The Origin of the Imane Khelif Transvestigation
Comments questioning a person’s gender can get out of hand real quick.
by Mira Lazine
Daily Femail is Assigned Media’s newest column, offering real opinions delivered with a satirical tone to address last week’s biggest news stories. Written by Mira Lazine, the column aims to humorously mock right-wing tabloids while also providing quality reporting every Tuesday.
For the past few weeks, notably cisgender boxer Imane Khelif has been transvestigated by some of the most prominent people opposing transgender rights, including She Who Shall Not Be Named, failed entrepreneur Donald Trump, and divorced dad Elon Musk.
Khelif is a champion boxer. Hailing from the small Algerian village of Biban Mesbah, she’s been a sportswoman since the earliest days of her childhood. According to AFP News, she initially played soccer with boys in her town but would routinely be picked on by them, which eventually escalated to fights. It was then she discovered that she’s incredibly good at punching.
Khelif would scrap metal to afford a bus fare to the nearest city of Tiaret, where she would go to the gym for boxing. This was all the while her father was discouraging her from sport, as her family is incredibly conservative and initially not supportive of her dreams.
"I came from a conservative family. Boxing is not a widely-practised sport by women, especially in Algeria. It was difficult,” she said in an interview with UNICEF while reflecting on her path.
Nevertheless, she overcame the nearly impossible odds and became the pride and joy of her family. Her father has shifted completely, and refers to her as "an example of the Algerian woman, a heroine of Algeria.”
"If I win, mothers and fathers will be able to see how far their children can go," she continued to say to AFP. "I want to inspire girls and children in Algeria."
Khelif successfully won the gold medal in boxing, becoming the first Algerian woman to win one an award in the history of the Olympics. She is also the first Algerian to win such an award in over 20 years.
This comes after a staggering career of being one of the countries leading welterweight boxers, triumphing above nearly everyone else in her weight class.
But her career would become a thing of debate the moment she faced Italian boxer Angela Carini in the first round. She defeated Carini easily, taking only 46 seconds after she broke Carini’s nose, leaving her forced to withdraw for her own safety.
This may sound brutal, but these types of injuries are commonplace in contact sports, regardless of gender. The whole point, after all, is to injure your opponent until they either go unconscious or have no choice but to withdraw.
Nevertheless, the world’s wisest crowd took issue with this. They found it impossible to believe that a “real” woman would be able to inflict such an injury. After all, women are petite and frail creatures who cannot harm a fly. They’re all the world’s best feminists, by the way.
J.K. Rowling made one of the first Tweets about this on August 1, where she claimed - without any evidence - that Khelif is actually a man who ruined a poor, innocent woman’s chance at the Olympic medal.
“Could any picture sum up our new men’s rights movement better? The smirk of a male who’s 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.”
Elon Musk later chimed in, responding to the world’s most famous fifth-place athlete, Riley Gaines, agreeing that Khelif is actually a man.
“Men don't belong in women's sports #IStandWithAngelaCarini
Let's get it trending,” said Gaines.
“Absolutely,” said Musk.
Trump and Ohio’s disgrace and misery J.D. Vance also popped in with some tasteless bigotry, using the growing transvestigation against Khelif as an excuse to propel their anti-trans presidential campaign.
These claims did not appear out of thin air, although they were only popularized recently. Khelif was disqualified from the International Boxing Association (IBA) in 2023 because of some unknown test - which was later claimed to have shown that she has XY chromosomes and higher levels of testosterone on average.
However, the IBA was decertified by the International Olympics Committee (IOC) this past June due to alleged flaws in their testing, referring to them as “illegitimate.” The IOC says they are “mired in financial opaqueness and compromised by ties to the Russian leadership,” according to Reuters. The IBA has hosted biased press conferences since, referring to Khelif as a man in spite of her meeting the IOC’s eligibility requirements for the Olympics not once, but twice - in 2021 and 2024.
It does not seem to occur to these people that Algeria also bans gender transitions, and is highly discriminatory against trans individuals. It also does not occur to them that Khelif’s family sees her as a girl, including during their social conservatism in her childhood.
Of course, this all spurred from a single comment, one that caused this all to escalate into the media fiasco that it is now. All it takes is one viral social media post for things to skyrocket out of control.
The person in question was none other than Carini herself. In a now-deleted Tweet, she said, “"Cosa dovrei fare all’incontro vs #Khelif domani? È giusto che una donna competa con un uomo? #Carini #GOLD #ItaliaTeam #OlympicGames.”
Translating this from Italian, the Tweet says "What should I do at the match against #Khelif tomorrow? Is it fair that a woman should have to fight a man?" Additionally, she retweeted another post calling Khelif a man, and reacted without much grace after the match, although she later apologized for her behavior.
Now, Carini got cold feet about her bigotry after the match. She said some time after the match to reporters, “I am not here to judge or pass judgment. If an athlete is this way, and in that sense it’s not right or it is right, it’s not up to me to decide.” In her apology, she also stated she accepts the IOC’s ruling. Nevertheless, in relation to the 2024 Olympics, this all began with Carini.
This story does have a conclusion, now that the Olympics are over and Khelif is a gold medalist. Khelif is suing Rowling and Musk for popularizing these claims against her, as well as leaving the door open for another suit against Trump and Gaines will be investigated in relation to the prosecution. The Paris Prosecutor’s Office (National Center for the Fight Against Online Hatred) is just beginning to investigate this, starting on August 13.
Daily Femail believes there are things to be learned from this story. Transvestigation doesn’t pay, and no matter what, there will always be a point where fucking around leads to finding out. Daily Femail wishes the defendants a fun time in court.
Mira Lazine is a freelance journalist covering transgender issues, politics, and science. She can be found on Twitter, Mastodon, and BlueSky, @MiraLazine