Bolt: Poor Khelif just a weapon in the war against trans radicals

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif has unfairly become the target of identity politics savagery made worse by the International Olympics Committee’s cowardice. Yet trashing Lin Yu-ting seems to be of little use to culture warriors.

What cruelty! I don’t know how Algerian boxer Imane Khelif gets out of bed after being abused around the world as a fake woman.

Harry Potter author JK Rowling, now a women’s rights activist, is among thousands who’ve savaged Khelif after she stopped an opponent at the Paris Olympics in just 46 seconds with a punch in the face.

“Explain why you’re OK with a man beating a woman in public for your entertainment,” tweeted Rowling.

Algeria's Imane Khelif celebrates her victory over Hungary's Anna Luca Hamori in the women's 66kg quarter-final boxing match. Picture: AFP

“This isn’t sport. From the bullying cheat in red all the way up to the organisers who allowed this to happen, this is men revelling in their power over women.”

Really? Is Khelif just a woman-bashing male bully?

Where’s the pity? Where are the facts?

Surely Khelif deserves a bit of both. How desperately wounding for an athlete born, raised and bullied as a girl to now be told in screaming headlines she’s actually a man or transgender woman.

This deeply personal abuse is getting to Khelif. When she won a bout on Saturday guaranteeing her at least a bronze medal, she screamed, dropped to her knees and cried.

“I want to tell the entire world that I am a female, and I will remain a female,” she later said through tears.

Here’s the savagery of the identity politics war, made worse by the International Olympics Committee’s cowardice.

Khelif dodges a punch from Angela Carini of Italy. Picture: Getty Images

For millions of haters, Khelif isn’t even human. She’s just a stereotype – a weapon in their war against transgender radicals.

Worse for her, she’s also Muslim. Yes, add Islamophobia, because there are actually two boxers at these Olympics accused of having the male XY chromosome, but we hear little about the other – Lin Yu-ting.

Lin is Taiwanese, you see. Not useful to culture warriors.

Yet both boxers are in the same legal and biological limbo – banned last year by the International Boxing Association after failing an unspecified and unpublished gender verification test, but allowed at these Games.

The IBA said only that Khelif and Lin had “competitive advantages” over female athletes, but wouldn’t say which tests they’d failed, citing privacy rules.

We only know both were born female and weren’t tested for enhanced testosterone, although the IBA president later claimed both had the male XY chromosome.

True, neither went through with appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. That seems game over, except for two things.

Lin Yu-ting Chinese Taipei has not been subjected to the same savagery as Khelif. Picture: Getty Images

First, what you’ve been told in some reports since – that Khelif and Lin have the XY chromosome or are male – is not based on any proven fact.

Second, this circus is largely due to the wokeness of the IOC, which watered down the definition of a woman, stressing it’s about “inclusivity”.

IOC president Thomas Bach claimed on the weekend Khelif and Lin were allowed to compete because they have been “born as women, have been raised as women, who have passports as women and competed for many years as women”.

Weird. A passport is better proof of an athlete’s gender than a sex test?

Apparently so. IOC spokesman Mark Adams insisted there were no sex tests “that everyone agrees with”, insisting they were “pretty disgraceful”, anyway.

Yet for the women Khelif and Lin have beaten – who’ve had their own dreams destroyed – the IOC’s “passport test” seem a betrayal. And they may be right.

To repeat, this furore is based on almost no facts, but gender experts suggest Khelif and Lin may have some disorders of sex development (DSD).

Those savaging Khelif are more determined to win an argument than understand a truth. Picture: Getty Images

Still, even that doesn’t prove they’re “cheating”. One DSD, for instance, is Swyers, which means Khelif could still have all of a woman’s reproductive organs except ovaries, but no clear performance advantage, despite having male XY chromosomes.

Or she could have 5ARD, which means she looked female at birth, but had internal testes and underwent male puberty, giving her a man’s strength.

People with 5ARD can live as women, but biologically they are male, giving them an unfair advantage over female athletes.

Even then, what is “unfair”?

American swimming superstar Michael Phelps won 28 Olympic medals because nature gave him enormously long arms, big feet, short legs, double jointed ankles, huge lungs and a body that produces half the lactic acid of a typical athlete.

Should he have been banned as a freak of nature? Should a seven-foot basketballer?

As for Khelif, what nature gave her is no unalloyed blessing. She’ll medal in Paris, after missing out in the Tokyo Games, but can she have children or survive this abuse from people keener to win an argument than understand a truth?