Imane Khelif, the IOC, World Boxing and mandatory sex testing

The female category in sport is for women and girls – individuals with XX chromosomes.

Identity is not biology.

To pretend otherwise is not only to make a mockery of any notion of fairness but, in the case of boxing, risk serious injury or worse.

Now, with Algeria’s Imane Khelif said to be on the verge of returning to competition, World Boxing has announced that Khelif, winner of a gold medal at the Paris Games, must take a chromosome test to prove eligibility – in its words, undergo “mandatory sex testing.” 

Unless someone manipulates the evidence, the result is going to be crystal clear, déjà vu all over again, because in chromosome tests given amid the International Boxing Association’s 2022 and 2023 world championships, the boxer’s DNA showed XY markers with “male” karyotypes. The IOC knew this. And still it permitted Khelif, and Yu Ting Lin of Chinese Taipei, whose tests turned up the same markers, to compete in Paris. Lin also won gold. 

3 Wire Sports remains the only journalistic outlet to have seen these 2022 and 2023 tests.

Since winning gold, Khelif has been on a publicity tear that clearly aims to spotlight a female identity – appearing at a Bottega Veneta fashion show (“mustard button-up shacket with black leather trousers”), posing for the cover feature in one of Vogue magazine’s editions and more. In January, a Qatari public relations agency, Kotinos, announced Khelif had joined up; a few days ago, anticipating a first-since-Paris appearance at a boxing tourney next week in Holland, the Kotinos Instagram account posted, again, about Khelif.

In Paris, Khelif said, “I am a woman, like any other woman. I was born a woman. I have lived as a woman. I compete as a woman. There is no doubt about that,” adding, “There are enemies of success — that is what I call them.”

Since Paris, Khelif has not – at least for the public record – taken a chromosome test. 

The IBA’s current chief executive, Chris Roberts, has suggested repeatedly that Khelif ought to do so.

IBA president Umar Kremlev is Russian. In June 2023, the IOC, just days after being informed of what was what with Khelif, banned the IBA. A complete picture would suggest that, despite a lengthy IOC analysis, the move was driven in some measure by a personality dispute between IOC president Thomas Bach and Kremlev amid the complexities of Russia’s participation in the Olympics, and particularly in the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The IOC oversaw boxing at the 2024 Games. Eligibility for the female category was based not on biology but identity – a passport declaring “female.”

An IOC statement issued during the Games about the controversy makes no note of the IBA notification just weeks before.

It does note that the decision to disqualify Khelif and Lin from the 2023 worlds was taken by the IBA secretary general and chief executive at the time, the federation board ratifying it afterward. The IOC called this turn of events “arbitrary,” declaring, “Such an approach is contrary to good governance.”

At a Paris news conference, IOC spokesman Mark Adams told a news conference, “Those tests are not legitimate tests. The tests themselves, the process of the tests, the ad hoc nature of the tests are not legitimate.

“The testing, the method of the testing, the idea of the testing, which happened kind of overnight. None of it is legitimate and this does not deserve any response.”

The 2023 IBA championships were held in New Delhi. The tests were done at a local Dr. Lal PathLabs, a “national reference lab” that is, as well, accredited by CAP, the Northfield, Illinois-based College of American Pathologists, and certified by the ISO, the Swiss-based International Organization for Standardization.

As was later observed in an article in a self-described “Italian conservative think tank,” Centro Machiavelli, the clarification is rich, the article turning to a Latin phrase – excusatio non petita accusato manifesta – that means, “An apology was not sought by the accused, who was clearly accused.” 

The article, written by Daniele Scalia, the center’s founder and president, who, according to its website, holds a doctorate in political studies, goes on to say, “The IOC’s clarification suggests that it is aware that this is indeed a case of DSD.”

Bach, in an Associated Press interview roughly three months ago, referring to Khelif and Lin, said, “These two women boxers have been born as women, they have been raised as women, they have competed as women and nobody ever claimed even that they are transgender.

“What happened was there was a Russian-led misinformation campaign which then distorted the truth, the facts, and now we have this unfortunate situation that these two athletes are considered to be transgender. But. They. Are. Not.”

There is no “Russian-led misinformation campaign.” The issue is not whether Khelif (and Lin) are transgender.

Facts are facts. 

Last October, in an account that built on what I wrote from Paris, a French outlet, citing a June 2023 medical report, reported that Khelif has a difference in sexual development – formally called 5-alpha reductase type-2 deficiency – with XY chromosomes, internal testes and a “micropenis.”

A hormone test showed a “male-type testosterone level of 14.7,” the French story said, “while the female gender does not exceed the maximum level of 3.”

As an official U.S. government website, the National Library of Medicine, explains, many people with 5-alpha reductase are “assigned female at birth” but are “genetically male.”

The internal testes in such individuals — though they do not descend from the abdominal cavity — produce testosterone. In turn, androgen receptors read and process that testosterone. During puberty, that testosterone typically confers masculine traits that can translate into a huge advantage in sports.

The French outlet, Le Correspondant, goes on to refer to Mustapha Berraf, an IOC member from Algeria, declaring Berraf “used his connections and ‘pushed the file,” signing the Khelif letter of admission to the Paris Games. 

“Contacted, Berraf defends himself against any unilateral decision, which would not have obtained the agreement of the IOC presidency, but acknowledges having ‘supported the candidacy of his fellow citizen … out of patriotism. While forgetting to specify that he was very aware of [Khelif’s] sexual anatomy.”

Friday’s World Boxing statement, meanwhile, says the federation’s Congress typically amends its competition rules. “However,” it says, “under special or emergency situations, the World Boxing Executive Board holds the authority to make immediate amendments when a rule is deemed no longer functional or when evolving conditions necessitate a change.”

This is precisely what happened with the IBA action at the 2023 worlds – evolving conditions, the results of the chromosome testing becoming known amid the championships, necessitating a change.

Last October, a United Nations expert, in a report about “violence against women and girls,” noted the Paris boxing charade, observing the IOC “refused to carry out a sex screening.”

The report declared, “Current technology enables a reliable sex screening procedure through a simple cheek swab that ensures non-invasiveness, confidentiality and dignity.”

Once more:

This is precisely what World Boxing is now mandating – a PCR test, as it is formally known, that can be conducted with a cheek swab and, as the federation said in a news release, “reveals the presence of the Y chromosome, which is an indicator of biological sex.”

One more time:

With Khelif said to be intent on taking part in the Holland event, the June 5-10 Eindhoven Box Cup, World Boxing, having leveraged IOC outrage against Kremlev, finds itself in the same position – precisely – the IBA was in back in 2023, 

Careful readers of the World Boxing release will note it does not use the pronoun “she” when referring to Khelif. Six times the statement mentions Khelif. In every instance it is “Imane Khelif,” both names. 

The World Boxing release goes on to say, without offering a specific date, that its board adopted the new sex testing procedure in May 2025. It says it sent a letter to its member federations on May 30 outlining the new procedure: “These new eligibility rules were developed with the express purpose of safeguarding athletes in combat sports, particularly given the physical risks associated with Olympic-style boxing.”

So what about a passport for purpose of eligibility? 

In November 2021, the IOC issued a lengthy document entitled, “Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations.” That same article from Centro Machiavelli takes the position this IOC document was “clearly inspired by the tenets of gender ideology.”

The IOC white paper, as detailed in “Principle 3,” says athletes should be allowed to compete “in the category that best aligns with their self-determined gender identity.”

It would be OK, the paper says, to “test athletes’ performance and physical capability.” But, it says, “No athlete should be subject to targeted testing because of, or aimed at determining, their sex, gender identity and/or sex variations.”

One more disconnect:

The new sex-test policy, the World Boxing release says, will take effect July 1. But “World Boxing has written to the Algerian Boxing Federation to inform it that Imane Khelif will not be allowed to participate in the female category at the Eindhoven Box Cup,” scheduled well before July 1, “or any World Boxing event until Imane Khelif undergoes sex testing.”

The release also says athletes with a Y chromosome or “with a difference of sexual development (DSD) where male adrogenization occurs, will be eligible to compete in the male category.”

The IOC provisionally recognized World Boxing in February 2025, having made clear it was done with Kremlev and Russia, citing IBA finance and governance matters even though the IBA had – again – offered evidence documenting it had enacted reforms. World Boxing is due to supervise the sport in Los Angeles in 2028.

Let the record be clear: 

The IOC purports to be about fair play. Kremlev and the IBA sought to ensure fair play. 

The IOC moved against the IBA after the federation’s members voted in elections, repeatedly, for Kremlev. Yet the IOC has taken no action against FIE, the international fencing federation, whose members have voted repeatedly for another Russian, Alisher Usmanov, most recently last fall. 

After a Kremlev election victory in May 2022, the IOC promptly issued a statement that said it merits “careful analysis” and reinforced “questions and doubts around IBA’s governance.” When, at a special assembly later that year, the IBA voted not to hold a new election, 106 national federations opting against a re-run against 36 in favor, support for Kremlev manifest, the IOC said it was “extremely concerned” and noted the “chaotic circumstances of the voting procedure.”

A few days ago in Doha, elections at the table tennis federation devolved into such chaos when Sweden’s Petra Sorling, an IOC member, retained the presidency that Sorling claimed she needed the help of Swedish embassy staff to get out of Qatar safely. In a statement, the table tennis federation condemned the “disruption.” 

Has the IOC, as it did with the IBA, jumped in?

The answer is no.