JK Rowling invents trans-Olympian athlete to make herself angry

Despite the right’s boasts that the increasing visibility of trans women in public life would end women’s sports as we know it, the Olympics were once again dominated by cisgender athletes. Lacking a talented target to vent their anger, but needing to feed the only topic they talk about, the most trans-obsessed commentators turned their attention to Algerian boxer Imane Khelif.

Khelif is not trans. That’s obvious because, according to the IOC, her passport lists her as female, which Algeria’s extremely repressive laws would not allow if she were trans. She was, however, disqualified from the 2023 women’s world championships because tests showed she had XY chromosomes, which are possible for cisgender women with certain medical conditions. Khelif reached the quarterfinals of the 2020 Olympics, where she was defeated by Kellie Harrington, without incident, and she has been boxing on the international circuit for years without any of her wins or losses attracting much attention. But her fight against Angela Carini on Thursday has made her a magnet for some truly disgusting hate.

Carini left the fight after just 46 seconds, claiming that Khelif’s punches were too painful for her to continue. As a result, Khelif immediately became a villain for those who crave trans controversy. Many people make wild claims about Khelif’s anatomy, but this post from the world’s most famous bigot, JK Rowling, is truly astounding for how a so-called feminist would so readily call a cis woman “he” based solely on her appearance and the effect of years of rotten propaganda.

The Olympics, like all sports, celebrate the most impressive human beings (or horses), both for their physical and mental superiority. In fact, any athlete who succeeds at this level will stand out from the rest of the competition, and shatter the life ambitions of their opponents. When these athletes are men, we celebrate them wholeheartedly. But athletes like Khelif, Brittney Griner, Caster Semenya, or Lia Thomas, when they excel, must endure having their femininity torn apart by monsters. In response to discussions about the complexity of gender—the fact that no single trait is shared by all men or women in the world—the right likes to contemptuously ask, “What is a woman?” implying that it can explain it simply and the left cannot. But if they want to narrow their definition to such an extent that a cisgender woman whose difference is only revealed by DNA testing instantly loses her right to femininity, it’s hard to believe that the term “woman” means anything to them other than “a means of oppression.”