Traditionally, the Olympics are a celebration of sport and competition with more than 10,000 athletes from 184 different countries all vying to be listed among the best in the world. Unfortunately, that’s rarely been the case at the 33rd Olympiad in Paris which has been embroiled in one controversy after another—all of it pretty much the result of misinformation or a lack of education.
Most recently, outrage ensued when two female athletes were cleared to compete in The City of Light by the International Olympic Committee despite being disqualified from last year’s World Championships by the International Boxing Association for failing an unspecified gender test.
Reports surfaced that Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Tawain had produced XY (male) chromosomes when tested instead of XX (female), immediately prompting some of social media’s more eccentric users to assume that both were intersex or transmen and simply trying to gain an unfair advantage by competing against cis-gendered women.
Things reached a boiling point when Khelif scored a 46-second win over Italy’s Angela Carini on Thursday.
Reacting to the news, controversial kickboxing star and celebrated misogynist Andrew Tate declared in a video that he would enter the next Olympic Games as a woman to engage in a “Trans on Trans showdown” with the Algerian.
“I have instructed my lawyers to begin the process of entering me in the Olympics as a woman so I can beat the f**k of this b**ch who think she’s the bad b**ch around here,” Tate said. “No. I am…I’m a le*bian woman who likes chicks…Trans on Trans showdown. I’ll show you who the f***ing daddy is.”
The fact of the matter is that both Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting are technically females though their chromosomes are likely male. There’s been speculation about the two suffering from Swyer syndrome.
In Swyer syndrome, individuals have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome in each cell, which is the pattern typically found in boys and men; however, they have female reproductive structures .
It’s unclear what their testosterone levels are like with IBA testing results being privileged information.
This is the third major controversy at the Olympic games – following the inclusion of a Dutch athlete that was previously convicted of extremely troubling behavior and the ceremony that was insulting to Christians.
An opening ceremony segment featuring the feast of Dionysus—the Greek god of fertility, wine, and pleasure—was grossly misinterpreted by viewers, sparking widespread outrage as people believed the tableau bore a resemblance to da Vinci’s Last Supper painting. Christians were left incensed, claiming that their deity of choice was being disrespected—mostly just because the display featured drag queens.
Of course, Andrew Tate had plenty to say about that too, protesting outside of the French embassy in Romania.
