Olympic Gold Medalist Imane Khelif sparked controversy over her transgender identity during the 2024 Paris Olympics. Her gender was questioned after her match against Italian boxer Angela Carini, which lasted only 46 seconds before Carini dropped out, claiming her nose had been “broken”. After Carini made a non-political statement about Imane Khelif, the discussion about Khelif’s eligibility to compete in women’s sports reopened. Khelif was disqualified from last year’s world championship after failing an unspecified gender eligibility test due to reportedly high testosterone levels and it claimed she had X and Y chromosomes.
Imane Khelif filed a legal complaint in France for online harassment and faced criticism from her former sparring partner, Joana Nwamerue, following the controversy over her gender identity. Nwamerue expressed strong beliefs about Imane being a man, stating that she would not believe otherwise until Khelif undergoes a test proving her gender. “But he is a man,” Nwamerue said, according to Reduxx. “I will stand by my words until he/she takes a test to prove to the world that he/she is a woman. But we all know that won’t happen.”
After that, she went on to talk about how Khelif’s teammates came to her and told her that Khelif “is not a man” and that her environment may have an effect on her testosterone levels and chromosomes, she still stands by what she said. Nwamerue and Khelif had sparred a total of three-to-four times, saying Khelif used “male power and male technique”.
Following the harassment Khelif has faced she has come out to say, “I send a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects, it 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 buying.” Since then, she has filed a legal complaint in France for online harassment related to her gender during the Paris Games, her lawyer said, according to the Associated Press. Not much has been said since she filed her complaint.
