Even people with little interest in boxing are likely aware of the explosion of anger released when Italian Angela Carini withdrew early from a fight with Algerian Imane Khelif early in the Olympic women’s boxing. The issues raised are not purely scientific, but a great many of the comments about Khelif’s eligibility to compete in women’s boxing implied or assumed facts where genetic knowledge is highly relevant.
While academics with qualifications of varying levels of relevance rushed to comment, IFLScience happened to be interviewing leading expert on sex chromosomes Professor Jenny Graves of Latrobe University about other recently published research. We took the opportunity to ask for her take on the situation while we were at it.
Many of those who initially objected to the inclusion of Khelif and Lin Yu-ting in the Olympics women’s boxing claimed both were transgender. This claim, following on from furor at the Tokyo Olympics over the inclusion of a trans weightlifter (who came last), is false. Both boxers are considered female from birth, and there is no evidence that was even contested until recently.
Subsequent objections were generally based on the idea that both boxers have XY chromosomes, potentially meaning they have Swyer syndrome. This is a condition where people have female genitalia, despite having the XY chromosomes usually associated with being male in mammals. Swyer syndrome is referred to as a Disorder of Sexual Development (DSD), a group often formerly termed as “intersex” conditions.
The basis for these statements were tests done by the International Boxing Association (IBA), which then disqualified both Khelif and Yu-ting from the 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships. However, the IBA has not released the results of this test. There is, therefore, no confirmation that Khelif and Yu-ting have XY chromosomes at all. Even if they do, Swyer is not the only syndrome that combines XY chromosomes with genitalia that leads people to be considered female from birth.
Although the controversy is partially about genetics, it is a social one as well. Conor MacDonald of the University of South Australia has made the way sports make space for or rejects diversity the focus of his research.
In a statement, Macdonald argued that sports are often prone to “black and white thinking”. That’s understandable, particularly at the professional level, where who wins and loses dominates the conversation, and other results may not even be allowed. However, Macdonald said, it makes officials and spectators ill-equipped to deal with situations where complexity cannot be willed away.
According to MacDonald the black and white here is not only the metaphor of absolutes. “Historically, black and brown women have been perceived as not fitting white notions of femininity and seen as being too masculine,” he said. “I feel terrible for Khelif, but these events haven’t surprised me. Her being from where she is, the color of her skin, it’s not surprising that her gender has been questioned—especially considering Khelif, a woman of color, was competing against a white Italian boxer.”
MacDonald pointed to prominent athletes such as Serena Williams and Brittney Griner, whose status as women has been questioned online, as well as trans athletes.
A Giant In Genetics’ Take
There are tens or even hundreds of thousands of people working in genetics research, so it is not hard to find a wide diversity of views among those with qualifications. Few, however, have Graves’ expertise on the topic. Almost 40 years ago, she solved one of the largest problems that had been troubling geneticists about the way sex chromosomes express themselves differently from the rest of the genome in placental mammals, including humans.
Since then, she has led teams that have made one advance after another in our understanding of sex chromosomes and their influence on the body, most recently revealing that chickens and platypuses have a different approach to ours. This has won her a string of scientific awards, including the Prime Minister’s Prize For Science, the most prestigious scientific honor Australia can bestow, given to only one scientist a year.
Although Graves’ most recent publication did not directly have anything to do with humans, let alone athletes, it is a reminder of how complex these chromosomes can be, and that they can often take multiple paths to apparently similar outcomes.
This is the case among humans as well, Graves told IFLScience. “There is so much variation, variation in so many pathways.” Simply saying that someone has a Y chromosome doesn’t always tell us much. The Y chromosome is small, and shrinking, but nevertheless includes some genes generally acknowledged to have little to do with making someone male or with sporting prowess.
That job primarily belongs to the SRY gene, but even saying that the presence of this gene equals maleness undersells the complexity and diversity that exists, Graves stresses. “There are 70 genes between SRY activation and making the gonads, so it is not a surprise to find there is variation in sexual differentiation,” she told IFLScience.
This means that anyone thinking a single test, or even several tests, could unambiguously sort athletes into male and female categories is mistaken. Someone with an SRY gene, but for whom only a few of the genes Graves refers to activate, is unlikely to gain any genetic advantage over typical XX females. They are also unlikely to have any hint that they are genetically unusual until tested, including in some cases being able to give birth. To prevent someone from entering women’s sport on this basis in the name of fairness would make a mockery of the term.
If people are excluded from sporting contests based on genetic characteristics, Graves jokes she will enter an “over-80, under-androgen, short-legged netball team.” If everyone else is excluded for genetic advantages, she might finally achieve the sporting success that has eluded her.
More seriously, she added: “I do not think there is any hope of legislating a level playing field,” particularly since no one is trying to do this for genetic variations on other chromosomes that confer an athletic advantage.
Women’s and men’s sporting contests are likely to remain distinct, forcing sporting bodies to wrestle with where boundaries should be drawn. Notably, those keen to exclude anyone with a hint of a Y chromosome from women’s sports may well be at least as opposed to anyone with male external genitalia being included. This means they would also demand anyone with de la Chapelle syndrome, where XX chromosomes can be accompanied by a penis and testicles, also be rejected.
With so many genetic gradations and variations, Graves does not think any formula will be able to resolve the debate.
Source Link: Olympic Boxing Controversy: A Leading Geneticist And A Sports Researcher Have Their Say