Imane Khelif is intersex, admits coach
Imane Khelif is intersex, admits coach
INTERVIEW EXCLUSIVE. La boxeuse algérienne, malmenée par une polémique sur son genre, s’est entraînée durant des mois avec les Jeux en ligne de mire. Confidences de son préparateur.
Now that it's official, hopefully mods will stop banning accounts that point out the obvious for "misinformation"
Even if that is true intersex and transgender are very, very different. Intersex but biologically female could mean some XY chromosomes but that is far more common than you seem to realize. From Snopes:
There are genetic conditions, termed differences of sexual development, in which biological females are born with XY chromosomes but possess female anatomy, or that affect how a biological female regulates and reacts to testosterone, causing levels typically associated with males. Though there is no independent confirmation that Khelif has these conditions, people born this way would legally be considered female or intersex.
Debates over these issues in the context of women's sports have nothing to do with a purported "woke" or "trans agenda," because such instances involve women who were born as women, identify as women and have not undergone any sex reassignment surgery or procedure to change this fact. That is what IOC spokesperson Mark Adams meant when he clarified to the press "this is not a transgender issue."
I would be pretty surprised if this is anything other than 5αR2D, which is what Caster Semenya has. Other sporting leagues have banned people with that condition from competing in the women's divisions because it's not fair competition. The IOC should follow suit. In general, intersex people should compete in the men's divisions unless they can show that they don't have unfair advantage vs women.
I never thought this was the trans agenda or anything like that, but it was really shitty of Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting to keep competing on a technicality when they found out they were intersex.
It was also gaslighting for everyone pointing out the obvious to get banned for "misinformation". Ironically, a lot of people were pushing misinformation themselves and not getting called out on it, because they were saying what people wanted to hear.
You making assumptions about "what this is" mean jack shit to everyone else. You are starting from an assumption that if she is intersex she is the opposite gender of what she presents as, why? Based on the many other articles I've read she at most has elevated XY chromosomes, but still within range of female norms.
Bitching about unfair advantages? If some people having elevated XY chromosomes is "unfair" I have bad news for you, men can have different levels of it too. Michael Phelps has several genetic abnormalities which make him an amazing swimmer, since those are not the norm should he be disqualified?
Jesus fucking Christ! Nobody gives a shit! I didn't watch any of the Olympic events, because they're not interesting. And guess what? Still not interesting. If Australia entered a kangaroo as part of their team I might watch one bout. Might.
The world is on the brink of WWIII, and you're all bitching like whining little bitches about an event that literally nobody cares about unless you get to satisfy your obsession with genetic karyotype and genitalia.
Give your balls a tug!
We did enter a kangaroo in the breaking comp.
The only decent thing in the Olympics.
So this is an interview with someone who t was involved with her through a network of other staff who were modernizing her boxing regimen as she had been training from a holistic, intuitive approach in Algeria prior to her arrival in France where she would go on to be working with a gym in Tarbes and another in Nice.
Some relevant Google translated portions of the interview:
Q: She discovers it at that moment…
A: Yes, and me too, even if she has a rather particular morphotype. The fact remains that people have a particular physical appearance, it is so different inside themselves. For Imane, she was born a girl. She was raised as a girl. She has a girl's sensitivity. On that basis, why wouldn't we test everyone who has superior abilities to others? For example, the immense French basketball player Victor Wembanyama, in terms of his growth hormones? It's stupid. Everyone is different, fortunately, otherwise there would be no competition. Let's put ourselves in a performance perspective: what is competition? It's a subject, a man or a woman, who is superior to others.
Q: The Algerian team didn't know anything either?
A: They are 50,000 leagues away from these biological aspects. They were happy to have a good boxer. She is a young woman, I repeat, who was raised like a girl.
Q: What happens after this thunderclap announcement?
A: After the 2023 World Championships, where she was disqualified, I took the lead by contacting a renowned endocrinologist from the Parisian University Hospital, Kremlin-Bicêtre, who examined her. He confirmed that Imane is indeed a woman, despite her karyotype and her testosterone level. He said: "There is a problem with her hormones, with her chromosomes, but she is a woman." That's all that mattered to us. We then worked with a doctor based in Algeria to monitor and regulate Imane's testosterone level, which is currently within the female norm. Tests clearly show that all her muscular and other qualities have been diminishing since then. Currently, she can be compared on a muscular and biological level to a woman-woman-woman (Fr: et au niveau biologique à une femme-femme-femme).
Q: Regarding this rate, did you follow a recommendation from the International Olympic Committee?
A: I was so disappointed to see her stupidly disqualified at the world championships in New Delhi that I wanted to take the lead. But in hindsight, I wonder if I was wrong to get involved in this… The Olympic Games medical commission had made a lot of publicity around the training of its samplers to judge, among other things, the testosterone level of the athletes competing in the Games. So I wanted us to put all the chances on her side, and for her level to be within the required limits.
Q: Some say that XY profiles display a physical, muscular superiority over XX.
A: It is said that everyone should do sports. Everyone, except these people? Some say that we should make special categories, but even within a group of hypoandrogenic or hyperandrogenic people, there are differences between them. There is such a significant variation that we cannot make categories.
Q: I ask the same question to the biology teacher that you are…
A: Between boys and girls, it is at puberty, in terms of performance, that there is a dissociation linked to testosterone. Testosterone is an anabolic hormone and therefore one that builds muscles. This explains why boys are stronger than girls in terms of muscle. My answer is hesitant, because some women display a muscular quality close to that of men. And performance is the interaction of multiple components, including physical aspects. In some sports, physical aspects play an important role in performance. You will never see skinny boxers, whether they are men or women.
Q: Did you watch the IBA press conference that took place during the Olympics?
A: No, I didn't want to rekindle my anger. There are a lot of things that could be said about the IBA. Its head is a strange bird. He doesn't want the IOC to get involved in boxing... All I know is that the IBA ended up justifying itself after the fact. If they had warned us before the 2023 World Championships, we would have been vigilant. They made Imane eligible for her first three matches, then ineligible for the final. They sent her a letter in English when she can't read that language, asking her to sign it to get her results. She should never have signed that letter.
Q: What does this imply?
A: That she acknowledged the disqualification… Everything was spun in a funny way in New Delhi during these Worlds.
Q: What are these IBA results about? A karyotype? Testosterone levels?
A: From what I read, during its recent press conference, the IBA did not wish to go into detail or reveal the nature of the tests carried out, so it is better to stick to the IOC's position, which confirmed the eligibility of Imane as well as that of the Taiwanese also disqualified by the IBA in New Delhi in March 2023.
That is every relevant and every not-so-relevant excerpt from the article.
Here is the full French article via archive.is.
Paywalled and biased. From Wikipedia:
Le Point (French pronunciation: [ləˈpwɛ̃]) is a French weekly political and conservative news magazine published in Paris.
Checking over their other headlines, the paper seems to have beef (boeuf?) with "wokism" and left-wing politician Lucie Castets. So yeah, I'm going to need a little more than their sensational headline and a promise that there's more evidence if I pay them, before I believe this article is the supreme arbiter of what constitutes misinformation about Khelif. Thanks anyway.
See other comment for translation and archive link: