There has been a lot of talk about Imane Khelif after Angela Carini backed out of her bout after just 46 seconds and two punches. However she isn’t the only Olympian or even boxer to be being targeted by transphobes currently. Lin Yu-Ting has also been facing the wrath of bigots resulting in Taiwan cancelling JK Rowling.
Despite reports stating that there are no trans people competing in this year’s olympics, transphobes have displayed excellent commitment to the bit by continuing to do what they do best; mither over the bodies of strangers. Lin Yu-Ting, a Taiwanese Boxer, is one of the two main targets during the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The story of the ‘controversy’ surrounding Lin Yu-Ting’s eligibility is much the same as Imane Khelif’s. The International Boxing Association (IBA), who have been discredited by The International Olympic Committee (IOC) due to “continuing irregularity issues in the areas of finance, governance, ethics, refereeing, and judging”, disqualified her from competition.
Lin Yu-Ting remains eligible to compete under the IOC’s rules.
Numerous transphobes online and in British media particularly have called into question her eligibility off of the back of the IBA’s disqualification and I guess just their racistly misogynist vibes. Which I’m confident in stating as my opinion even with Lawsuit McGee’s name in the headline because it isn’t even the first time she or those she supports have targeted athletes who are women of colour.
A while back a photo of Chinese women’s 400m runners began circulating through transphobe Twitter as they began suggesting that the athletes were men. This prompted the US Agency for Global Media to fact check the sex of the runners. Turns out; they’re both cisgender women and one has even since given birth. Transphobes have also targeted and somewhat successfully derailed the career of Caster Semenya.
This is who JK Rowling has ideologically aligned herself with and also the action she is participating in herself by platforming anti-trans narratives surrounding Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting. It is, in my view, deeply racist, powerfully misogynist and horifically transphobic.
JK Rowling has been on Twitter sharing articles suggesting Khelif and Yu-Ting being allowed to compete is going to get someone killed, demanding sex testing in sport, calling competitors cheats and her own comments misgendering athletes and creating bigoted fiction based on a candid end of fight photo. You know, normal things, apparently.
Rowling also shared an article from the Guardian – who we remind you have an in-house transphobia organisational group which The Guardian’s “chief sports reporter” Sean Ingle is involved in – regarding Lin Yu-Ting’s disqualification by the IBA. Rowling’s commentary on the piece reads; “What will it take to end this insanity? A female boxer left with life-altering injuries? A female boxer killed?”
Which has led to Taiwan cancelling JK Rowling as thousands of Taiwanese people take to social media to criticise the author for, well, all of the above really. Taiwanese people are calling for action to be taken against the author for spreading disinformation about their athlete and in some instances referring to it as cyber bullying.
Taiwanese media are also publishing articles slamming the author for her bigoted comments and defending their athlete. Including publishing stories about Yu-Ting’s life growing up and her motivation to box; surviving domestic violence and wanting to protect her mother.
I won’t say that the coverage is trans-inclusive, despite people telling me that Taiwan is a pretty supportive place for trans people. A lot of the coverage and commentary focuses on stating the fact that Yu-Ting is cisgender, which I get. But it feels like there wouldn’t be nearly as much outrage were Yu-Ting actually transgender. As if this same horrible bigoted targeting of an athlete would be more justifiable were that to be the case.
Indeed while searching for sources for this piece I came across this article on Medium by someone who doesn’t have a great take on the situation in my view, ultimately pandering to bigot feelings. But it does include, albeit unsourced, important context suggesting some Taiwanese social media users were all too happy to mock the aforementioned Chinese runners when the rumours about their athletes began to spread last year.
Taiwan cancelling JK Rowling is great and funny and all that, but it’s kind of pointless if we don’t learn the important lesson at the heart of all of this. One which, ironically, was the subject of the book series that made her famous. That lesson is quite simple really; purity testing is a bad thing.
In both Rowling’s book series and in real actual life it has only ever been championed by fascists bent on excluding their selected outgroups. In real life sex testing in sports began after a German high jumper who placed 6th during the Berlin Olympics 1936 was later accused of being a man dressed up as a woman by the Nazis and then forced to transition.
It seems like he wanted to transition and was happy with that outcome; so is often described as a transgender man. But it can’t be understated that the decision wasn’t his, it was a directive from the Nazis.
Subsequently A registered Nazi Party member and someone who sat on the IOC; Karl Ritter von Halt would pursue sex testing as Olympic policy. When the Olympics returned in 1948 these policies would be in full force. Blanket sex testing wasn’t ended in the Olympics until 1999.
The transphobes are working to the same logic of pursing purity as the Nazis were. Once they have successfully caused enough drama around one group, as they have with trans people and our inclusion in sport, they will continue to find other justifications to push further groups of people out too. Irrespective of whether they are legendary athletes like Caster Semenya, relatively unknown Chinese mothers or up and coming Taiwanese boxers.
Lin Yu-Ting, Imane Khelif, Caster Semenya, Liao Mengxue and Tong Zenghuan are just some of the recent athletes who have had to face down bigoted hordes embodying the reanimated corpse of these Nazi policies and beliefs. But they will only be the last if we, as a society, wholeheartedly and passionately stand behind the inclusion of all people in sport; including transgender people in particular.
Anything less is how you get Nazis.
