Another boxer who failed gender test beats rival at Olympics

The scandals surrounding women's boxing at the 2024 Olympics continue: following the Algerian athlete Iman Khelif, who failed the gender test but was admitted to the Games, the Taiwanese boxer Lin Yuting, whose gender identity has also been the subject of heated debate on more than one occasion, also took part in the fight.

Today, 28-year-old Lin Yuting defeated Uzbekistan's Sitora Turdibekova in the 1/8 finals of the competition in the weight category up to 57 kg and thus advanced to the 1/4 finals. The fight lasted three rounds and ended with Lin Yuting's victory with a score of 5-0. After the end of the fight, the athletes did not shake hands.

The outcome of the fight is once again being widely discussed on social media. It's all about the questions raised by the gender identity of the Taiwanese athlete. In 2023, at the World Boxing Championships in India, Yuting failed a gender test: it showed the presence of XY chromosomes and elevated testosterone in her body. In 2022 and 2023, she also failed a gender test conducted by two independent labs. Later, the president of the International Boxing Association, Umar Kremlev, said in an interview with TASS that athletes who "posed as women" were then suspended from the competition: "Based on the results of DNA tests, we identified a number of athletes who tried to deceive their colleagues and pretended to be women. The tests proved that they have XY chromosomes." As a result, last year the Association banned Lin Yuting from participating in women's boxing competitions and stripped her of the bronze medal she won at the 2019 Women's World Boxing Championships. The athlete did not challenge these decisions.

However, the IOC soon deprived the International Boxing Association of recognition due to various legal issues, as a result of which all decisions of the Association were automatically annulled, and Lin Yuting was able to qualify for the Taiwan team for the 2024 Olympics. The IOC did not interfere with this, since they have not conducted gender tests since 1999: according to IOC rules, athletes only need to have a passport in a female name to participate in women's competitions. Two years before that, Yuting participated in the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Lin Yuting is not the only female boxer whose gender identity is causing controversy among the public. The day before, Algerian athlete Iman Khelif was at the center of a scandal after she also failed her gender test. Many people online call Iman Khelif a transgender** woman, but this is not true: in fact, she has been diagnosed with Swyer syndrome, which means that she has female reproductive organs in her body, but also much higher levels of testosterone than women. As a result of this combination, Khelif surpasses women in physical characteristics.

Ultimately, after meeting her in the ring, Italian boxer Angela Carini withdrew from the competition 46 seconds into the fight, having received a "crushing blow." Carini said she feared for her life, ended the fight, and burst into tears. She later announced her retirement and accused the IOC of injustice (but apologized to Iman Khelif for her behavior after the fight). The situation caused a wide public outcry: many people, from Dmitry Peskov to J.K. Rowling, criticized the IOC for allowing athletes whose gender identity is questionable to compete in women's events.