Is Algerian boxer Imane Khelif a man who transitioned to be a woman? No, that's not true: International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach publicly said that Khelif's case is the case of somebody "being born, raised, competed and having a passport as a woman", which is the Olympic standard for determination of gender. According to the athlete's own words, she has always been a woman and continues to be one.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Threads where it was published on August 2, 2024. It opened:
I never get political on here EVER. But this is Nuckin Futz. This He/she just beat up an Italian woman this morning and made her quit. Imagine being that girl and training your whole entire life and you make it to the Olympics. In the very 1st round you face someone who used to be a man. UNREAL. I honestly don't know what I would do if that was my daughter 🤬🤬🤬🤬
This is what it looked like on Threads at the time of this writing:
(Source: Threads screenshot taken on Mon Aug 5 14:00:31 2024 UTC)
The post contains a manipulated image (archived here) that placed Vice President Kamala Harris in a fictitious position of awarding an athlete not representing the United States with what looked like an Olympic medal. It refers to the August 1, 2024, Olympic fight between Khelif and Angela Carini of Italy. Carini quit the fight after the first 46 seconds (archived here).
The same claim about Khelif formerly being a man was boosted by former President Donald Trump (archived here), X owner Elon Musk (archived here) and author J.K. Rowling (archived here).
However, such speculations are not grounded in any known facts.
As reported by NBC (archived here), Khelif said during the Paris Olympics on August 3, 2024:
I want to tell the entire world that I am a female, and I will remain a female.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach rejected (archived here) the claim that Khelif used to be a man:
How can somebody being born, raised, competed and having a passport as a woman cannot be considered a woman?
A post on X (archived here) published by the IOC, citing him, further clarified:
...this is not a transgender case.
Though she refused to shake hands while being visibly upset, even the Italian athlete who stopped the fight did not allege that Khelif once was a man. As cited by Reuters (archived here), Carini referred to Khelif using a female pronoun:
I wish her to carry on until the end and that she can be happy.
Earlier, on August 1, 2024, the IOC issued a statement (archived here) addressing rumors targeting Khelif and another athlete, Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan. It described such speculations as "misleading information", emphasizing that eligibility rules in Paris were no different from other games since the 2016 decision that "the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport."
Algeria prohibits changing gender on official documents and bans gender-affirming care, according to LGBTQ+ law-tracking website Equaldex (archived here).
Algeria's National Olympic Committee immediately issued a statement defending Khelif. As cited by the AP (archived here), it described the rumors as "baseless propaganda" and "unethical targeting and maligning of our esteemed athlete".
On August 3, 2024, Algeria's President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said on X (archived here), as translated by Google, that Khalif has:
...honored Algeria, Algerian women, and Algerian boxing.
Russian intrigue
The claim that is the focus of this fact check appears to be the newest spin on the 2023 controversial decision to disqualify Khelif and Yu-ting carried out by the International Boxing Association (IBA) -- only three days after Khelif won over a previously unbeaten Russian athlete (archived here).
A 2024 IOC statement cast doubts on the legitimacy of that IBA ruling. It referred to Khelif and Yu-ting as "victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by IBA" that was carried out "without any due process" :
According to the IBA minutes (archived here) available on their website, this decision was initially taken solely by the IBA Secretary General and CEO. The IBA Board only ratified it afterwards and only subsequently requested that a procedure to follow in similar cases in the future be established and reflected in the IBA Regulations. The minutes also say that the IBA should "establish a clear procedure on gender testing".
The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure - especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years.
Khelif's disqualification came when the IBA was led by Umar Kremlev -- a Russian sports functionary with ties to the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), the successor agency to the Soviet Union's notorious KGB. Kremlev changed his last name to distance himself from his past criminal history, as reported by the Russian independent investigative outlet named Project (archived here). During Kremlev's tenure, the International Boxing Association was sponsored by the Russian state oil and gas corporation Gazprom (archived here) for two years, including the period covering the first 9 months after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The IBA has been permanently banned from the Olympics (archived here) due to corruption scandals and a lack of transparency (archived here).
On August 5, 2024, IBA Chief Executive Chris Roberts, as cited by Reuters (archived here), told journalists that the 2023 decision was based on the chromosome tests, though reiterating that he would not disclose the results and that the public could "read between the lines."
That echoed what Kremlev said in 2023. Back then, he claimed (archived here) in an interview with the Russian state news agency TASS, as translated by Chrome, that "based on the results of DNA tests" that discovered XY chromosomes, the IBA "identified a number of athletes who tried to deceive their colleagues and pretended to be women."
Even if legitimate, that test alone does not support the speculation that Khelif used to be a man, transgender athlete or a person assigned male at birth: In rare cases, women with female appearances and reproductive organs may have XY chromosomes (archived here). Furthermore, some men with masculine appearances and male genitalia may have XX chromosomes (archived here).
Elevated testosterone levels (archived here) may be viewed as a separate issue and is sometimes claimed to pose a safety risk by some sports federations. However, speculations targeting the two boxers have nothing to do with it: The 2024 IBA statement (archived here) confirmed that the athletes were not even tested for testosterone before the 2023 decision to disqualify them.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about the 2024 Summer Olympics can be found here. Stories about sports are here.
