IOC pressured to rescind boxer’s women’s gold medal after male chromosome disclosure

Calls for the International Olympic Committee to revoke a sex-disputed boxer’s gold medal resurfaced after the athlete acknowledged carrying a gene found in biological males and undergoing treatment to reduce testosterone.

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif stunned the sports world by admitting last week to having the SRY [Sex-determining Region Y] gene needed for male development, even as the athlete made the case for reentering the women’s ring at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“I want to … become the first person in Algerian sport to successfully defend their Olympic title,” Khelif told the French sports publication L’Equipe, as translated in Le Monde and other outlets.

Defenders of single-sex female sports called on the IOC, which defended Khelif’s eligibility throughout the Paris Games, to revoke the athlete’s gold medal in the women’s welterweight division.

“Well, what do you know???” said tennis great Martina Navratilova on X. “Take the medal away!!!”

Former All-American collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines said Khelif’s disclosures prove that a “man was awarded an Olympic gold medal for beating women to a pulp. Nothing can right this wrong, but the IOC can start by revoking his medal.”

In the Feb. 5 interview with L’Equipe, Khelif was asked: “To be clear, you have a female phenotype, but possess the SRY gene, an indicator of masculinity.”

The female phenotype refers to physical characteristics associated with women.

Khelif responded: “Yes, and it’s natural. I have female hormones. And people don’t know this, but I’ve already lowered my testosterone levels for competitions.”

The 26-year-old athlete takes it seriously. “I’m surrounded by doctors, a professor is monitoring me, and I’ve taken hormone treatments to lower my testosterone,” Khelif added.

The comments mark the first time Khelif has addressed testosterone levels or chromosomes, although 2023 lab tests leaked after the 2024 Paris Olympics found that the athlete has the “male karyotype,” or XY chromosomes.

Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, CEO of Reality’s Last Stand, said the disclosures eliminate any lingering doubts on Khelif’s biological sex.

“Imane Khelif has now openly admitted to having the SRY gene, a gene found on the Y chromosome that causes an embryo to develop into a male. Therefore, Khelif is a man,” Wright posted Friday on X.

Khelif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting triggered an uproar by winning gold medals in their women’s weight classes at the 2024 Olympic Games, despite being ruled ineligible for the 2023 World Boxing Championships following sex testing.

The outcry led the International Olympic Committee to form a task force on “protecting the female category,” which is expected to issue recommendations for tighter eligibility criteria in the women’s field in the next few months.

In the interview, Khelif agreed to undergo a sex test if required ahead of the Los Angeles Olympics, even though the athlete has not competed since 2024 after refusing to take the SRY test now required by the World Boxing Association.

“For the next Games, if I have to take a test, I will. I have no problem with that,” Khelif said. “I’ve already taken this test. I contacted World Boxing, I sent them my medical records, my hormone tests, everything. But I haven’t had any response. I’m not hiding, I’m not refusing the tests.”

At the same time, Khelif argued that any changes to the IOC’s sex-eligibility standards should take into account natural variability.

“They should protect women, but they need to understand that while protecting women, they should not hurt other women,” Khelif said in a Feb. 4 French-language interview with CNN.

The CNN report was sympathetic, describing Khelif as an “Olympic champion banned from her own sport, caught in a culture war about what it means to be a woman.”

Algerian Olympic women’s gold medalist Imane Khelif has now confirmed he is male.

With men no longer eligible for Olympic women’s boxing under @RealWorldBoxing rules, Khelif reportedly plans to box professionally in Europe—though he inexplicably says he will still undergo sex…

— ICONS (@icons_women) February 5, 2026

Khelif and Yu-ting were permitted to compete in women’s boxing in Paris based on their passports, which identify them as female, but both are believed to have a Difference of Sexual Development characterized by ambiguous genitalia at birth.

Those born with the condition are frequently raised as girls, but produce male-level testosterone at puberty, giving them what critics describe as an unfair advantage in female sports.

Pushback over DSD champions in women’s running prompted World Athletics, the international track-and-field governing body, to require all competitors in the female field to undergo a one-time SRY test, typically a cheek swab.

In 2024, President Trump referred to Khelif and Yu-ting as “men” who “transitioned to women,” but Khelif said she is not transgender.

“I respect everyone, and I respect Trump. Because he is the president of the United States. But he cannot distort the truth,” Khelif said. “I am not a trans woman, I am a girl. I was raised as a girl, I grew up as a girl, the people in my village have always known me as a girl.”

Khelif swung back after being slammed for competing in the women’s field, filing a 2024 cyberbullying complaint in the French courts against prominent figures including Elon Musk and J.K. Rowling.

In August, Khelif filed an appeal with the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport after being barred from World Boxing events for refusing to take a sex test.

Despite the admissions on testosterone and chromosomes, Khelif appeared optimistic about a return to the women’s Olympic boxing arena.

“We all have different genetics, different hormone levels,” Khelif said. “I’m not transgender. My difference is natural. This is who I am. I haven’t done anything to change the way nature made me. That’s why I’m not afraid.”