Watching Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting’s treatment at these Olympics, I have had a profound sense of deja vu. We have watched this story play out before, unfortunately more than once. Caster Semenya’s brilliance 15 years ago sparked an ongoing battle to compete. One of the greatest athletes of our time, Semenya is not the only champion who has been wrongly blocked from competition.
I am a filmmaker, who made a documentary Category: Woman in 2022. I had the privilege of witnessing the heartbreaking stories of women athletes from the Global South, torn from their sport, due to racist, discriminating regulations.
The film also reveals the 90-year history of sex testing and policing of only female athletes’ bodies, and four women forced out of competition by regulations, their sport offering unnecessary medication or to undergo invasive surgical procedures in order to compete. We saw the devastation to their bodies and their lives because they wanted to run. Sadly, none of them will compete in Paris.
As a former Olympian myself, who competed for Canada in field hockey at the 1984 Games, I know what is at stake for the athletes in Paris. There’s a lot. You win a gold medal, you get a spot in history, plus the financial rewards — you become a hero.
But few can understand what is at stake for the athletes — like Khelif and Lin — who have had their entire identities questioned across headlines, social media debates and news broadcasts around the world.
The invasive reporting, misinformation and hate cuts fundamentally at the core of questioning who someone is and who they are told they should be — without clear evidence.
All Khelif did was get up in the morning and go to her competition. And because her punch was “too hard” for her fellow competitor, a storm has engulfed her. All of a sudden, she’s told she is a “man” by those with reckless and uninformed opinions.
It’s not the first time she has been targeted, as the IBA previously banned her from the World Championships. This has been ugly for her in Paris. “It wasn’t an easy thing to go through at all. It was something that harms human dignity,” Khelif said during an interview this week.
When something like this happens you wonder, how is this happening in 2024? We knew going in that the IBA isn’t a recognised federation, for all the controversy since 2019. Their botched press conference earlier this week was full of crude language and confusion about what their allegations against Khelif were. They have no credibility. Yet the ruling in 2023 that these two athletes had “failed to meet eligibility criteria” has been taken as fact.
There has been hate-mongering, and vitriol all over social and international media. People with millions of followers who then misrepresent science and conflate other important issues of trans inclusion. Italian boxer Angela Carini, who pulled out of her fight with Khelif after a few seconds, has apologised. The IOC has done very well to protect and support Khelif at the Games.
I’m not blaming Carini, I imagine she thought she was doing the right thing. But did she have any knowledge of what happens to people who are accused or othered in countries like Algeria or Uganda, or many countries where difference is illegal?
That, plus the broadcast around the world of Khelif’s personal medical information by the IBA, has put gasoline on issues which people don’t have enough information to judge. It gives uninformed, bigoted people a platform to spew hate — be it the alt-right, some high-profile sportspeople or everyday folk. They cite science that isn’t credible or old science that fits into whatever lexicon they need it to be.
Having been sex-tested as an athlete, I know how the measurements have chopped and changed over a 90-year period. Different markers, but the intention has remained the same: to police our bodies.
As activist Dr. Payoshni Mitra, of Humans of Sport, said in the film: “When you are a man and you do exceptionally well, you become a superman. When you are a woman and you do exceptionally well, you must be a man.”
The situation for black, brown and diverse women in sport is definitively more challenging. Throwing their gender into doubt is another way to oppress them. Not to mention, these athletes are compared to the Eurocentric standards of what a woman should or shouldn’t look like (as if how we look has anything to do with being an athlete). It’s racist. Who gives anyone the right to question our identity, to say who is a woman and who is not?
The consequences go far beyond the field of play. Middle-distance runner Annet Negesa features in my film. She is from Uganda, where it’s illegal and you get jailed or killed for your differences. She lost her family, culture, and had to escape her country because of what sport did to her under the guise of levelling the playing field. It’s not about running, boxing, or winning a medal. It is about your safety, family’s safety, your livelihood — all because you are an athlete.
With Khelif, it’s the same. All of a sudden she is in every headline — not because she won a medal, but because they question who she is. Nothing can take away what is at stake for athletes like Khelif. I am hoping that, by 2028, this chapter in sport will be closed.
