Last Updated on August 5, 2024
Identity and Belonging in a Binary World
Over the last few days, millions of people worldwide suddenly became experts in women’s boxing and gender identity.
Funny how the internet works. 😂
An an autistic nonbinary person, I found this whole thing particularly upsetting.
Not only were people spreading misinformation, but misinformation that specifically targets gender deviant humans like myself.
This is a wild ride of a story, with many twists and turns, so buckle up!
Fighting for the Truth
In an Olympic boxing match held on August 1st, Imane Khelif from Algeria hit her opponent Angela Carini from Italy so hard in the first 46 seconds that Carini forfeited the match.
Some right wing commentators on X (also known as Twitter) then spread lies about Khelif, calling her a man.
Khelif is neither a man, nor a transgender woman.
She was assigned female at birth, identifies as a cisgender woman, has a passport that says she is female, and lives in a country where being transgender is illegal anyway.
The Gender Agenda
As the truth came out, Khelif’s critics moved the goal posts.
Instead of claiming she was a man, they claimed she was an intersex woman with XY chromosomes, and abnormally high Testosterone levels.
This was also a fabrication, but not one that they made up.
These commentators referred to a 2023 boxing match Khalif was disqualified for, after beating previously undefeated Russian boxer Azalia Amineva.
Who disqualified Khalif? The International Boxing Association.
This is where the story truly gets weird.
The IBA disqualified Khelif — along with Chinese female boxer Lin Yu-Ting — based on unspecified eligibility tests.
These tests were performed over the previous two years while they continued to box in IBA matches, without any issue.
And both boxers qualified for the Olympic Games based on International Olympic Committee requirements.
But suddenly after beating Russian fighters, the tests allegedly concluded these two women had “competitive advantages over other female competitors.”
Fixing to Win
Importantly, Khelif was disqualified three days after she defeated Amineva, thus restoring the Russian boxer’s undefeated record.
The International Boxing Association that issued this disqualification is owned by Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev.
Kremlev has ties to Russian organized crime and heroin trafficking.
But who would fix a boxing match, does anybody bet on these things? 😆
Kremlev is also buddies with Putin.
We know Putin both very much dislikes queer folk, takes great pride in Russian nationalist identity, and loves stirring up culture war stuff in the United States during an election year using his social media troll army.
Some important context to this story is that Russia was not allowed to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics due to the military invasion of Ukraine.
A spokesperson at the IOC even said Russia has been going after the Games and France for a while leading up to the Paris Games.
And since 2019, the International Olympic Committee has taken the extreme step of permanently banning the IBA from the Olympics due to corruption, including judging scandals and endless financial misdeeds.
Embracing Diversity
The boxing world has been talking about the many issues with IBA for a while, but as it turns out, very few people knew about it.
Because almost nobody cares that much about amateur women’s boxing.
But lots of people care about hating the gender deviant.
So this transphobic hate speech was literally started from a Russian mobster to get his boxers to win fights that they lost fair and square.
It also worked to get Americans to fight with each other over trans rights.
Two birds, one stone!
Amazingly, Khelif went on to win a medal in Paris on Saturday anyway.
Khelif is a muscular, powerful, Muslim woman.
No doubt that had something to do with why she was singled out, in a world that doesn’t give a shit about women’s boxing.
The weirdest twist on this story is there actually was a trans man competing in women’s boxing at the Paris Olympic Games.
His name is Hergie Bacyadan, and he’s from the Philippines.
He lost to Li Quan of China.
But he was ultimately a winner, as Bacyadan is the first publicly out transgender man to compete in any Olympic Games.
He competed in the women’s division because he has not taken any masculinizing hormone replacement therapy.
Bacyadan recently posted an Instagram video of himself dancing with the caption, “Will never take “T” and will never be on “T” but I still consider myself as a Transman because my heart says so”.
Bacyadan is married to a woman, something they had to leave the country to do because it is illegal in the Philippines.
His journey to the Olympic Games has been incredibly courageous.
Being Yourself is Courageous
I have never fit into gender norms myself.
Apparently most people feel like they are their gender.
For me, feeling “gendered” is an altered state experience I’ve only had a few times in my life, for brief moments!
The rest of the time, I just feel like me.
Like Bacyadan, I have not taken any hormone therapy.
But in my heart I feel like I am nonbinary, “agender” specifically.
About 1% of people are intersex, and about 1-3% of people are transgender or nonbinary.
It’s as common as red hair.
But we still treat gender deviance as if it’s something to be punished.
The Moral of the Story
The moral of this boxing story is not to hate some other group, whether Russians or white people or bigots.
The people of Russia are not equivalent to the government of Russia, any more so than the people of the United States are all the same as Donald Trump.
There are wonderful people everywhere.
And we are all capable of holding negative views towards large groups of people.
The moral of this story is that we humans often jump to conclusions, especially about things that don’t fit our categories.
The Universe creates diversity, that’s just what it does.
Where we get in trouble is when we resist reality.
Embracing diversity means also embracing who you are.
Your uniqueness makes the world a better place.
We can be inspired by the examples of Imane Khelif and Hergie Bacyadan, to seek excellence and be ourselves, despite what other people think.
As Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote in his journal a long, long time ago…
“I have often marveled at how everyone loves himself above all others, yet places less value on his own opinion of himself than that of everyone else.”
What would you choose to do if you had no fear whatsoever about the opinions of others who don’t even know you?
Have a courageous week,
~Duff
(they/them)
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