One of the controversies that developed during the Summer Olympic Games in Paris was the story regarding the female boxing competition. There had been stirrings in the sport about a potential male entering the competition, with claims of a trans athlete in the ranks. Then, controversies erupted between opinion makers and social media clans over whether this entrant should be permitted to compete in the games.

This reached a fevered pitch when an Israeli boxer forfeited very early in a match. Angela Carini halted her bout against Algerian fighter Imane Khelif when she was being physically dominated in the ring. Realizing she had no chance against the overmatching opponent, Carini called a stop to things just 47 seconds into their bout. This sparked all manner of speculation and accusations.

At the time, there were prevailing explanations as to why Khelif would be permitted to compete. The Spokesman for the Olympic Committee declared that Khelif was born female and lived as one since childhood. This was ascribed to be a condition of Difference of Sexual Development, leading to the following comment: “I hope,” he said, “we are all agreed we aren’t going to go back to the bad old days of sex testing.” That was in reference to the controversy of the late 1970s when East Germany had been juicing its female swimmers with high doses of testosterone so they would dominate the sport.

Now a report emerges from the French outlet Reduxx that confirms some suspicions discussed at the time. One of its journalists obtained a medical report on the physiology of Khelif and it explains much of what is in play regarding the controversial boxer. Khelif experienced a rare disorder — 5-Alpha Reductase Deficiency — affecting males where it impacts the development of the genitals and can make it appear at younger ages that the individual is a female.

• The genetic abnormality influences the normal development of a child’s sexual organs. At birth, male babies impacted by 5-alpha are often incorrectly assigned female due to the presence of deformed genitalia that sometimes takes on the appearance of a “blind vaginal pouch.”

5-ARD is not immediately recognized if not diagnosed properly, so a child can be regarded as a female in the early years, yet all the while, XY chromosomes are present, and with the onset of puberty, the male hormones become more pronounced, and testosterone becomes produced at expected levels for males.

Additionally, an MRI was conducted and confirmed that Khelif does not have a uterus but instead has internal testicles and a "micropenis." In September, Reduxx reported that an interview conducted by another French publication with Khelif’s trainer had him confirming that the controversial boxer had elevated levels of testosterone and possessed a male karyotype.

We Now Have Answers About Testing Done on Olympic Boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting

Olympic Boxer Imane Khelif Sues for 'Harassment'

All of this is not to dispute in any fashion how Imane Khalif self-identifies or operates through life. But in the context of athletics, there is certainly a problem when you have a participant who clearly has all the physical traits of the opposite sex. This does deliver a decidedly unfair advantage, as more than testosterone benefits males: musculature, bone and ligament differences, and the manner in which blood gases are processed favor males as well.

The practice of sex-gender testing in sports has been controversial, at least to organizers. No longer is it necessary to have invasive testing done with blood and/or urine samples. Far simpler cheek swabs can provide the needed tissue for confirmation, but the attached controversies to such revelations saw the International Olympic Committee banning these types of gender tests entirely by the 2000 Sydney Games.

How we have reached this paradox in society is a mystery. The very same side of the social and political aisle that claims to be fighting for the rights of women and the oppression realized by females is the same that is pushing for males to invade female environments and to impede and threaten women. 

Those seeking to keep female spaces sanctified are the ones painted as the aggressors. Today, when the concerns about a boxer who literally impacted the health and safety of female competitors is shown to be the physical threat many claimed, it will surely be dismissed as more proof of intolerance – by the so-called tolerant activist set.