She won boxing gold. Now Imane Khelif has filed a harassment complaint over claims she's a man or transgender
The Algerian women's Olympic boxing champion faced false claims about her sex and gender
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif won a gold medal in the women's welterweight division and was her country's flag bearer in the Olympics closing ceremony.
She's become a hero in Algeria and is bringing global attention to women's boxing. But what she's most famous for is the intense scrutiny about her sex and gender after a rain of online criticism and false claims during the Paris Olympics.
Now, the Olympic boxing champion has filed a legal complaint in France for online harassment, according to her lawyer.
In a statement posted Saturday to Instagram, Khelif's lawyer, Nabil Boudi, alleged "aggravated cyber-harassment" targeting Khelif. He described it as a "misogynist, racist and sexist campaign" against the boxer.
The complaint was filed Friday with a special unit in the Paris prosecutor's office for combating online hate speech, according to the Associated Press. It's now up to prosecutors to decide whether to open an investigation. As is common in French law, the complaint doesn't name an alleged perpetrator but leaves it to investigators to determine who could be at fault.
The bullying Khelif endured "harms human dignity," she previously told SNTV, a sports video partner of The Associated Press.
"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."
Worldwide clash
Khelif was thrust into a worldwide clash over gender identity and regulation in sports after her first fight of the Games, when Italian opponent Angela Carini pulled out just 46 seconds into the match after taking a hit to the face.
False claims that Khelif was transgender or a "biological man" erupted online, amplified by celebrities, including Elon Musk, author J.K. Rowling, brothers Logan Paul and Jake Paul — former YouTube stars who have become involved in wrestling and boxing, respectively — and Caitlyn Jenner, a retired Olympic gold-medallist and transgender woman.
"Could any picture sum up our new men's rights movement better? The smirk of a male who knows he's protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he's just punched in the head, and whose life's ambition he's just shattered," Rowling said on X, formerly known as Twitter. The Harry Potter author has become known for her controversial comments about the transgender community.
There's a long and fraught history of sex testing and claims in women's sports, Rose Eveleth, the host of the new podcast Tested, from CBC and NPR, told CBC's Front Burner last week.
But they noted that boxing tends to increase the emotional intensity and stakes.
"Some of the worst actors, who don't actually care that much about women's sports or about boxing at all, can make this play that it's about safety, that it's about, you know, a man beating up a woman. Which, again, is not what is happening here," Eveleth said.
"But it's a really spicy headline, and it's a really intense tweet that you can share that people will get all riled up about. And I think it makes it easier to froth people up."
IOC defends Khelif
The International Olympic Committee has defended Khelif, saying in an Aug. 1 statement that "every person has the right to practise sport without discrimination." It also decried the "misleading information" circulating about Khelif.
"As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport," the statement read.
Ahead of Khelif's gold-medal match, IOC president Thomas Bach defended her right to compete in the women's competition.
"What is not possible is someone saying 'this is not a woman' just by looking at somebody, or by falling prey to a defamation campaign by a not-credible organization with highly political interests," Bach said Friday, according to the AP.
Khelif doesn't identify as transgender or as having been born with a male body. According to a fact check from GLAAD, there is no indication Khelif has ever identified as transgender or as intersex.
Several of the false accusations on social media cited an incident in March 2023, when the International Boxing Association (IBA), the sport's governing body, disqualified Khelif and fellow boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan from the world championships in New Delhi.
The IBA said they had failed eligibility tests for the women's competition, without specifying what those tests were.
"The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure — especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years," the IOC's Aug. 1 statement read.
The IOC voted to remove the IBA as the governing body for Olympic boxing in June last year over financial, sports integrity and governance issues, a decision that was later upheld in court, effectively banning the organization from the Olympics.
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With files from the Associated Press and Brock Wilson, CBC News