Stand with Imane Khelif: Racism, misogyny and transphobia tarnish 2024 Olympics

In the imperialist era, the Olympic Games were never just about athletics or international goodwill. The United States and other Western imperialist powers dominated the bodies that planned, organized and carried out these events, always striving to use this platform to further their global aims.

It’s a remarkable accomplishment that countries of the Global South and socialist countries like China, Cuba, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea can field skilled athletes who can challenge and win medals despite the global athlete drain by the U.S. and Europe.

The 2024 Summer Games in Paris will go down in infamy for allowing the Zionist apartheid regime of “Israel” (and its master, the U.S.) to compete while committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Meanwhile, Russia is banned from the games because of the U.S.-NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

This year, in addition to the usual colonialist and racist dynamics, the Olympics has been gripped by the global trans panic and a calculated hate campaign against trans women on social media. 

First came a concocted outrage campaign labeling the Olympics opening ceremony as “blasphemous” because of a tableau featuring drag performers and dancers seated around a table. Far-right groups and media labeled it a parody of Da Vinci’s painting “The Last Supper” and a deliberate insult to Christianity and Christians. 

In fact, the performance was based on the famous painting “The Feast of the Gods” by Dutch artist Jan van Bijlert, which is housed in a French museum. The painting depicts a celebration of the gods of Greek mythology.

But the main target of the anti-trans attacks has been Imane Khelif, a woman boxer from Algeria.

Trans women banned by IOC

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not allow trans women to compete if they went through the wrong puberty – that is unless they were able to use puberty blockers and transition before adolescence – among other Draconian restrictions that amount to a blanket ban.

This is an impossible standard to meet for trans women athletes in most countries, and increasingly even in the few Western countries like the U.S. and Britain where some trans youth were able to transition early because of rampant attacks on life-saving gender-affirming care, especially for kids.

This year, only one trans man athlete (boxer Hergie Bacyadan from the Philippines) and two nonbinary athletes (soccer player Quinn from Canada and runner Nikki Hiltz from the U.S.) are competing out of 193 openly LGBTQIA+ athletes.

Since no trans women are competing in this year’s Olympics, the trans panic has instead targeted cisgender women who don’t meet white Western standards of “femininity.”

(Cisgender is a term that describes people whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth. Transgender describes people whose gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth.)

Welterweight boxer Imane Khelif of Algeria and featherweight boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan (identified at the Olympics as Chinese Taipei), both cis women competing in Paris, were previously disqualified by the International Boxing Association (IBA) at last year’s Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi. 

Allegedly, when the boxers were subject to undisclosed testing under new anti-trans rules, these two women’s tests showed some XY chromosomes in addition to the more common XX chromosomes for cisgender women.

Toxic bigotry targets athletes

Last year, the International Olympic Committee broke ties with the IBA over corruption and financial malfeasance. The IBA has refused to release details of the women’s tests. The IOC – no friend of trans people, as we have seen – included Khelif and Lin in this year’s games without issue.

CNN reported: “The IBA did not say what test the pair had been subjected to. ‘The athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential,’ it said.

“IOC spokesperson Adams dismissed the IBA’s test, calling it ‘arbitrary,’ and said the pair were disqualified by the IBA ‘without any due process.’”

Humans have wide chromosomal variations, including cisgender women who have some XY chromosomes and cisgender men who have some XX chromosomes, among other combinations.

Both Khelif and Lin were assigned female at birth and identify with their assigned genders. Both have lived as women their entire lives; neither identifies as trans nor were they ever diagnosed as intersex. They have always competed in women’s athletics. Both have suffered many losses as well as victories on their road to the 2024 Olympics.

None of this mattered to the far-right hate campaign that exploded on social media after Italian boxer Angela Carini resigned in tears during a match against Khelif on Aug. 1. The ongoing, highly coordinated international campaign against trans people and trans rights, based in the United States, was searching for an opportunity, and seized on a white woman’s tears to demonize an Arab/African woman whom they deemed “masculine.”

Hateful memes and headlines flooded social media and some mainstream media, including the Boston Globe (owned by the notoriously anti-trans New York Times). The fake campaign of outrage at a “male” hitting a woman during a boxing match was picked up and spread virally across the globe – including, shamefully, by some “leftists” who went full-in on anti-trans hate and misogyny.

Before her next bout, Khelif was subject to hateful propaganda by Hungarian opponent Anna Luca Hamori, including an extremely racist meme depicting Khelif as a monstrous minotaur in the boxing ring against a smaller feminine opponent. After Khelif defeated Hamori on Aug. 3, she flashed an “X” with her fingers – a dog whistle to the racist and anti-trans fascists watching.

On Aug. 9, Imane Khelif won the Olympic gold medal, defeating China’s Liu Yang in the final. 

“Hours before Khelif battled for a gold medal in the women’s welterweight division Friday night, women arrived at Roland Garros wrapped in Algerian flags, many with no interest in boxing, but with the sole aim at supporting the 25-year-old boxer thrust into a worldwide clash over gender identity and regulation in sports,” the Associated Press reported.

Support from Palestinian team

The Italian boxer, Carini, later issued a half-hearted apology to Khelif. There have been rumors that she was pressured by the IBA and the NATO Italian government (headed by fascist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni) to throw the match. NATO member Hungary is similarly headed by a far-right regime that wages open war on LGBTQIA+ people.

The Algerian government and people responded with outrage to the charges against Khelif and the hate campaign fueled by white European governments and media, and celebrity bigots like “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, YouTube star Jake Paul, and Twitter/X owner Elon Musk. The large Algerian diaspora in France has turned out to loudly support Khelif in her matches.

“Algerian flags lined Roland-Garros’ lower sections, and Khelif entered the arena second, to the night’s loudest cheers and deafening chants of ‘I-MANE!,’” Yahoo Sports reported of the Aug. 6 match.

France, the Olympic host country, was the colonial occupier of Algeria and ruled with an iron fist until driven out in 1962. 

The Palestinian delegation issued a statement in solidarity with Khelif, which condemned “the unethical behavior targeting the distinguished Algerian champion …. The Palestinian Olympic Committee stands in full solidarity with Imane Khalif [who] exemplifies excellence, determination and resilience.” 

‘It can destroy people’

Nonbinary Olympic runner Nikki Hiltz declared: “Anti-trans rhetoric is anti-woman. These people aren’t ‘protecting women’s sports,’ they are enforcing rigid gender norms and anyone who doesn’t fit perfectly into those norms is targeted and vilified.”

Many women of color have noted that Dutee Chand, Caster Semenya, Annet Negesa, and Serena Williams are among the other Black and Brown women who have been accused of being men for outperforming white athletes.

In an interview with SNTV, Khelif said: “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 bullying.”

Sally Jane Black, an organizer of the Protect Trans Lives Coalition and the Oct. 19 National March and Speakout for Trans Lives in Columbus, Ohio, summed up: 

“Even if Imane Khelif were trans, she should still be allowed to compete in the Olympics as a woman. Let’s not lose sight of that, even as we address the fact that the anti-trans movement is wrong about who she is due to their narrow and hateful definition of womanhood.”