Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Lin Yu-ting/Facebook
THE PARIS OLYMPICS ended with both Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria taking home gold medals for boxing in their respective categories. It is unlikely, however, that this will put an end to the targeting of both athletes by a wave of transphobia—this despite that both athletes are not, in fact, trans.
In the past weeks, Lin and Khelif came under fire from vocal opponents of trans rights online such as Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who accused the two of being trans. Rowling and others claimed that their participation in the Olympics was due to the Olympics allowing trans women to participate in women’s boxing. This is not the case.
Such claims were based on that Lin and Khelif were disqualified from the 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships by the International Boxing Association (IBA). Lin previously participated in other international sporting events such as the 2018 and 2019 AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships, as well as the 2020 Tokyo Olympics without incident.
The IBA has remained vague about what tests Lin and Khelif were subject to, declining to share details on the basis of “confidentiality”, but later claimed that a chromosome test showed that both boxers had Y chromosomes. Nevertheless, it is not impossible that the IBA has ulterior motives for its disqualifications of a Taiwanese and Algerian athlete.
Photo credit: Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee/Facebook
IBA president Umar Kremlev, originally a businessman and entrepreneur in the fields of security, gambling, and taxi services, is an associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kremlev has accompanied Putin on diplomatic visits to China in the past, to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Under his leadership, the IBA shifted much of its operations to Russia, made Russian energy utility Gazprom its sole financial sponsor, and acted to disqualify Ukrainian athletes. It is not impossible that the IBA, in this sense, had geopolitical motives in mind for disqualifying a Taiwanese and Algerian athlete. The IBA’s actions led it to be stripped of recognition by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the representative body for boxing in 2023 and the IOC has backed Lin and Khelif.
International media reporting generally failed to sufficiently highlight such links between the IBA and the Putin regime, framing the IBA’s claims as potentially valid. But it has been increasingly common in Taiwan for the IBA’s claims to be framed as Russian disinformation. Yet this has often had a geopolitical framing, in that Russia is seen as aligned with geopolitical antagonists of Taiwan such as China. There has, by contrast, not been discussion of how a Russia-linked institution taking aim at athletes by accusing them of being trans occurs in the same timeframe as an assault on LGBTQ rights in the Russian government, including the targeting of trans individuals by legislation passed last year.
The assault on LGBTQ rights occurs with the framing that this is to maintain traditional values against decadent Western civilization. More generally, individuals whose gender expression does not conform to certain prescribed norms will be targeted by transphobes, whether they themselves are trans or not.
Likewise, one notes that the transphobia of individuals such as Rowling are not reducible to acting on behalf of Russian interests. But what does occur is that the views of such individuals dovetail with such a worldview that sees itself under attack by trans rights and this leads to a strange alignment. In this sense, whether unwitting or not, there is a transnationalism to opponents of trans rights.
In Taiwan, society threw its weight behind Lin Yu-ting, with only a fringe majority embracing the conspiratorial claims of Rowling, et al. This, in fact, occurred across party lines, with former president Tsai Ing-wen and current president Lai Ching-te of the DPP, along with KMT politicians such as New Taipei mayor Hou You-yi vocally backing Lin. Despite Lin’s final boxing match taking place at 3:30 AM in Taiwan, thousands gathered to watch the match in Banqiao, outside of the mayoral office of Lin’s native New Taipei on Sunday morning.
While national pride trumped conspiratorial fear-mongering for Taiwan—with pride largely being the response to wins on the international stage by RuPaul’s Drag Race champion Nymphia Wind, who also represented Taiwan at the Cultural Olympiads—it is probable Taiwanese society has more conflicted views regarding trans people at large. Certainly, as with how homophobic discourse from the US was imported to Taiwan in the course of the struggle for legalizing gay marriage, one can expect the same with transphobic rhetoric from elsewhere. Though the incident has made trans issues “topical”, what remains next is for trans advocates to contemplate how to leverage the current wave of attention, at a time when legal cases for changing gender on national IDs continue to be fought out in the courts.