Imane Khelif vs Claressa Shields would be the biggest fight in womens boxing history!

Yup. Man and nothing but a man.

 

Khelif Is a man. He likely has testicles that never dropped and they erroneously mistaken him for a female.

Biologically, it has been proving that he is a man. With the new gender test requirement, he will never be able to box against women ever again.

 

It'd be pretty horrible, and he has my sympathy in that it's almost incomprehensible how hard it must be for the whole world to know your business on such an intimate topic.

Unfortunately, at the same time:
1) Khelif actually is, biologically, a dude.
2) He's brought a lot of attention on himself by continuing to try and fight as a chick when he cannot possibly be unaware that he's a dude.
3) Continued obfuscation and refusal to call a spade a spade are part of why this is even still controversial - sad as his circumstances are, for him, people insisting on calling him a chick (when he's not) is keeping the whole circus going on longer by creating the illusion that there's any kind of legitimate argument for letting him compete against women (when IMHO there very clearly isn't).

On a point of fact, though, assuming he's XY with 5ARD (which is overwhelmingly likely) he doesn't actually have a vagina - it's just that at birth that was what he might have appeared to have... It's an error, albeit an understandable one up to a point, perhaps - the unfortunate circumstances arising from that error shouldn't put others in danger, though.


I have nothing but sympathy for the difficulty he must've had being raised as one thing before having the reality of his biology pointed out to him...
I have no sympathy whatsoever for his desire to be allowed to fight in women's boxing or his disappointment in being told that he doesn't qualify (as he's not a woman) in full knowledge that he's a bloke.
I have some sympathy with him having this blow up publicly - but it's ultimately negated to a very significant extent by his own choice to put himself in that position.

 

I don’t think he has a vagina either. He’s probably got a pouch with a micro *****.

Biologically he is a man. Yeah, it’s not great to live your life thinking you’re one thing, but turn out to be another, but all the biological women getting punched in the face by a biological man and losing out on medals probably feels a lot worse.

 

The thing is we'll never hear of Khelif again, I don't see any major amatuer tournaments that he'd be able to compete in as a woman. Was a farce that he was allowed in that last Olympics.

 

He was tested and banned in 2023. He was given the results of the gender test, so he was aware of it years ago.

He should have had self reflection then and took his situation more seriously, but he chose to continue to beat up women and continued the charade until he was forced to take another gender test and he bowed out instead.

 

I doubt Khelif feels like a "woman", hormones and brain chemistry would have been telling the truth since teens. Won't be long before she comes out as a "lesbian"....but not really a Lesbian just a dude misgendered at birth due to lack of a dick. It sucks, I wouldn't wish that on anyone, It's a hard thing to accept. Given there are no real career prospects anymore excluding that gold I expect "she" will move on and be the person he truly is and that's a man with underdeveloped sex anatomy.

Or just remain in denial, take hormone blockers to try and be closer to something you're not and become a shell of a person.

 

I couldn't agree more...

It's really sad that his decisions beyond that point were so poor as to put him in the situation he's in now - we all make mistakes, it's a human thing, and regardless of whether it's a deep psychological trauma and inability to accept the truth, or a cynical attempt to continue in pursuit of success, or even coercion... It's still sad.

Regardless - it doesn't change that he's male and shouldn't be fighting women.

 

A person born with female reproductive organs and XY chromosome can exist. It can be considered a "women" with genetically male traits, so either way she shouldn't be allowed to compete, but I don't know if I'd call her a man. Intersex is probably the most accurate term

 

As I understand it, the key is the presence of testes which produce testosterone AND the ability to use it...

There are all kinds of intersex variants, with differing implications.

The simplest solution, from my POV, is that presence of the Y chromosome should automatically mean exclusion from the female category...

That may seem arbitrary (and it's true that there are intersex conditions that wouldn't give an advantage) but a line has to be drawn somewhere that appears fair, given that fairness and an ability for women (XX) to have a sporting playing field they can compete on is the whole point of the category existing.

I wouldn't, on principle, necessarily be opposed to barring anyone with a Y chromosome until they've proven there's no advantage (ie: that they have a condition that's not clearly giving a huge advantage)... But in practical terms, the envelope would probably be pushed too far and shatter the appearance of fairness - which is exactly what HAS happened with XY-5ARD individuals who are very rare and yet plenty of examples have dominated at the top levels of women's sport at extremely unrepresentative rates, Khelif is far from the first.

 

Does this individual have a dick and/or a uterus?

 

If, as has been stated, he's 46XY-5ARD then exceptionally unlikely to have a uterus... A ***** (edit: fine, a dick), of some description, is likely - testicles (probably internal) almost certain.

He's ultimately male with a DSD that only affects males and it's well known that males with this condition outperform typical females in sporting contexts when allowed to compete in the women's category.

 

Ultimately if sporting orgs had handled this sort of thing properly by excluding males from female categories (or even just excluding males without conditions that didn't confer significant advantage against typical women) then this discussion wouldn't even be taking place.

This is only happening because of a refusal to make the call to exclude people from a category they don't belong in... It sounds crazy that such a straightforward decision hasn't been consistently made, but that's the world we live in.