What Is a ‘Transvestigation?’ Misogyny Gets a Rebrand on the Paris Olympics

On August 1, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif competed in opposition to Italian boxer Angela Carini within the first spherical of the ladies’s welterweight boxing event on the Paris Olympics. The match lasted simply 46 seconds, with Khelif rising because the victor when Carini abruptly withdrew from the match.

You’d assume that the sports activities world would instantly rally across the Algerian Olympian, celebrating her win and her gorgeous present of energy and athleticism. Instead, conservatives like J.Ok. Rowling and Elon Musk started tearing her down, claiming, falsely, on social media that Khelif is biologically male—as if a secret trans id was the one approach to have taken her opponent down so swiftly.

These accusations, which have been parroted by plenty of conspiracy theorists on-line, are a part of the unusual and terrifying rise of “transvestigators,” or individuals who goal a lady they deem to have “manly” traits, and work backwards in the hunt for “clues” that that individual is transgender. In different phrases, should you don’t match inside conservatives’ slender stereotype of what a lady appears like, or how she behaves, you should not actually be a lady. It’s simply one other type of the identical misogyny that has plagued ladies athletes for the reason that starting of time, simply with a rebrand.

Imane Khelif of Team Algeria punches Angela Carini of Team Italy in the course of the Women’s 66kg preliminary spherical match of the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.
Richard Pelham/Getty Images

According to GLAAD, the hate-fueled idea of “transvestigations” emerged in early 2017 and has seen a latest resurgence since 2023. Many transvestigators make use of the ideology of trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), who don’t acknowledge trans ladies as ladies, and who see them as a menace to cisgender ladies. The implication of a transvestigation is, after all, that being a trans lady is the last word sin, and that cisgender ladies must be saved from them. The hateful rhetoric is rooted in each misogyny and transphobia, and its use on this case is very ironic, as a result of Khelif is a cisgender lady. She was assigned feminine at delivery and identifies as a lady.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the primary time she has been topic to those sorts of assaults. In 2023, the International Boxing Association (IBA) disqualified her from the world championships, citing excessive ranges of testosterone in her system, per the Associated Press. However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has stated that the IBA’s checks have been “flawed” and “illegitimate,” and has since discredited the group. Per Reuters, the IOC claimed that the IBA was “mired in monetary opaqueness and compromised by ties to Russian management.”