• Godort@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Yes. She’s female and was born female.

    It’s illegal to be transgender in Algeria, and the only complaint came from a Russian boxing body with a history of making suspect claims in the past.

    • ryper@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      the only complaint came from a Russian boxing body with a history of making suspect claims in the past

      And that was only after she defeated a previously undefeated Russian. Sounds an awful lot like sore losers making up excuses.

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Sounds an awful lot like sore losers making up excuses.

        Or, as they’re known in the Olympics, Russians.

        This shit is why I say that Russian athletes shouldn’t be able to compete even under the Olympic flag. Russia has cheated and lied so many times that it baffles me that the IOC even lets them participate.

        Or it would if their corruption knew any bounds.

      • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Where are you getting this info? It was an Italian boxer named Angela Carini that started these allegations after 1 punch: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/08/02/sport/who-is-imane-khelif-olympic-boxer-intl

        Carini apologized Friday for her treatment of Khelif. “I’m sorry for my opponent,” she told Italian outlet La Gazzetta dello Sport. “If the IOC said she can fight, I respect that decision.”

        "It wasn’t something I intended to do,” Carini said. “Actually, I want to apologize to her and everyone else. I was angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke,” she said.

        Her complaint was then taken up by transphobic organizations around the world, including Russian ones: https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/40797618/algeria-imane-khelif-wins-olympic-gold-amid-gender-dispute

        • VerdantSporeSeasoning@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          So I think that you’re missing that this “controversy” started before this year’s Olympics began. In 2023, a boxing organization (IBA) based out of Russia flagged Khelif as not passing eligibility after she defeated a previously undefeated Russian boxer. Khelif’s disqualification meant the Russian woman kept her undefeated title. I’m lazy & going to copy from Wikipedia here:

          The Washington Post stated, “It remains unclear what standards Khelif and Lin Yu Ting failed [in 2023] to lead to the disqualifications”, further writing, “There never has been evidence that […] Khelif […] had XY chromosomes or elevated levels of testosterone.” The IBA did not reveal the testing methodology, stating the “specifics remain confidential”. At the time, Khelif said the ruling meant having “characteristics that mean I can’t box with women”, but said she was the victim of a “big conspiracy” regarding the disqualification. She initially appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but the appeal was terminated since Khelif couldn’t pay the procedural costs. After the appeal, Khelif organised her own independent tests in order to clear her name and return to boxing.

          Alright back to my own words here. So the article goes on to say that in July of this year, the IBA said Khelif failed the test, but would not release the specifics about why exactly. The IOC said the ruling was “arbitrary” and “without due process”. That is the background that sets the stage for what happened when the Italian quit this year at the Olympics and everyone subsequently lost their shit.

          Here’s the Wikipedia article, though feel free to check out other reputable sites for more detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imane_Khelif?wprov=sfla1

            • sudneo@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              So you are confidently answering people with wrong information, pushing hate against an individual, and your reaction to someone who educated you on the matter is just “thank you”? Maybe don’t spread misinformation if you are not certain, and edit your factually wrong comments…

              • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Who am I pushing hate against that doesn’t deserve it? The Italian boxer is a transphobe. I linked sources. I don’t need to edit because it’s not that long of a comment chain and you can see the missing context. That’s how conversation works. I don’t need to exist to your specifications.

                • sudneo@lemm.ee
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                  3 months ago

                  You didn’t provide any source about what you are claming. I have seen the interview recording. She has never said anything at all about the other boxer.

                  Here is the interview (use a VPN to Italy and translate)

                  So to answer the question: you are fomenting hate against the Italian boxer with false accusations (at the best of our knowledge):

                  • she didn’t start any allegation about Imane
                  • she did not make any remark, let alone any teansfobic remark

                  You are effectively the equivalent of people who jumped the gun and started calling Imane a man.

                  Usually when you confidently write wrong information is good practice to rectify with an edit.

    • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      The claim is not that she was initially considered to be a man by the Algerian government and then changed her public identity to that of a woman, but rather that she has some sort of intersex condition that elevates her testosterone levels into the masculine range.

        • Ech@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          Seriously. Phelps is pretty much genetically ideal for a swimmer, but nobody claimed it was “UnfAiR!!” when he swept the board multiple olympics in a row, garnering more gold medals than anyone in history, before or since.

          One female boxer looks a bit “too” muscular and the bigots are up in arms. Fucking assholes.

        • sudneo@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          This is honestly an argument that I find very weak. I mean absolutely there are plenty of genetic advantages in general in sport. The problem is that not all sports have categories to isolate competitions for certain parameters. Swimming does not, so you could argue that is unfair by default, but that’s what it is right now. Fighting sports generally do have categories, both gender and weight.

          If we leave alone gender, if someone had some condition (let’s imagine something that doesn’t exist) that would result in having muscle mass common for a 80Kg, but in a 70Kg body, that person would probably have an unfair advantage in the 70Kg category because weight is a proxy for muscle mass as well.

          The only reasonable argument here is that the boxer, even if she has some genetic condition, still tested within the limits for female boxers. That is pretty much it, which means that whatever condition she has (if any), it’s not considered an advantage in the female category according to current standards.

        • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          What’s interesting is Katie Ledecky can beat him on long distance swims, if we go by their times. So how much of an advantage is gender in many sports at this level? And let’s look at disability - Usain Bolt had/has scoliosis, Ledecky has POTS, and many other athletes have “disabling” conditions. So why would intersex get a special category that isn’t allowed? It’s just transphobia.

          Here’s a source for Katie Ledecky beating Phelps: https://www.essentiallysports.com/us-sports-news-olympics-news-swimming-news-is-katie-ledecky-faster-than-michael-phelps-answering-the-burning-question-of-the-swimming-community-before-us-olympic-trials/

          • sudneo@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            Looking at the other comments, you are clearly not here to discuss, but I will make a good faith attempt and play devil’s advocate.

            The difference between intersex and other conditions you mentioned is that it blurs the lines of a specific set of parameters that are specifically used to create categories between sports. Men and women are not fighting each other for more than anagraphic reasons (I hope we can all agree on this), and if a condition invalidates that distinction (I.e. gives some advantages that men have over a women), then it breaks the boundary of such categories in a similar way as it would be having someone from a heavier category fight in a lighter one (BTW, this is routinely done by having athletes go in terrible dehydration regimes).

            Now this has nothing to do with this specific case, as there is no any objective proof for any of this, nor that she is intersex nor that she does have any advantage, but it’s purely a way to frame the answer to the question “what’s the difference between having scoliosis and being intersex”.

            Edit:

            I will add one more thing, comparing a sprinter to a long-distance swimmer is exactly like comparing someone who runs 100m with those who run marathons. Clearly there is an advantage, considering that Katie Ledecky is an absolute monster, but she would have beaten the 3 worse times only that men did in this Olympics, and that she would have been almost a minute behind the winner, meaning almost 2 full lengths. Of course men have an advantage…also if you took the time from https://www.worldaquatics.com/athletes/1001621/michael-phelps, you probably have seen that he was 15 at the time…

            • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              The thing is, other hormones can give advantages too. That people put so much stock into testosterone alone is bad science. That intersex conditions that involve testosterone are so hated is transphobia. Women should be in their neat little boxes and men in theirs and any anatomy that changes that is taboo and should be banned. Like where should an intersex fighter compete? If this woman was intersex and had LOCAH or PCOS or other conditions, should she not be allowed in any division of Olympics?

              Why don’t we have testosterone classes instead of (or in addition to) weight classes, if it matters so much? All athletes with the same level of testosterone can compete, just like athletes that weigh the same compete against each other. Why dont we organize it that way instead? Isn’t that more exact and fair?

              • sudneo@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                I didn’t mention testosterone at all. I am not a specialist and I mostly don’t care about the details. I specifically talked in functional terms: if whatever condition gives you some advantages that men have, then it breaks the categories that are established. In this way, that condition would be different from -say- having huge feet like Phelps, even if they give you an advantage, because there are no categories based on foot size in swimming.

                Everything else is an interesting hypothetical discussion, and maybe one day categories will be based on more parameters. Fact is, today they are like this, rough and using proxies such as gender and weight to make fights that are more-or-less fair.

                • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  Well, everyone else here is specifically talking about testosterone. That’s the “problematic” chemical. It’s relevant because it’s a normal endogenous chemical we make and some women naturally make more. It can help with more muscle mass and bone density. That it’s testosterone is entirely relevant.

                  That’s like speaking on Gaza and saying “it doesn’t matter where it is.” Like yes it absolutely matters. The context and specifics matter when discussing complicated topics.

                  All athletes that beat other athletes have a presumed physical advantage. A physical advantage isn’t an issue. It’s testosterone that’s the issue according to the people removeding about it.

                  • sudneo@lemm.ee
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                    3 months ago

                    A physical advantage isn’t an issue. It’s testosterone that’s the issue according to the people removeding about it.

                    No, it’s a physical advantages that derive from a condition that renders certain parameters (whatever they are) similar to stronger categories (in this case, men).

                    If it’s just testosterone or a combination of hormones and other things it doesn’t matter in the perspective of the discussion I was trying to have (which answered your question, by the way)…

                    So why would intersex get a special category that isn’t allowed?

        • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Was it him or Lance Armstrong that ended up getting caught doping? Pretty sure it was the latter, but also recall Phelps getting accused of something. If could’ve even been something irrelevant like marijuana.

          Agree with your point, though.

      • snooggums@midwest.social
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        3 months ago

        She is a woman who was born a woman and happens to have high testosterone for a woman, just like some people are taller than others. She just happens to be at one end of the testosterone spectrum.

        Just because you want baseless rumors to be true doesn’t make them true.

          • snooggums@midwest.social
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            3 months ago

            “Higher than average.” Hence the upper body muscles being larger that average for a female boxer.

            It isn’t rocket surgery.

            • 0laura@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              wrong. the IBA said they never did any testosterone tests. feel free to disprove me, but to my knowledge there is 0 evidence even hinting at her having high T

                • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  Oh, they must just have gotten her “hIgEr ThAn AvErAgE” testosterone results from the Olympic village psychic. I must have been silly to assume that saying it’s higher than average meant someone tested rather than you just pulling bullshit out of your ass.

      • realitista@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        There seems to be little credible hard evidence on either side, so anyone claiming to know the real truth here is just talking out of their ass.

        • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          That’s the point I was originally trying to make. This article is written as if the question has been conclusively answered, but it hasn’t been.

      • Gerudo@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        The genetic issue she has is in 1in 600 people. Not exactly rare

    • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Where are you getting this info? It was an Italian boxer named Angela Carini that started these allegations after 1 punch: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/08/02/sport/who-is-imane-khelif-olympic-boxer-intl

      Carini apologized Friday for her treatment of Khelif. “I’m sorry for my opponent,” she told Italian outlet La Gazzetta dello Sport. “If the IOC said she can fight, I respect that decision.”

      "It wasn’t something I intended to do,” Carini said. “Actually, I want to apologize to her and everyone else. I was angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke,” she said.

      Her complaint was then taken up by transphobic organizations around the world, including Russian ones: https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/40797618/algeria-imane-khelif-wins-olympic-gold-amid-gender-dispute

      • sudneo@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        She didn’t start any allegation. You are spreading miainformation.

        The quote you cited is from days after, and she apologized for the case that was created, but she didn’t start any of it. Her interview after the match was 10 seconds…

        • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          She did add validity to the accusations and made it worse. So what if she apologized? She should still be banned AMD she should apologize anyway.

          • sudneo@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            How did she add validity? She simply quit a match and said it was due to pain. People picked it up and made a case on top of, which is not her responsibility. Once that happened, she apologized for it.

      • sudneo@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        She didn’t start any allegation. You are spreading miainformation.

        The quote you cited is from days after, and she apologized for the case that was created, but she didn’t start any of it. Her interview after the match was 10 seconds…