One former Team Canada powerlifting competitor is calling sporting federations and the Olympic committee to bar males from competing in women’s sports, saying it’s endangering women, after a woman boxer abandoned her bid for the Olympic medal over safety concerns.
Italian boxer Angela Carini dropped out of her welterweight match-up with Algeria’s Imane Khelif, who failed a testosterone test to determine gender eligibility in last year’s world championships, after 46 seconds in the ring. Fairness in Women’s Sports advocate April Hutchinson says that the fight demonstrates the advantages that males have in female sports.
This year, the Olympics welterweight boxing fight in Paris went viral, causing many online to call for males to be barred from competing against female combatants.
After feeling the power of Khelif’s straight right-hand jab, Carini abandoned her chance at the medal out of fear for her safety.
Khelif was a silver medalist at the 2022 World’s competition and was disqualified in 2023 for not meeting the International Boxing Association’s eligibility criteria for competing in the women’s league. Khelif has said this was due to discrimination against Algerians rather than because of having too much testosterone levels for the competition.
In a statement this week, the International Olympic Committee stated that ” all athletes participating in the boxing tournament of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations, as well as all applicable medical regulations.”
Competitors need to have females written on their passports to compete against women in the Olympic sport. Notably, Algeria does not allow for legal gender changes.
The conversation online reignited the debate, however, of whether men should be allowed to compete in combat sports against women.
“It’s basically violence against women with spectators,” Hutchinson told True North in an interview. “All those years of (time and money spent on) training, tossed aside just so that she didn’t have to get beat, hurt or possibly killed by a man in the boxing ring. Women shouldn’t have to be put in these positions.”
The IOC’s 2021 framework for fairness, inclusion and non-discrimination allows biological males to compete in female sports during the Olympic games.
“A female recognized in law should be eligible to compete in female competitions provided that she has androgen levels below the male range as shown by the serum concentration of testosterone,” one guideline says. “Or, if within the male range, she has an androgen resistance such that she derives no competitive advantage from such levels.”
“The International Olympics Committee and the Federation need to step up and protect women in sports,” Hutchinson said. “Without cheek-swabbing these athletes, we don’t know how many males there are. We don’t know because there’s no full disclosure.”
The IOC’s guidelines state a commitment to transparency of the decision-making process when determining gender eligibility but prevent “personally identifiable information” from being disclosed to protect the athlete’s identity.
The guidelines state, “No Athlete should be precluded from competing or excluded from competition on the exclusive ground of an unverified, alleged or perceived unfair competitive advantage due to their sex variations, physical appearance and transgender status…Everyone, regardless of their gender identity, expression and sex variations, should be able to participate in sport safely and without prejudice.”
The rules also prevent “targeted testing” aimed at determining a competitor’s sex. The IOC states that athletes should be included based on the gender given on their legal documentation, such as a passport, and assessed by an independent team of doctors on metrics such as male sex hormone levels.
“Each sport has different rules. Some go by levels of testosterone. Some say that they can’t go through male puberty. Some say, for example, if their passport says female, then they are female,” Hutchinson said. “To solve this issue, we need to bring back the cheek swab. If you have male on your birth certificate at birth, then you compete with males, or at least have not gone through male puberty.”
She said male athletes are incentivized to compete against women in sports.
“If they weren’t incentivized, they would just go compete with their biological sex. They can claim prizes, thousands of dollars in prize money, get sponsors, notoriety, medals and can take scholarships away from women,” Hutchinson said. “There’s no incentive to go over in their other biological sex because they might (rank) six thousandth Instead of number one.”
Hutchinson said advocates for fairness in women’s sports, such as herself, have been calling for a co-ed division where transgender athletes can compete among themselves.
“We have asked for…an open category so that the men and women if they so choose, can compete together in a coed category. That’s the fairest solution, and that’s all we’ve asked for and that’s not discrimination and that’s not unethical,” she said. “Federation’s the Olympic Committee and governments policymakers, these board members, they need to step up and protect women and girls.”