The 2024 Olympic Games, already roiled by a provocative opening ceremony using transgender performers and LGBT activists arranged in a tableau strongly resembling Leonardo’s iconic painting of the Last Supper, is now facing questions about the decision to allow boxers of indeterminate sex to compete in women’s boxing events, and the real risk of injury to women forced to compete against non-female athletes with elevated testosterone.

Italy’s Angela Carini retired after 46 seconds of being battered in the ring by Algeria’s Imane Khelif. Khelif, along with Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting, was disqualified from the 2023 World Championships in Delhi for high levels of testosterone and reportedly possessing XY (male) chromosomes. The IOC determined Khelif and Lin’s eligibility based on the rules that applied at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and both boxers competed at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, and were eliminated without winning medals.

“Everyone competing in the women’s category is complying with the competition eligibility rules,” said IOC spokesperson Mark Adams. “They are women in their passports and it’s stated that this is the case, that they are female.”

Altering documentation is a key tactic for the transgender movement, given that no medical or pharmaceutical procedure has ever successfully altered the biological sex of a human. Intersex athletes who have some characteristics of both sexes due to medical disorders are unrelated to transexuals, but associating people who want to change their sex with those who are born with complicated sexual characteristics related to congenital conditions is another tactic of the movement meant to normalize voluntary sex changes as natural. But Khelif’s passport was no consolation to Carini, who fell to her knees and wept after absorbing powerful blows, and possibly a broken nose, in the opening seconds of their bout.

The transexual movement frequently implies that intersex people are part of it; if intersexuality appears in nature, so the argument goes, then transgenderism must be real. Trans people therefore are, by virtue of their feelings, somehow of biologically indeterminate sex. But actual hermaphrodites are so extremely uncommon that their consent to be included in trans politics is not even something the movement deems necessary. It appears that Khelif and Lin have indeed lived their lives as socialized females, regardless of their XY chromosomes. And while nobody has voiced any objection to intersex people identifying one way or the other, their biology and male characteristics have provoked the same objections that advocates for female athletes have against biological males competing in female sports.

The issue of transexual or intersex participation in competitive sports remains a question of biological males competing against females, for the reason that male sexual characteristics are a significant physical advantage. There is in fact a female-to-male transgender boxer who is competing, without controversy, at this year’s Olympics. Hergie Bacyadan of the Philippines is competing in the women’s boxing competition, has reportedly not begun testosterone enhancement, and has no plans to do so. Bacyadan lost to Chinese fighter Li Quan 5-0 in the first round of competition.

A woman who wants to be known as a man is one thing. It is doubtful that even the IOC would permit a biological woman to compete in a male combat sport like boxing, but women competing in men’s sport is not controversial historically. If anything, it has been encouraged and promoted for marketing purposes. Ann Meyers, one of the all-time great female basketball players, tried out for the NBA’s Indiana Pacers in 1979, but at 5’9” and 134 pounds she had no realistic chance of making the team. Manon Rhéaume, a medal-winning Canadian women’s hockey goaltender, signed with the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992 and appeared in a couple of exhibition games. While tennis pro Billie Jean King famously defeated Bobby Riggs in the (likely fixed) “Battle of the Sexes” in 1973, top female players such as Venus and Serena Williams acknowledge that even the highest-ranking female players stand little chance against the power of most male professionals. Anika Sorenstam competed in a PGA tournament in 2003 at the peak of her dominance on the LPGA tour and missed the cut. Each of these forays into men’s sport was met with great support from fans and extremely positive media coverage.

Adams, the IOC spokesperson, made clear that the question of Khleif and Lin’s participation is “not a transgender issue.” It may be that Khelif and Lin are in the category of Caster Semenya, a South African intersex athlete who won several Olympic medals before new rules disqualified athletes with certain disorders of sex development who do not take medication to suppress testosterone levels from competing against women. Semenya possesses XY chromosomes and though socialized as female, produces levels of testosterone normal for a male. She continues her legal challenges to the rules imposed by World Athletics. One must pity intersex athletes in their difficult position, but the battered and weeping Carini, who experienced painful humiliation after training to compete against women, surely deserves pity as well.

In explaining new rules for track and field, World Athletics (formerly IAFF) emphasized that testosterone is such a determinative advantage that “there is no other genetic or biological trait encountered in female athletics that confers such a huge performance advantage…it is generally accepted that competition between male and female athletes would not be fair and meaningful, and would risk discouraging women from participation in the sport. Therefore, in addition to separate competition categories based on age, the IAAF has also created separate competition categories for male and female athletes.”

The IAFF implemented new rules for track and field specifically related to these with disorders of sexual development out of a desire to create a “level playing field and ensure that success is determined by talent, dedication, hard work, and the other values and characteristics that the sport embodies and celebrates.” For combat sports like boxing, the advantages of elevated testosterone go beyond competitive advantage; there is a potential for serious harm and the athletes’ physical safety is at risk.

On August 4 Bulgarian boxer Svetlana Staneva made an “X” sign in the ring after falling in defeat to the Lin Yu-Ting, a reference to the female chromosomes her opponent does not possess. While the IOC bases its boxing eligibility requirements on the athlete’s sex as described in their passports, which are often completed based on self-reporting, the female athletes who compete in these events are aware of the competitive advantages of testosterone and male anatomy. Officials may reiterate that the Olympic boxing controversy is not a trans issue, but of course it is. Two boxers with XY chromosomes competing in the women’s category will receive medals at the 2024 Olympic Games.

Disorders of sexual development are rare conditions that complicate the question of which sexual category is appropriate for an athlete who lives with such a disorder. But chromosomes and hormones are measurable and determinative, and tip the competitive balance. Male and female athletes are prohibited from PED and steroid use for the same reason that males who do not “identify” as female are uncontroversially prohibited from female sports. Many sports have weight and size categories for obvious, practical reasons. The Olympic Spirit emphasizes “fair play,” and the Olympics in its essence is a politically neutral event. But this year’s women’s boxing competition has not been fair or neutral by any standard.