports, have fought at the senior level for six years with no issues”. He added that the IBA’s 2023 tests were “not legitimate”, noting, “The tests themselves, the process of the tests, the ad hoc nature of the tests are not legitimate.”
“I would just say that everyone competing in the women’s category is complying with the competition eligibility rules. They are women in their passports. These athletes competed many times before for many years. They didn’t just suddenly arrive,” Adams added, according to the two publications.
IOC rules and regulations
The IOC’s Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations,” which focuses on inclusion and safety, states that no athlete should have “an unfair and disproportionate advantage over the rest”. Among other guidelines are:
- “Athletes should be allowed to compete in the category that best aligns with their self-determined gender identity.”
- “Criteria to determine disproportionate competitive advantage may, at times, require testing of an athlete’s performance and physical capacity. However, no athlete should be subject to targeted testing because of, or aimed at determining, their sex, gender identity and/or sex variations.”
- Relevant sports organisations that choose to issue eligibility criteria for men’s and women’s categories should do so with a view to “preventing a risk to the physical safety of other athletes” and “preventing athletes from claiming a gender identity different from the one consistently and persistently used, with a view to entering a competition in a given category”.
- It may not be assumed that an athlete has “an unfair or disproportionate competitive advantage due to their sex variations, physical appearance and/or transgender status” until evidence is “based on robust and peer reviewed research” and can demonstrate such advantage. Even so, an athlete can contest such a decision.
- “Criteria to determine eligibility for a gender category should not include gynaecological examinations or similar forms of invasive physical examinations, aimed at determining an athlete’s sex, sex variations or gender.”
Soch Fact Check did not find any gender eligibility guidelines on the PBU’s Qualification System and Rules or the frequently asked questions (FAQ) page.
Khelif’s upbringing in Algeria
On 5 August, Khelif spoke to The Associated Press’ sports video partner, SNTV, about how the controversy impacted her and that she wants to send a message to everyone “to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects”. She added that such allegations “can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying”.
In an interview with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Khelif spoke of how she excelled in playing football in her village at the age of 16 and how, after facing fights with boys who “felt threatened” by her, “it was her ability to dodge the boys’ punches that got her into boxing”. She also mentioned that her father “did not approve of boxing for girls”.
Moreover, Khelif’s homeland, Algeria, makes it illegal for anyone to transition across genders, according to multiple organisations, such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Dignity Trust, Outright International, and Cairo 52 Legal Research Institute, as well as the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association’s (ILGA) database and Equaldex.
According to the Cairo 52 Legal Research Institute, a local court in Algeria once denied gender correction from male to female for a petitioner, rationalising its decision by “citing opposition to Islamic Sharia principles and the necessity to uphold Algerian legal and societal norms” and stating that gender-affirming care for trans people was “incompatible with human nature”.
Just like Khelif’s father, her uncle Rachid Jabeur has also confirmed that she is a woman. In an interview with the BBC, he said, “Imane was born female and has lived as a female”.
Jabeur and his wife, with whom Khelif lived for some time, invited the athlete into his home at a time when she was about to abandon sports after her father asked her to stop training. Her uncle’s house was nearer to the sports centre and they “cared for her with special meals and for sports training”, he said. “We supported and encouraged her as part of our family.”
Khelif’s previous boxing record
Khelif’s previous boxing record shows that she has been defeated by other cisgender women in the past. According to the Associated Press, before the 2024 Olympics, “Khelif was decidedly not known as a dominant champion, an overpowering force or even a particularly hard puncher at her weight.” Khelif is now a world champion but she initially “lost five of her first six elite-level bouts, but improved and excelled”.
According to BoxRec, Khelif has 46 wins and nine losses out of a total of 60 bouts, whereas Carini has 84 wins and 23 losses out of 108 bouts in total.
The Olympics profile of Khelif — who has been fighting since 2018 — states that she lost to Irish boxer Kellie Harrington in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, lost to Amy Broadhurst, also of Ireland, in the 2022 World Championships, beat Aratwa Kasemang of Botswana in the 2022 African Championships, beat Italy’s Assunta Canfora in the 2022 Mediterranean Games, beat Moroccan boxer Belahbib Oumayma (MAR) in the 2023 Arab Games, and won against Thailand’s Suwanun Antanai in in November 2023.
According to Carini’s Olympics profile, she made her Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics but lost to Taiwanese boxer Chen Nien-chin, defeated Cape Verde’s Ivanusa Moreira during the 2024 Olympics qualifier tournament, lost to Chinese boxer Dou Dan in the 2019 World Championships, and lost to Russian boxer Darima Sandakova in the 2019 European Championships. She’s a seven-time Italian national champion, retaining the title from 2016 to 2023.
Broadhurst, who beat the Algerian boxer in 2022, said she did not think that “she [Khelif] has done anything to ‘cheat’” and that “it’s the way she was born & that’s out of her control”.
In December 2022, Khelif defeated Mexican boxer Brianda Tamara Cruz and claims of the former being trans had surfaced then too. While the allegations were rubbished at the time as well, Cruz wrote on X in 2023 that the Algerian’s “blows hurt me a lot” and that “I don’t think I had ever felt like that in my 13 years as a boxer, nor in my sparring with men”. In 2024, she took to Instagram to share pictures of what she claims were injuries from the same match.
Gender-related disorders and syndromes
Claims also emerged that Khelif and Lin are intersex or may have Differences in Sex Development (DSD), Swyer syndrome, 5-alpha reductase deficiency (5ARD) or Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS). However, that does not determine Khelif’s gender identity. Most importantly, the athlete herself has reiterated that she is a female.
The National Health Service (NHS) defines DSD — also called Diverse Sex Development or Variations in Sex Characteristics (VSC) — as a set of rare conditions, pertaining to genes, hormones, as well as reproductive organs, including genitals, in which the sex development of an individual may be different from how most other people’s is.
Intersex and DSD are interchangeable, with people using each term as per their preferences, according to some authentic resources, including the NHS, Intersex Initiative, and MedlinePlus, a service by the NIH’s National Library of Medicine (NLM) that states intersex “is an older term for DSD”. Other sources, such as Thisisintersex.org — a publication of the Netherlands-based NNID Foundation — and the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) explain that “intersex is not the same as DSD, yet both terms refer to the same group of people” and that DSD is more medically-oriented and “patient-centred”.
However, it is noteworthy that having DSD is not the same as being transgender.
5-alpha reductase deficiency (5ARD) is defined as “a condition that affects sexual development before birth and during puberty”, according to MedlinePlus, a service by the NIH’s National Library of Medicine (NLM). It may be categorised under DSD.
Swyer syndrome — also known as 46,XY complete gonadal dysgenesis (46,XY CGD) — is a disorder of sex development (DSD), according to the NIH, which states that women who have it are infertile. The nonprofit National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) state that the sex glands, such as testicles or ovaries, of people with this condition fail to develop.
In the condition known as AIS, sexual development is affected before birth and during puberty, with people having this syndrome having one X and one Y chromosome. Since the body is “unable to respond to certain male sex hormones (called androgens)”, such individuals can have “external sex characteristics that are typical for females or have features of both male and female sexual development”, according to MedlinePlus.
Amid the Khelif controversy, GLAAD, the nonprofit working for LGBTQ advocacy and empowering intersex people, termed the accusations “unsubstantiated claims regarding her [Khelif’s] sex traits, also known as ‘variations in sex traits’ or differences of sexual development (DSDs)”.
“Athletes with variations in their sex traits, or DSDs, are not the same as transgender athletes. Conflating the two is inaccurate. It is not verified that Imane Khelif has a variation in sex traits or DSDs,” states a fact sheet issued by GLAAD, interACT, and Athlete Ally. GLAAD President and CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis, underscored that several athletes “don’t fit gender expectations” but “all comply with competition eligibility rules set by the IOC”.
In another statement, interACT Executive Director Erika Lorshbough said, “We stand for the right of all women to participate in athletics, including those born with variations in their sex traits such as chromosomal or hormonal variations.” However, she did not specifically mention Khelif or Lin.
The Director of Public Policy and Programs at the National Black Justice Collective’s (NBJC) Director of Public Policy and Programs, Victoria Kirby York, wrote in a guest post for interACT that allegations against Khelif were “based on a possible reproductive health condition that is none of our business”.
Speaking of their own experience Kirby noted, “Black women are often the Olympians targeted by transphobic and racist people who wish to minimize our success in sports by labeling us as men instead of celebrating the athletic achievements of all women.” Khelif is not a Black Woman, but is a woman of colour, and therefore subjected to similar racism.
York also spoke of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which she suffers from, saying the levels of two hormones — testosterone and oestrogen — “constantly changes based on the day a person is tested in their cycle” and that it was “unfathomable” for her if she was targeted or denied to play women’s sports as Khelif was.
A common condition, PCOS is caused by issues in a woman’s hormones and affects the ovaries, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. However, it is not limited to the ovaries. The syndrome can also impact the rest of the body and can, if not treated, lead to serious health issues.
Anti-trans outlet pushes false narrative
Soch Fact Check observed that one apparently conservative media outlet that continuously posted the false allegations against Khelif was Reduxx Magazine, which describes itself as a “truly pro-woman, pro-child safeguarding platform” and one “exposing gender ideology’s impact on women”.
On 27 July 2024, it published a “breaking” news report about the Algerian and Taiwan’s Lin being “previously disqualified from Women’s World Championship for having ‘XY chromosomes’”; the article was posted on X here (archive) and has gained over 4.5 million views. It has since shared the unverified claims on the platform over a dozen times here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Reduxx Magazine was founded by Anna Slatz, Genevieve Gluck, and Jennifer Sieland. All three are right-wing, anti-trans writers who have a history of conservative reporting.
Slatz appears to be a follower (archive) of the controversial Scientology, according to her now-suspended X account. She published a letter from Neo-Nazi activist Michael Thurlow in a student paper of a university and has worked for Rebel News, which often puts out false and doubtful information, the far-right website The Post Millennial, which has been fact-checked by the Poynter Institute, engaged in homophobic commentary, and claimed that transphobia is a “fantasy of vulnerability”. Gluck and Sieland, too, are anti-transgender, according to claims they have made and their writings.
Trans Data Library noted that Reduxx Magazine has a “history of anti-LGBTQ+ activism” and publishes reports “with a transphobic slant”. The project sources “information on the organizations and individuals engaged in anti-trans activism” and was started by Assigned Media, a news website founded by journalist Evan Urquhart that provides “daily coverage of anti-trans propaganda and its effects”.
Moreover, Reduxx Magazine has been termed a website with “nothing but rabid transphobia”, according to the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and a “trans obsessed hate-porn site” by trans rights activist Freda Wallace.
Athletes targeted in the past
Lin Yu-ting, who was targeted by anti-trans campaigners, was defended by the spokesperson of Lai Ching-te, the president of her country, Taiwan. In a statement on X, they said, “President @ChingteLai said that the Taiwanese spirit never fears challenges. #TeamTaiwan, including women’s boxing contestant Yu-ting Lin, has shown incredible strength, overcoming doubts to compete fairly on the world stage. Your determination inspires the nation! #ParisOlympics.”
In the past, multiple other women have been targeted in sports, including runners Dutee Chand and Caster Semenya of India and South Africa, respectively, American tennis player Serena Williams and American basketball player Brittney Griner.
Chand and Semenya challenged and won. Williams and Griner have responded firmly to the backlash.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the claim shared by Irish promoter and former boxer Barry McGuigan, Irish writer and anti-trans activist Graham Linehan, the campaigning and consultancy group Fair Play For Women, and Ross Tucker, a “sports scientist” and the science and research consultant for World Rugby.
The Telegraph even published a piece (archive) by its chief sports writer, Oliver Brown, stating that the bout was “one of the most shaming episodes in Olympic history” and that Carini entered the ring “uncertain of the sex of the person she was facing”. The reporter uploaded (archive) a copy of his article that appeared in the print version of the paper, which called Khelif “biological male”.
The claim was posted on Facebook here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. In two posts on the social media platform, the Daily Mail labelled Khelif a “biologically male”.
Multiple news websites and blogs also shared the false claim here, here, here, here, here, and here. YouTube channel Hidden Files, which has over 3.6 million subscribers, posted it here; the video was viewed more than 44,000 times.
Conclusion: Imane Khelif was assigned female at birth, according to a certificate shown to the media by her father. There is no evidence of her being transgender nor does she identify as intersex.
Background image in cover photo: Amada MA
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