Former Olympian defends boxers in 'gender eligibility' controversy

Female boxer and former Olympian Skye Nicolson defended two boxers amid a "gender eligibility controversy" in women's boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Nicolson competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Fox News reported.

She defended Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting on social media after reports of their disqualification from the 2023 International Boxing Association (IBA) Women’s World Championships emerged.

The reports reignited a controversy about transgender athletes.

IBA President Umar Kremlev said Khelif and Lin were disqualified after testing positive for "XY chromosomes."

"I’ve actually fought and sparred both of the girls," Nicolson said. "They were born female. They were born with an XY chromosome, which is the male chromosome, but they were born with female bodies. They have the physical attributes of a female."

"While it is a bit of a gray area, I think the abuse and the power of the media, and people just jumping on the bandwagon without knowing all the details, is honestly horrible," Nicolson continued.

"Khelif is a woman, who is not transgender, nor identifies as intersex, according to GLAAD and InterACT," per a USA Today fact-check.

Khelif instead has a condition known as "differences of sexual development," which "is a set of rare conditions involving genes, hormones and reproductive organs that can cause the sexual development of a person to be different than others, according to the NHS."

"Sometimes, this can lead to a person having XY chromosomes but develop[ing] otherwise female," USA Today reports.