Been thinking about it since I saw JK Rowling posted this yesterday about the IOC's new policy, calling Imane Khelif a man.
Imane Khelif was born female. She was raised as a girl. Her original birth certificate says female. She's always been a woman.
But sure. "Men punching women."
There's a respectful version of this conversation. You could say: "This woman may have a genetic trait that confers a competitive advantage, and we should figure out how to handle that fairly." That's a real discussion. Have it.
But that's not what's happening. They're calling her a man. A girl born female who didn't even know she carried the SRY gene for most of her life. A man, apparently.
This is mission creep. It started with "trans women shouldn't compete in women's sports." Even that conversation can be had without calling trans women "men."
But now it's crept into "any woman who fails a DNA test is actually a man." They're not protecting women's sports. They're policing womanhood itself.
Who counts. Who gets to call herself a woman. If a DNA test says something they don't like, you're out. Born female, raised female, lived your whole life as a woman. Doesn't matter. You're out.
Transphobia cooks your brain. You spend years screaming "everyone fits neatly into two sexes!" and then reality hands you Khelif or Caster Semenya and you can't adjust. You can't say "this is more complicated than I thought." You just call her a man, because the framework demands it. Fundamentalism.
And I saw this happen yesterday. There was a guy on here arguing about this who kept reiterating that Khelif and others who would potentially fail this new DNA test are unequivocally "male," and therefore must be banned from women's sports.
Okay, but where does that end?
Because if you're going to outright call someone a "male"/"man" (not just place restrictions on sports participation) because she doesn't pass a DNA test, does that mean government ID documents should also have to say "male" for these people? Should this also determine what bathroom they can use?
And the IOC does create a carve-out for women who have CAIS. They can still compete. But genetically, they'd still be "male" according to the Rowlings of the world. Still, born with a vagina, raised as a girl, potentially unaware that they have a DSD at all, should they be lumped in with men?
Parker Molloy