While the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris is meant to celebrate seasoned athletes from all around the world, the public has focused on something besides sports: the gender identity of the athletes Imane Khelif and Lin Yu Ting.
Previously, Algeria’s Imane Khelif went viral following her fight with Italy’s Angela Carini. The fight lasted only 46 seconds after Carini withdrew, stating the punches were too painful. Carini’s forfeit automatically allowed Khelif to advance in the competition. Soon, rumors started swirling that Imane Khelif was intersex or transgender, with people claiming she has XY chromosomes and elevated testosterone levels.
It’s true that, in 2023, she was eliminated from a boxing competition by the International Boxing Association for failing their gender eligibility test, which only strengthened the rumors. However, the International Olympic Committee views the IBA as a corrupt organization, which is why they aren’t using the IBA for boxing oversight this year. Khelif had never had a problem with gender tests before and has been a cisgender woman for her entire life, as affirmed by the IOC’s own process.
Khelif is not the only female boxer being incorrectly called transgender by opportunistic transphobes. Lin Yu Ting of Taiwan is in the same situation.
Who is Lin Yu Ting?
Lin Yu Ting is a Taiwanese boxer from New Taipei City. As of this writing, she has participated in 24 total fights, winning 19 of them and losing five. She is currently 28 years old and is coached by John Tseng Tzu-Chiang.
Lin Yu Ting has been competing internationally since 2013, competing at the AIBA World Women’s Youth Championships in Albena, Bulgaria, and winning gold. In 2018, she won gold at the AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships as a bantamweight.
In 2019, she won a gold medal at the 2019 AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in Bangkok as a featherweight.
Where is the misconception coming from?
On March 24, 2023, the International Boxing Association (IBA) disqualified Lin Yu Ting from the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi. While they did not go into detail as to why she was disqualified, they claimed that she, alongside Algeria’s Imane Khelif, failed to meet the gender criteria to participate in the women’s competition.
It is important to note that athletes do not undergo a testosterone examination, and the specifics of IBA’s criteria are confidential. All that was made public was that the two were found to have biological “advantages” over other female boxers. With that, it causes wariness on what grounds they were disqualified. In June 2023, the IBA’s Olympic status was revoked due to governance issues that were deemed corrupt and finance issues, furthering clouding their authority on the matter.
On July 29, 2024, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that Lin Yu Ting had complied with all medical regulations to participate in the Paris Olympics. Despite public uproar concerning Lin Yu Ting’s participation following Khelif’s fight with Carini, the IOC has defended its decision to allow both boxers to compete in the 2024 Olympics. They stated that Lin Yu Ting and Khelif have every right to compete in Paris as they abided by all regulations, regardless of IBA’s past ruling.
This decision by the IOC has sparked major discourse on gender and eligibility in sports. It has also shown the nasty side of people, who believe that despite Lin and Khelif being cisgender women, they do not qualify as women at an athletic level. With this being the first year the Olympics had 50% female athletes, it renews the debate on equality in sports. Sadly, this is nothing new, as we’ve previously covered how regulations around gender in sports have shown the hypocrisy of transphobes who claim to be protecting cisgender women, as in the case of Caster Semenya.
Lin Yu Ting won in her featherweight round against Sidora Turdibekova of Uzbekistan on August 2. On the 4th, Lin Yu Ting will fight against Bulgaria’s Svetlana Staneva.
Published: Aug 2, 2024 04:23 pm