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World Boxing to introduce mandatory sex testing for all boxers (worldboxing.org)

submitted 1 month ago by Pro@programming.dev to c/world@lemmy.world

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In light of plans to introduce this policy and the particular circumstances surrounding some boxers that competed at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, World Boxing has written to the Algerian Boxing Federation to inform it that Imane Khelif will not be allowed to participate in the female category at the Eindhoven Box Cup or any World Boxing event until Imane Khelif undergoes sex testing.

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[-] Snowclone@lemmy.world 169 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Olympics testing sex means they will be testing women, and never men, it means they'll come up with a test that requires different representatives of different competing nations to agree a woman doesn't technically qualify as a woman despite her fully functioning uterus, and again they'll be invasive and humiliating and poor countries will have twice or more disqualified athletes, they will go after women of color twice as hard, and the more extreme countries they send these women back to live in will treat these women horrifyingly bad.

[-] ALilOff@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

In a way they do testing on men in sports all the time. They test for testosterone levels for one to see if the athlete is not utilizing Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs).

But I also haven’t read the article on the methodology they will be going to be utilizing.

[-] Iceblade02@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Generally because the differences in male and female biology mean that ftm athletes are coming in at a disadvantage and only risk end up being hurt themselves by male athletes who generally have them at a disadvantage. Mtf athletes however, due to the aspects of male physiology that remain, have a higher likelihood of having an advantage over female athletes and also posing a danger to the other athletes. This is generally why most womens categories were introduced in the first place (female physical disadvantage).

Especially in martial arts and combat sports like boxing, which are already inherently dangerous, the physical safety of the athletes and protecting them must come above more ephemeral goals such as inclusion in my view.

As it stands with current day medical technology, there are limits to how close a transitioning individual can be changed to resemble the opposing gender.

Given how deep the differences are physiologically between the sexes with things such as lyonization I'm not entirely sure that it will ever be possible to fully transition a person outside of weird and ethically questionable future tech such as vat-growing a genetically modified clone and somehow transferring the consciousness of the person.

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 42 points 1 month ago

There are several cases in sports already where people who are born women and have a female phenotype and genotype, but have naturally higher levels of testosterone, who have been banned from competition.

The message they use is the they're "protecting women" but it isn't actually the goal. Often there aren't any cases of transgender athletes outperforming their cis opponents, yet they still try to create these rules. It's frequently actively harmful to many cisgendered women.

The problem with all of this is the "basic biology" crowd never learn that biology is really fucking complex. What they learn in grade school is not the totality of biology, yet they assume they must be experts and force their very limited and wrong views on other people. It's bad and harmful and siding with them makes them feel all the more justified in their crusade of bullshit and misinformation.

[-] Iceblade02@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

I'm not particularly familiar with the politics of sports, nor am I particularly interested - as such I won't comment on what their goals are. I am, however, very familiar with human biology and healthcare. 5 yrs of secondary + tertiary education familiar in addition to several years of work experience. You'll unfortunately have to take my word for that. I don't intend to dox myself with documentation.

With my outlook on the topic, it doesn't seem like a "crusade of bullshit and misinformation". Headline news, physiology and most importantly "data and medical evidence from an extensive range of sources and consulted widely with other sports and experts across the world" - as they claim. I don't have time to personally look into that (sucks to have a life amirite) but am inclined to trust that they care for the athletes and have done due diligence. If you (or anyone else for that matter!) has material that disputes the validity of their work do feel free to link it in a reply. I and others I'm sure would be interested in reading such material.

Thanks.

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 month ago

Headline news, physiology and most importantly "data and medical evidence from an extensive range of sources and consulted widely with other sports and experts across the world" - as they claim. I don't have time to personally look into that (sucks to have a life amirite) but am inclined to trust that they care for the athletes and have done due diligence.

Here's the issue we have: you trust them because they put out a press release with this claim. I don't, because it's a press release. You want others to prove them wrong instead of needing them to prove they're right.

I'm sure there's some truth to the statement, but did they actively look at the points made by the opposition and weigh it all? There's no claim for this here even, and even if there were I wouldn't trust it implicitly. To be scientific you need to actively try to disprove your assumptions. If they still hold then cool, but you have to be critical.

At the end of the day, this is a business. They're trying to make money. This is something that I'll never just give my trust to. If they prove their claims then fine, but I'm going to assume all decisions are business decisions first, not the best decision for all athletes necessarily.

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[-] Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

What are you talking about? This is not about transgender at all. For those you could require a birth certificate. This is targeting women that are born as girls but, due to genetic anomalies, do not appear as such on genetic tests. Many (most?) would never discover the genetic anomaly during their lifetime.

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[-] Walk_blesseD 6 points 1 month ago

[citation needed]

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[-] DickFiasco@lemm.ee 117 points 1 month ago

I had a sex test done recently. The results were negative.

[-] shittydwarf@sh.itjust.works 61 points 1 month ago

Genitalia: unremarkable

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[-] einkorn@feddit.org 59 points 1 month ago

Unlikely, but it would be hilarious if some self-proclaimed alpha male found out the hard way that he is in fact intersex.

[-] jabjoe@feddit.uk 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

And those tiny number of edges cases need to be highlighted to show it does indeed happen. With biology, there is rarely ever truely binary. Biology is too mushy.

[-] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 50 points 1 month ago

Looks like I need to post this again.

[-] cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 month ago

Thanks for sharing. I never seen it before.

[-] No1@aussie.zone 6 points 1 month ago

Alpha bros gonna be real upset that the Typical biological male is a the pink end of the spectrum 😂

[-] Burninator05@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Dang. It's almost like determining someone's sex is hard to do.

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[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 48 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

World Boxing has written to the Algerian Boxing Federation to inform it that Imane Khelif will not be allowed to participate in the female category at the Eindhoven Box Cup or any World Boxing event until Imane Khelif undergoes sex testing.

Phew, that was close, they almost had to pick a pronoun.

[-] match@pawb.social 47 points 1 month ago

Sex testing should be allowed but any time someone calls for sex testing and gets it incorrect the boxer 2should get one good punch in on them

[-] ryokimball@infosec.pub 31 points 1 month ago

"Bad lay, can't box."

[-] scott@lemmy.org 25 points 1 month ago

You joke but this sort of shit does tend to lead so sexual harassment at the very least.

[-] mat@jlai.lu 29 points 1 month ago

Wtf are they gonna do? Check if there is a vagina? Uterus? DNA? If you are insensitive to testosterone but with SRY (the gene responsible for sexual differentiation during fetal development), you end up AFAB, but without uterus. Is this woman enough? (You even lack testoserone)

[-] 474D@lemmy.world 30 points 1 month ago

You could read the article, it states it's a chromosome test. Not that I agree with this, but its a bad look to react without doing the bare minimum

[-] TipRing@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago

They are going to find out chromosomes are super complicated. There are XY AFAB cis women and we don't actually know how common they are because we don't test for it.

[-] meco03211@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

Pretty sure there's XX AMAB as well. But what are they going to do with XXY or XYY?

[-] bamboo 14 points 1 month ago

FTA:

The PCR test is a laboratory technique used to detect specific genetic material, in this case the SRY gene, that reveals the presence of the Y chromosome,

So it seems as though the test will basically be

if y_chromosome:
    return Male
else:
    return Female

I assume in both XXY and XYY, those would be classified as male under their criteria.

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[-] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 month ago

Seems to me like they were already aware when writing this Press Release, they mentioned the policy on DSD:

Athletes that are deemed to be male at birth, as evidenced by the presence of Y chromosome genetic material (the SRY gene) or with a difference of sexual development (DSD) where male androgenization occurs, will be eligible to compete in the male category.

Athletes that are deemed to be female at birth, as evidenced by the presence of XX chromosomes or the absence of Y chromosome genetic material (the SRY gene) or with a DSD where male androgenization does not occur, will be eligible to compete in the female category.

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[-] Almacca@aussie.zone 21 points 1 month ago

So much pointless and cruel bullshit over fucking sport, and one of the stupidest sports no less.

[-] FuckFascism@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Put a male In with female boxing and see how fair the match ends. It's not about cruelty it's about basic muscular differences between sexes.

Edit: Even after transition surgery the muscle gain/loss is not significant enough to be an appropriate excuse.

[-] yagurlreese@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago

yikes I cannot believe your name 😬 you're basically spouting off right wing anti trans propaganda.

I'd suggest you learn a bit more about transitioning, trans women are not just dudes in dresses. and medical transition destroys theuscle gains you get from being a dude.

I can tell you this first hand, I went from jacked dude bro to not even being able to open a jar.i have to asky bf these days LMAO. by the way, professional women athletes can comfortably destroy any random guy, it's honestly insulting to have this conversation as if it's anything but more senseless rage bait to paint targets on our backs.

nobody understands just what transitioningeams or what it does, how sex works

how cis women can literally have testosterone just like a cis guy...like it's all just hate

also I guarantee moone says shit about trans men in male sports it's literally just hate. if they really cared about fairness they'd do testing for hormone levels and weight differences and class everyone fairly regardless of sex lol.

I sincerely can't wait for all the broken brains after this Argentinian chiccs test results come back. it's so fucking cruel what they are saying about her. to suggest she is trans just. because she makes a bunch of weak minded people feel insecure in their understandings of how biology works lol

bein trans is not allowed in Argentina, she's just masculine cis woman, and I'm sure these cronies know this, they just want to take every opportunity to pass judgement on women specifically under some virtue signalling bullshit

they don't care about fairness if they did Imsurance companies wouldn't happily deny a cancer victim. they wouldn't get off on struggling students whoe graduated sid everything right and still end up homeless

it's all just silly imo, we're so pathetic as a species sometimes it makese sad

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[-] shaquilleoatmeal@lemm.ee 22 points 1 month ago

They’re specifically targeting Imane Khelif, a female in female boxing.

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[-] theolodis@feddit.org 10 points 1 month ago

Why wouldn't they then measure testosterone levels instead? What if a trans man fights a woman, because he has a vagina? Is that a fair fight?

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[-] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

Just like penis inspection day in gym class

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[-] UpperBroccoli 16 points 1 month ago

Fucking assholes. From what is known about their sex test, it is similarly scientific to the "I know it when I see it" rule from the 1960s to determine if something is obscene. In other words, utter bullshit.

And all of this pretending to care about women while at the same time you have abuse scandals in sports every five minutes that never seem to have real consequences or result in positive change for the athletes.

Yeah, I don't believe you one bit when you say you want to protect women.

[-] General_Effort@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago

Athletes that are deemed to be male at birth, as evidenced by the presence of Y chromosome genetic material (the SRY gene) or with a difference of sexual development (DSD) where male androgenization occurs, will be eligible to compete in the male category.

Athletes that are deemed to be female at birth, as evidenced by the presence of XX chromosomes or the absence of Y chromosome genetic material (the SRY gene) or with a DSD where male androgenization does not occur, will be eligible to compete in the female category.

Oh wow. What's social construction? *points*

[-] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

The international rise of the Cult of Naturalism and the growing prevalence of their ur-eugenics pseudoscience is horrifying to watch. Like so many other actively harmful ideologies and policies I don’t see any non-violent solutions.

[-] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 7 points 1 month ago

To check whether they’ve had it recently or just ever?

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this post was submitted on 31 May 2025

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