The Insidious Scrutiny of Female Athletes’ Bodies

It has been a phenomenal 2024 Olympics so far for women in sport. Simone Biles became the most decorated American Olympic gymnast while Katie Ledecky became the most decorated female swimmer in Olympic history. The U.S. women’s rugby team won an improbable bronze medal with a miracle play in the last seconds of the game. We’ve seen a 58-year-old woman, Chile’s Zeng Zhiying, compete in table tennis and Egypt’s Nada Hafez compete while seven months pregnant in fencing.

But on Thursday in Paris, those achievements were overshadowed when Italian boxer Angela Carini quit 46 seconds into her match against Algerian Imane Khelif, and openly cried and questioned the fairness of the competition. Khelif’s inclusion in the competition sparked controversy earlier in the week, because of reports that she previously failed a gender eligibility test.

In turn, a firestorm over gender in sports was ignited. Immediately, prominent anti-trans activists, including Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, used the story to push their agenda that there is no place for transgender women (or “men” as Rowling calls them) in women’s sports.

Read More: Olympic Boxers Don’t Want to Talk About the Gender Controversy

Khelif is not transgender. In fact, she’s from a country where it is illegal to be transgender. Khelif is a woman. She has competed as a woman in international boxing for years, with only moderate success—at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, she fell meekly to the eventual champion, Ireland’s Kellie Harrington, in the quarterfinals. In 2023, the International Boxing Association disqualified Khelif from the world championships for failing an unspecified gender test. But the International Olympic Committee (IOC), who runs boxing at the Olympics due to the IBA’s corruption, has repeatedly said that Khelif meets all the eligibility requirements and urged the media and public to “dial this down and not turn it into some kind of witch-hunt.”

Unfortunately, it’s too late for that. The hysteria against Khelif spread so quickly that by the end of the day, United States GOP politicians, including former President Donald Trump and his Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance, were including it in campaign messages. And while what is happening in Paris is extreme, the core of the controversy—a desire to root out women in sport who do not conform to Western ideals of beauty and femininity—is not new at all. It’s an insidious reinforcement of the status quo—and it hurts everyone.

“From the very beginning of women's inclusion in the Olympics, the men in charge doubted that they were even women at all,” Rose Eveleth says in their NPR and CBC podcast, “Tested.” In fact, Eveleth notes, in 1928, the first time women were allowed to compete in athletics at the Olympics, Japanese runner Kinue Hitomi was reportedly taken aside and examined to confirm her womanhood after winning a silver medal in the 800m. In the 1980s, when Martina Navratilova was dominating women’s tennis, she constantly was subjected to mockery over her “masculine physique.” (In a so-called comedy song, one Hall of Fame radio personality sang, “You say you’re a woman, but you look like a man. You broke all my fingers shaking my hand. Martina Navratilova.”) Serena Williams was faced with accusations that she was “born a guy” throughout her career. WNBA star Brittney Griner still faces those accusations today.

Black and Brown women in sports are the focus of these witch hunts frequently, but not exclusively. This week, a TikTok video of USA rugby player Ilona Maher, one of the breakout stars of the Paris Olympics, circulated in which she tearfully shared how hard it is to face constant questions about her gender due to her height and broad shoulders.

“I get comments being called a man and being called masculine and asking if I'm on steroids,” Maher says in the video. “There will always be negative people out there. And they put women in a box. And they think women should be fragile and petite and quiet and meek. But that’s not the case.”

Read More: Olympian Ilona Maher Is Raising Rugby’s Profile Through TikTok–and Her Own

On Facebook, a post from ESPN celebrating Ledecky’s gold in the 1500m freestyle was met with multiple comments calling her a man. “I feel so bad for the WOMEN on the US swim team who were cheated out of their places in their sport by someone born male beating them out,” one woman wrote. 

At the elite level, especially the Olympics, sports are all about celebrating the extraordinary. None of the athletes we are seeing competing in Paris or in any other Olympiad are “normal.” They are the best in the world at their sport. And while it certainly takes hard work, passion, relentlessness, and a top-tier support system to make it to the biggest stage in sports, it also takes some form of biological superiority, especially for the record-setters.

In men’s sport, the biological marvels are celebrated. Michael Phelps’ wingspan, long torso, and hyperextended joints in his chest, feet, and elbows give him an extreme advantage over his competitors, as do his high lung capacity and low lactic acid production. But he was never forced to minimize these traits he was born with in order to make things more “fair” for the other men in the competition. Nobody banned 7’6” Chinese center Yao Ming from basketball because he was so tall and big that it posed a danger to his competitors. Usain Bolt wasn’t forced to prove that his hormones were all in the normal ranges for an adult male before he was allowed to compete. A big reason why these athletes were so great was because they were built differently.

In women’s sport, people are often too busy scrutinizing and questioning stand-out athletes to appreciate them. And that’s heartbreaking. Because one of the most beautiful things about the Olympics is the wide variety of bodies that are championed. You have the petite, muscular women in gymnastics, the stocky women in shot put, slender women in distance running, and the super tall women in volleyball and gymnastics. Women of all races and presentations, income levels and nationalities are encouraged to punch and tackle, flip and jump, throw and shoot, sweat and scream. It’s the rare place where there is no “right way” to exist as a woman. 

That’s empowering. It’s also, to some, threatening.

The truth is, there are no cisgender men competing in elite women’s sport, and there are no transgender women competing in the Paris Olympics. But the fear mongering over both just leads to irresponsible and dangerous speculation, bullying, and a diminishment of athletic accomplishments.

On Friday, Carini issued an apology to Khelif for her comments and behavior after the match, and said she supported Khelif’s inclusion in the event. But, just like in boxing, there is no unringing that bell.

Correction August 5: The original version of this story misstated Rose Eveleth's pronouns. They are they/them.