Update (8-16-2024):
Brendon O’Neill’s “It isn’t ‘cyberbullying’ to speak the truth.” O’Neill writes, “Imane Khelif’s criminal complaint against JK Rowling is an absurdist assault on reason.” He continues: “Imane Khelif has some balls. Not content with fighting in the women’s category at the Paris Olympics, despite previously failing a gender-eligibility test, now the Algerian boxer is going after women who raised concerns about that sporting abomination. Well, one woman in particular. The worst woman. The woman feared as a witch by gender ideologues and their squeaking woke-bro allies. Yes, it’s JK Rowling. Khelif has named Rowling in a criminal complaint filed in France, accusing her of ‘acts of aggravated cyber harassment.’ First Khelif takes down female boxers, now it seems it’s the turn of female critics of the sexist Olympics.”
Later in the essay he writes, “It isn’t ‘cyberbullying’ to slam the inclusion of people with XY chromosomes in women’s sports. It isn’t ‘cyber-harassment’ to lament the ‘distress’ of a woman who’d just been ‘punched in the head’ by a suspected biological male, as Rowling did following the shameful Khelif-Carini fight. No, this is legitimate, heartfelt, truthful commentary, from women concerned for women’s rights. Khelif might not be ‘trans,’ but this ill-advised criminal complaint borrows from the trans lobby’s tyrannical playbook. Just as feminism has pretty much been reimagined as ‘transphobia,’ and women’s rights activists are breezily defamed as ‘TERFs,’ now it seems criticism of men boxing women will be damned as ‘bullying.’”
“There’s hubris here, O’Neill writes, “As someone who also went through male puberty, my advice to Khelif would be to avoid accusing other people of ‘bullying’ when you’ve just been publicly fighting women and winning their medals.” He concludes: “Khelif needs to back off. It is not right for you to box women, and it is not right for you to file a complaint against people who only said what they believe to be true. This case speaks to one of the most troubling trends of our time: the Orwellian rebranding of criticism as a crime. That it is even possible people will be punished for using their voices to defend women’s rights is a testament to how far down the rabbit hole of gender lunacy we have tumbled..”
* * *
This Essentially Sports article claims the debate over Imane Khelif’s inclusion in the Olympic Games is over. Perhaps, but not in the way the author, Jaideep Unnithan, thinks. You’ve got to love the spin here; Unnithan turns what is obvious inside out. What in fact happened is that Imane Khelif’s trainer, George Cazorla, told French magazine Le Point that the boxer is male (you can read the August 8 French article here). Essentially Sports frames it like this: “the latest revelation by her trainer will come as massive vindication for those who stood by her.” So XX chromosomes, then? Of course not. I already reported Cazorla’s account here: THE IOC’s Portrayal Guidelines—a Real-World Instantiation of Newspeak. See also “Khelif’s Trainer Confirms ‘Problem With Chromosomes,’,” published in Reduxx. The Reduxx piece has a lot of detail (if you aren’t following Reduxx you really should).
From Essentially Sports: “Khelif’s trainer, George Cazorla, told French magazine Le Point, that after her 2023 World Championships disqualification, he contacted Kremlin-Bicêtre, a renowned endocrinologist from the Parisian University Hospital. ‘He confirmed that Imane is indeed a woman, despite her karyotype and her testosterone level.’ He said: “There is a problem with her hormones, with her chromosomes, but she is a woman,”’ Cazorla mentioned before sharing the recent findings.”
“There is a problem with her hormones, with her chromosomes.” That’s the key. So Cazorla confirms that the IBA found a problem with Khelif’s chromosomes. This boxer is a XY (male) with a disorder of sexual development (SDS), i.e., dysfunction of the SRY gene; Khelif has abnormal testosterone levels for a woman, likely a condition known as 5-ARD. Why would Cazorla go to an endocrinologist if the tests had not uncovered anomalies? (Endocrinology, for the record, is one of the major players in the gender affirming care industry. The field claims that a man can be changed into a woman, using pseudoscientific rubbish to move product and manufacture patients.)
Cazorla continued, “We then worked with a doctor based in Algeria to monitor and regulate Imane’s testosterone level, which is currently within the female norm. Tests clearly show that all her muscular and other qualities have been diminishing since then.” In other words, a doctor suppressed Khelif’s abnormally high testosterone. Moreover, Cazorla admits there is a “female norm,” this recognizing the valid distinction between females and males. However, as I have shown (see Misogyny Resurgent: Atavistic Expressions of a Neoreligion), testosterone is far from the sole determining factor in male supremacy in athletics.
First, we have to state a simple truth: this is women’s sports. Khelif is male, so straight away he doesn’t belong in the female category—even if he has no individual advantage. Khelif belongs to a class that enjoys advantages over another class. Second, and why we have categories, male puberty is what really matters, for all the reasons I explain in Misogyny Resurgent. Khelif has all the advantages of a male, because he is one, whether or not his testosterone levels have been suppressed. Indeed, if the levels were suppressed to avoid abnormal levels of androgens in the blood stream, this means that the team was concerned about being found out (they didn’t care about potential harm to the other boxers or they would not have allowed Khelif to compete against them). This only deepens the fraud. Are journalists asking Cazorla why Khelif’s team was working with a doctor in Algeria to monitor and regulate their boxers testosterone? No, the mainstream media are propagandists, not journalists.
In another Reduxx article “Khelif Is A Man,” Bulgaria’s Joana Nwamerue, who did not make the Olympic Games, comes forward to reveal that Imane Khelif had “male power” and used “male techniques,” which she recognized during sparring matches in Sofia, Bulgaria. “I think we played 3-4 sparring sessions. I have a record of everything. I can confirm that this is a man to me. Male power. Men’s techniques, everything,” Nwamerue explains. “I’m a tomboy, I take a lot of hits and I know how to hold on. But the other girls are not so strong.” And so Khelif swept the Olympic Games winning every round of every match on every judge’s card, forcing Italy’s Angela Carini to quit 46 seconds into he first round (who was then shamed into apologizing).
When questions were raised by Nwamerue and her coach about Khelif’s gender, “[Khelif’s] teammates came to me and told me ‘Imane is not a man. She is a woman and just lives high in the mountains with her relatives and parents and so there may be a change in her testosterone or chromosomes and the like.’ So myself and my coach watched [Khelif] and I said ‘that can’t be possible.’ Everywhere has people living in the mountains. It’s absurd.” This claim prompted evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, who runs Substack’s Reality’s Last Stand, to conceptually map Khelif’s team’s claim:
“Obviously there’s some competition between federations and they’re shitting on one another, but it’s extremely unfair. It’s like pitting a motorcycle against a bicycle,” Nwamerue explains. “For people who don’t understand combat sports. Motor vs bicycle. Will the bicycle be faster and win, or the motorbike?” This is a common analogy. Here is what evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins posted on X on August 8. (There is a lot of controversy swirling around about Dawkins of late concerning his presence on Facebook. The question is whether Facebook deplatformed him or he deleted himself. But Dawkins is still on Twitter and has left this tweet up. If he takes it down, I have a screenshot ready to replace the tweet.)
Nwamerue’s coach noted that other world and European boxing federations had banned Khelif from boxing. Only the Olympics was allowing Khelif to compete. Nwamerue’s stablemate, Svetlana Staneva, boxed Khelif in the Olympic Games. It was Staneva who, in a clear nod to the chromosome controversy, launched an international movement following her featherweight match with Lin by making an “XX” symbol at the crowd using her fingers (a photo of the gesture is the initial image in this essay).
Meanwhile, according to Variety, J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk have both been named in a criminal complaint filed with French authorities over alleged “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” against Algerian boxer and newly crowned Olympic champion Imane Khelif. Nabil Boudi, the Paris-based attorney for Khelif told the magazine that both figures were mentioned in the body of the complaint, which was submitted to the anti-online hatred center of the Paris public prosecutor’s office on Friday (yes, such a thing exists). The lawsuit was filed against X, which under French law means it was filed against “unknown persons.” This “ensure[s] that the prosecution has all the latitude to be able to investigate against all people,” including those who may have written hateful messages under pseudonyms, said Boudi “What we’re asking is that the prosecution investigates not only these people but whoever it feels necessary. If the case goes to court, they will stand trial.”
Boudi also claimed that while the lawsuit was filed in France, “it could target personalities overseas,” pointing out that “the prosecutor’s office for combating online hate speech has the possibility to make requests for mutual legal assistance with other countries.” He added that there were agreements with the US equivalent of the French office for combating online hate speech. According to Boudi, cyber harassment cases are now being taken much more seriously by judicial authorities and that, in some cases, “there are prison sentences.” Oh no, does that mean I should delete all my tweets and beg forgiveness? Boudi says apologies won’t matter. Okay then, the tweets stay up.
While Nabil Boudi’s complaint may mention figures like Rowling and Musk, pursuing legal action against American citizens for their speech poses significant challenges thanks to the strong protections afforded by the First Amendment in the United States. The First Amendment provides robust safeguards for free speech, including the expression of opinions and criticism, even if such speech is deemed offensive or harmful in other jurisdictions. Additionally, the principle of jurisdictional sovereignty limits the ability of foreign courts to enforce their laws on individuals residing outside their borders. For Boudi to successfully pursue legal action against Americans, he would need to overcome substantial legal hurdles, including navigating complex international treaties and mutual legal assistance agreements, which often do not extend to matters involving free speech. Furthermore, US courts are generally reluctant to enforce foreign judgments that conflict with constitutional rights, making it highly unlikely that any legal action initiated in France could be effectively pursued against American citizens.
Americans, don’t let Boudi’s lawsuit stop you from seeing what you see and telling the truth about it. Or, to put this another way, Nabil Boudi can fuck off.
freedom and reason 