Angela Carini and Imane Khelif

Controversy continues to plague the 2024 Paris Olympics. Boxer Angela Carini, representing Italy against Algerian Imane Khelif, quit her boxing match against Khelif after only 46 seconds when Khelif landed a hard blow to her face. Carini immediately went to her corner and her coaches told the referee that she would not continue the match.

Last year, Khelif was disqualified from competing a women’s event after the International Boxing Association (IBA) said she* did not meet qualifications to compete against women. Despite this, the International Olympics Committee (IOC) cleared Khelif to fight against women. Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan was also disqualified by the IBA last year but allowed to compete in the Olympics by the IOC. The IBA said that a test performed on the athletes, “conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.” The IOC regarded the disqualification of these athletes as “sudden and arbitrary” and said that “every person has the right to practice sport without discrimination.” The IOC insists that all competitors in women’s boxing, including Khelif and Yu-ting, have met the eligibility requirements. Khelif and Yu-ting have competed against women for years with moderate success.

After the fight, Carini said that she was heartbroken. “I went into the ring to honor my father,” she said. “I was told a lot of times that I was a warrior but I preferred to stop for my health. I have never felt a punch like this. I got into the ring to fight. I didn’t give up. But one punch hurt too much and so I said, ‘Enough.’ I’m going out with my head held high.”

The situation is more complex than is usually the case in the matter of transgender women competing against biological women. Khelif’s defenders insist that she was born female, grew up female, and has always identified as female. Khelif herself does not identify as transgender, intersex, or nonbinary. She has always identified as female. It is suspected that she may have a condition called 46XY, DSD, or androgen insensitivity syndrome. According to a 2016 article published by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, those born with this condition, “have an extremely high level of testosterone and other male sex hormones, but the testosterone does not affect the foetal cells that usually develop into male sexual organs because of a mutation in the androgen receptor gene. These people therefore have male chromosomes but are women socially and in external appearance. They do not have internal female sexual organs, and they form testicles that remain concealed in the abdominal cavity.” They do not develop breasts, and do not develop ovaries, but they do have wombs and, with the assistance of hormone treatment and egg implantation, they can become pregnant and give birth. So, Khelif’s supporters are saying that she (and Yu-ting) have this rare condition whereby they are born female, and are female emotionally, socially, and legally, yet they have XY chromosomes and a naturally higher level of testosterone within the male range. In case you were wondering, yes, there are men who are born male, raised male, and are male emotionally, socially, and legally, but have XX chromosomes. Most of those with androgen insensitivity syndrome are diagnosed before the onset of puberty, but occasionally the diagnosis is missed until adulthood.

Obviously, I cannot speak on the matter of whether or not Khelif and Yu-ting have androgen insensitivity syndrome. The media is consistent, however, in reporting that they were both raised female and have always thought of themselves as female. That doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. If their testosterone levels are in the male range, even if this is a naturally occurring phenomenon and nothing sinister is going on, it still means they have a natural advantage over other females. The IOC no longer administers testing to confirm an athlete’s gender. So, basically, if you say you’re female, you’re female. Khelif’s passport identifies her as female, which makes sense if she was raised female and has always thought of herself as female, regardless of any disorders of sexual development (DSD’s). She has competed as a female against females for years. Would it be fair to have her start competing against men? I honestly don’t have an answer to that question.

Whichever way you look at it, this is not an LGBTQ+ matter. Again, Khelif doesn’t identify as transgender, and has never identified as anything other than female. That’s if the reporting is honest, and I’ve no way of measuring that. Men should not compete against women – period. Someone who decides at some point in their life that they are not the sex they were born as, and demands to be accommodated in every way by society at large, are living a delusion and have no reasonable grounds on which to insist that the larger society play along with their delusion. Many of these conflicts are rooted in serious mental health illnesses, but there is also too much of an element of social cache involved. When my middle daughter was in high school, she told me that about half the student body identified as bisexual. That may have been an exaggeration, but no one can dismiss that there is internal and external pressure placed on young people to be different. It has been that way for millennia. Much of the current considerable uptick in those identifying as LGBTQ+ is a manifestation of this desire to be different. It infects parents as well, some of whom are only too eager to have a child who is LGBTQ+, and specifically transgender, because they feel it increases their social status. This is tragic, because the health risks to children are many and often irreversible.

In any case, it appears that the fate of Khelif and Yu-ting has been decided for now. The IOC ruled that they are eligible to compete as females, and they will continue to do so. What the future holds is not so clear. What else is not so clear is how sports organizations, and others for that matter, will handle this new development of females who are chromosomally males. Are they females? Are they males? Who decides, and how does anyone prove it? The world is a complicated place, and it appears to have just gotten moreso.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.

* I generally do not refer to transgender persons according to their “preferred pronouns,” because I insist on being truthful according to the science of biology and the theology of the human person. Feeling that one is not the sex one was born as does not mean one is not that sex. A person born as a male remains a male, regardless of their efforts, socially, medically, or even surgically, to change that reality. In fact, we cannot change that reality. However, this appears not to be such a case (again, if the reporting is honest). Khelif insists that she was born female, raised female, and has always regarded herself as female. Having a condition such as 46XY, DSD doesn’t change that. If that is not true, if the reporting or Khelif is being dishonest, and other facts emerge to discredit Khelif, I will change my references to Khelif to male.

Update: In an article published by Fox News, Dr. Marc Siegel discusses the complicated problem of how to keep sports fair when addressing people with DSD. Dr. Siegel recommends not testing for chromosomes, but for hormone levels. Regardless of a person’s chromosomes, if he or she has elevated levels of testosterone so that he or she is within normal male ranges, he or she should not be competing against females. An interesting take on the matter.