Olympic Boxer Condemns ‘Spirit’-Killing ‘Bullying’ Amid Gender Controversy
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif shared a message for “all the people in the world” about bullying this week, following the controversy surrounding her gender at the Paris Olympics.
After being subject to misgendering and disqualification from competing with the International Boxing Association, which she’d previously said “committed an injustice” against her, Khelif said in a sit down with SNTV that people should “refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects,” and “[Bullying] can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying.”
Before competing in the Paris Olympics, Khelif, along with fellow female boxer Lin Yu-ting from Taiwan, had been disqualified from competition by the IBA because they had XY chromosomes in their DNA. The association said in a statement that their genetic makeup had posed an unfair “advantage” and disqualified the athletes to “maintain the integrity of the competition.” The news had quickly become misconstrued, particularly in Khelif’s case, as she was widely misgendered by the press. The Boston Globe had to issue an apology after referring to Khelif as trans in a print headline.