Author J.K. Rowling has fallen silent on her usually busy X (formerly Twitter) feed, after Olympic gold medalist boxer Imane Khelif filed a legal complaint in France for alleged cyber harassment over statements regarding her gender.

On August 9, lawyers for Khelif filed a lawsuit with a special unit of the public prosecutor’s office in Paris, stemming from false statements that spread online about her gender after the Algerian boxer defeated Italy’s Angela Carini in her first fight of the 2024 Olympic Games. Carini pulled out 46 seconds into the bout and told reporters afterwards that she had “never felt a punch like this.”

    • microphone900@lemmy.ml
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      26 days ago

      I haven’t seen any reporting confirming that she’s got XY chromosomes. But if you have an article, please correct me if I’m wrong. What I’ve been able to find is this:

      Banned governing body that’s fueling outcry on Olympic boxers has Russian ties and troubled history

      Summary-

      • The disqualification was done in a tournament run by an organization banned by the Olympics.

      • She participated in tournaments run by this organization with no issues for the last several years.

      • The organization hasn’t said why she was disqualified.

      • The man spouting the ‘trans woman’ claims is the leader of the organization. He’s a friend of Putin and described as a drug trafficker.

      • Her disqualification happened after she beat the previously undefeated Russian boxer Amineva 3 days post fight.

      There’s more in the article, but these are the quick bullet points I came up with.

        • AngryishHumanoid@reddthat.com
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          26 days ago

          But they haven’t said what test they performed to determine this, which would be the norm so the results can be verified.

            • AngryishHumanoid@reddthat.com
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              25 days ago

              Why does she have to? Why would she have a copy of a test allegedly done by a 3rd party that, based on news reports, was just using it as an excuse to eliminate her for beating a Russian opponent?

              • Snowflake@sh.itjust.works
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                25 days ago

                Do you know she doesn’t have the test results? When I get medical tests done I usually do receive the test results.

                There are news reports saying she’s a man if you care so much about news reports.

                It’s funny how it works both ways. She doesn’t have to release the results. And they don’t have to release them so you can verify it either. Playing your own stupid game. Why do they have to release the results?

                • AngryishHumanoid@reddthat.com
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                  25 days ago

                  You seem to be misunderstanding, intentionally I would guess. They claimed they did a test to “confirm” she was not a woman, I’m saying that’s a steaming hot load of bullshit and they were just looking for an excuse and they have no results to release.

                  Please cite your sources saying there are news reports that she’s a man.

                  • Lianodel@ttrpg.network
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                    24 days ago

                    That user is basing their position on a Daily Mail article citing LePoint, a french right-wing magazine, that quotes one of her trainers, who said (with context) “There was a problem with her hormones and chromosomes, but she’s a woman. That’s all that mattered to us.”

                    Nowhere does that even suggest she has XY chromosomes, and, to state the obvious, he’s not a doctor. He’s responding to an unsubstantiated allegation, and probably giving it too much credit. He even says that she underwent a testosterone test that came back within female norms.

                    It really is simple. The burden of proof is on people making these claims, and we’re not taking the word of a blatantly corrupt organization, that had a vested interest in disqualifying Khelif, who would not say what test was administered or what the results were. If they had more specific information, they wouldn’t shut up about it, because won’t even shut up now with less to go on.

    • AngryishHumanoid@reddthat.com
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      26 days ago

      That doesn’t make her not female, or trans. From the Snopes article about this:

      There are genetic conditions, termed differences of sexual development, in which biological females are born with XY chromosomes but possess female anatomy, or that affect how a biological female regulates and reacts to testosterone, causing levels typically associated with males. Though there is no independent confirmation that Khelif has these conditions, people born this way would legally be considered female or intersex.

      Debates over these issues in the context of women’s sports have nothing to do with a purported “woke” or “trans agenda,” because such instances involve women who were born as women, identify as women and have not undergone any sex reassignment surgery or procedure to change this fact. That is what IOC spokesperson Mark Adams meant when he clarified to the press “this is not a transgender issue.”

      Gender-reassignment procedures require significant financial and medical resources. The notion that a woman from a rural western Algerian village who sold scrap metal to support her boxing career would have had the ability to undergo such a procedure in a deeply conservative Muslim country that prohibits the practice is extremely unlikely, at best.

    • TwinTusks@bitforged.space
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      26 days ago

      Apparently that is not true. There was a report of test taken and result was xy, but the report was never shown to the public and the lab that took the test has been banned.

    • Gsus4@mander.xyz
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      25 days ago

      According to anti-trans people like her, there are only men and women. At birth Khleif was medically determined to be a woman and always lived as a woman. End of story, particularly for people like JKR who think this is a simple issue.

        • MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
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          26 days ago

          Sure there is. That mouth breather is refusing to use a woman’s feminine pronouns over an unsubstantiated rumour about a minor medical abnormality. They’re being ten times as rude as I am.

              • SLfgb@feddit.nl
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                25 days ago

                I’m sorry but no. Using gender-neutral language does not describe gender; using ‘they’ isn’t to misgender, it just leaves the gender unspecified.

                You can correctly use ‘they’ for anyone. If they’d said ‘he’, now that would’ve been different…

                (Edit: typo)

                • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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                  26 days ago

                  Yeah, it’s so minor. I think that commenter is only looking for a reason to be upset on behalf of someone else and use that as an excuse to blow up.

                • MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
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                  26 days ago

                  I didn’t say they were misgendering her, I said they refused to use her preferred pronouns. Surely you can agree with the factual accuracy of that statement.

                  • SLfgb@feddit.nl
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                    26 days ago

                    yea, nah.

                    Edit: Using a word is not the same as refusing to use another word in its place.

                  • SLfgb@feddit.nl
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                    26 days ago

                    Also, how do you even know her preferred pronouns in English? Did you ask her?

      • minyakcurry@monyet.cc
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        26 days ago

        The bullshit about XY chromosomes is pretty stupid, which is why the other replier provided an article and a few key points in refutation.

        The OP’s comment didn’t read to me as particularly incendiary, but thanks for labelling them as transphobic and mouth breathing with no precedent! Really appreciate good contributions to discourse like yours.


        EDIT: not sure what the downvotes are for. XY chromosomes are not exactly valid for determining sex, much less gender. Women might have Y chromosomes, or even three copies of X. Gender has nothing to do with this at all, in fact.

        Using XY as an argument is therefore bullshit.

        Even if it’s bullshit, there’s no need to call someone a mouth breather unprovoked. The other thread seems to be a shitshow anyway, so I’m glad the replier is being called out.

    • darki@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      Dude don’t stress about thiss… Lemmy is pretty much center-to-far-left , i.e. don’t bother bringing up facts to the argument 😆