The Controversy of the 2024 Olympics

By T. Belmonte

As of 2004, transgender people have been allowed to participate in the Olympics. However, the first transgender athlete to ever compete was in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Every year different controversies emerge surrounding transgender athletes competing at the Olympic level, especially transgender women. Most issues surround the fact that many believe that it’s unfair against biological women, as transgender women, even with hormone blockers, still have a higher level of testosterone.

This article will talk about one of the biggest controversies of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Algerian boxer Imane Khelif won a match against Italian boxer Angela Carini in just 46 seconds. Carini surrendered the match, stating she had never been hit so hard in her life.

This incident raised speculations surrounding Khelif’s biological sex, as it was uncovered that in 2023, she was eliminated by the International Boxing Association (IBA) from an international boxing competition for failing to complete a gender test. Many believed she was not a biological woman and accused her participation in the Olympics to be unfair against other competitors, as she was “too strong”.

The media also enlarged this issue, as celebrities and billionaires such as Elon Musk, were constantly fuelling speculations through their huge platforms on social media. Transforming this small internal issue into a public debate.

However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) questioned the IBA and accused them of corruption and prejudice. The IOC later declared that Khelif was indeed eligible for the Olympics as she was assigned female at birth. Truthfully, she did have higher testosterone levels in her body. However, she was still within the scale permitted by the IOC.

Many successful women athletes are constantly questioned, especially if they don’t fit society’s parameter of femininity. Serena Williams has been accused time and time again of not being a “real woman”. And this is generated by people’s and athletes’ fear of men “pretending” to be women to compete at the Olympic level.

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