Why The Witch Hunt Against Imane Khelif Is So Wrong

 

[First published on August 2, 2024 in YouthKiAwaaz]

Imane Khelif was born and brought up as a woman in a country that prioritises male children. She was assigned female at birth, has a functioning uterus and has never thought of herself as anything but female. She also suffers from DSD (disorder of sexual development) because of which she has an XY chromosome and her testosterone levels are higher than for an average female. None of this, however, takes away the fact that she is female.
Khelif has been participating in international boxing competitions for several years (including the Tokyo Olympics where she didn’t go beyond the quarter finals).

She failed an unspecified “gender test” at the World Championships in 2023, which she appealed against. The results of the test were never made public, and she later withdrew her appeal because the Association which conducted the test was suspended for irregularities.

Khelif has been allowed to in the Paris Olympics as a woman because she met their eligibility criteria. 

Angela Carini knew all this even before she stepped into the ring. Her bout lasted 46 seconds, during which time she left herself open and was punched on the nose twice.

Khelif was clearly the better boxer and it is unlikely Carini would have survived the bout even if the punches thrown at her were weaker. But she chose to react emotionally and imply that she lost not because Khelif had the better technique, but because Khelif had more strength than one would expect from a woman. And the internet was quick to pick it up.

What followed was nothing short of a witch hunt.

Khelif was branded a man, he/ him pronouns were consistently used to describe her and people brought up images of men inflicting violence on women to polarise the public. Posts were written on how women trained for years only to have their match snatched away by “a man”. But didn’t Khelif herself also train for years to get to the Olympics? Did any of those people screaming about “unfairness” think about how unfair it is to indulge in personal attacks on the basis of one statement made by an emotional loser?

Calling Khelif a “cheat”, as many have done, is not right. Even if it turns out that her testosterone levels are higher than what is allowed by the rules, it doesn’t make her a cheat, because to be called a cheat you should have intentionally done something. Khelif didn’t take anything to increase her testosterone levels. It is the biology that she was born with, and if anything she has got cheated out of her right to compete in a sport which she has trained hard for. 

The attacks continued even after the IOC issued a statement in her favour

Even after the IOC issued a statement in favour of Khelif’s participation as a woman in the Paris Olympics, people continue to question how she could be allowed to participate as a woman against other women. This, despite the fact that experts have explained that gender is a continuum and that women suffering from DSD could have higher testosterone levels, and still be considered women.

Boxers who have competed against Khelif in the past have said that she punches harder than most. But none of them have questioned her gender. Yet, the witch hunt continues, without any thought being given to the trauma that it might cause Khelif.

Has anyone spared a thought to what this trial on social media might do to Khelif? 

The insinuation that Khelif has always lied about her gender doesn’t make sense? She is from a country where male children are prized and prioritised. Why would her parents have brought her up as a woman, unless they genuinely believed that she is one? There are photographs of Khelif as a young girl- are people insinuating that her parents perpetrated a hoax for decades only to enable their child to compete in the Olympics as a woman? 

More importantly, Khelif is from a country where transgender persons are not recognised, and gender change is illegal. Do the people who are deliberately misgendering her even realise that they are making her vulnerable to violence from fundamentalists? Worldwide, transgender women are more vulnerable to attack than cis women. By raising questions about her gender in this manner, Khelif is being put at risk deliberately.

While people on social media are full of sympathy for Carini (who according to them was cheated out of a medal by a man), do they pause to think of the emotional trauma they are causing Khelif who spent her entire life as a woman? Do people even realise how wrong it is to link link the Khelif- Carini bout to domestic violence, and how triggering it can be to victims of domestic abuse?

The issue of transgender women in competitive sports is a complicated one

The issue of transgender women in competitive sports is a complicated one, and it has to be dealt with in a manner that is fair to all, and sports federations are doing their best to frame guidelines and refine existing ones. Indulging in mass hysteria merely on the basis of a statement by one defeated athlete doesn’t help. If Carini wanted to lodge a protest, she should have done so in the current manner- through the sports federation/s of her country.

This trial on social media is a sordid chapter in women’s sport, and it is a shame that so many are gleefully participating in it without making an attempt to understand the issue. If a woman who was born woman, brought up as a woman and thinks of herself as a woman is not considered a woman because she doesn’t fit your mental picture of a woman, then the problem is with you and not with her.

A Peek into the world of the Madiga community of Telangana

 [Book review of Gogu Shyamala’s “Father May Be An Elephant And Mother Only a Small Basket, But…”]

Gogu Shyamala is a noted Dalit academician, gender rights advocate and writer. Born into a family of agricultural labourers in Telangana, she is the only one of three siblings who escaped being forced into bonded labour and managed to obtain higher education. The intriguingly named “Father May Be An Elephant And Mother Only A Small Basket, But…” is collection of short stories translated from Telugu by various translators.

Perhaps it would not be right to call them short stories- they are slice of life vignettes, which invite you into the world of the Madiga community in rural Telangana. Most of the stories are told from the perspective of children, adolescents or youth, and though the stories may not be autobiographical, it is clear that they are based on what the writer experienced as a young girl before being sent off to a boarding school to study. Each of the stories show how deeply entrenched the caste system is, and of how families live in constant fear of reprisals from the upper caste reddys and velamas if they are displeased in any way. Yet, the stories are not about gloom and oppression; Shyamala describes the games people play, the songs they sing and ways they snatch joy from everyday living.

The stories which spoke of Ellamma brought out the many aspects of the goddess. The upper caste people refer to Ellamma as ‘their goddess’ (‘their’ implying she belongs to the Dalits). Yet, they believe that Ellamma brings them good fortune- 
 Everyone in the village believes that Ellamma’s hands, her feet and her words, all possess the gift of good fortune. Even people from the next village say the same thing. No upper caste woman has this gift. When a girl comes of age or gets married, her relatives call Ellamma and fill her lap with grain and fruit.
 But though the practice has now been outlawed, Ellamma could also be considered the property of the village, and in one story, a family is willing to face the wrath and violence of the upper caste in order to protect their daughter from being made an “Ellamma”. Nothing is as it seems, and the only thing that remains constant is how the caste system continues to be imposed despite it being outlawed.

Perhaps my favourite story was the one where the narrator was the water tank. Environmentalists write about how traditional patters of land and water use conserved natural resources, and of the danger of interfering with them in the name of development. Shorn of jargon, the story said exactly the same thing!

It is hard to read the book and not come away with a deeper understanding of the life lived by Dalits in rural Telangana. The translations may not capture the nuances of the Telugu dialect used by the writer, but they do capture the people and places.

I read the book during #DalitHistoryMonth, soon after meeting Gogu Shyamala at an event and being blown away by her understated power and charm.

Five Reasons to Read Brotherless Night

 [Brotherless Night, by V. V. Ganeshananthan recently won the Women’s Prize for fiction. Here are five reasons to read the book.]

“I knew that if a certain kind of person wanted something done, I should comply without asking too many questions.”

These lines from the introductory passage of the book sets the tone for ‘Brotherless Night’, the story of a young Tamil girl who dreams of becoming a doctor only to have her world torn apart by the growing unrest in North Sri Lanka.

 I would have loved to give the book more than five stars if I could, so here are five reasons (one for each star) why you should read the book:

 1. It provides a deep insight into a period that I lived through, but from a perspective that I was not exposed to. Growing up, I read about the escalation of the Sri Lankan conflict from the perspective of the IPKF, with occasional interviews of the leaders of the Tamil Eelam. This book talks of what it means to be Tamil in Jaffna- to witness the growth of power and violence in the region, and to be reluctantly pulled into the vortex.

 2. The book deals with what one family living in Jaffna goes through- of how events impact different people differently, of the push and pull of situations beyond their control, of how tragedy impacts people in different ways, of the secrets they cannot trust even their own family members with. The characters are deep and unpredictable in their predictability (or is it the other way round).

 3. The book is told from the perspective of a young woman, and raises important issues of patriarchy and control within the framework of internal war. Men go out and fight, women are expected to cook for them (even when women are asked to assist in field hospitals, it is the caregiving role they are expected to play). Yet, when things go wrong, it is women who resist in ways that men cannot.

 4. Though the book is a work of fiction, the research that the author put in is so deep that you wonder if it is actually a fictionalised account of someone she knows personally. Most of the key incidents are told from more than one perspective, and small details make you believe the author is describing a scene which she actually witnessed.

 5. The book is full of references to books. People gift books to each other, people make book recommendations, there is also a feminist book group! Your TBR may not thank you after reading this book because it will go up.

Since I wanted to give the book more than five stars, a personal reason why I loved reading the book- I loved the Tamizh words and phrases and the descriptions of familiar food!