Commentators on Fox News shows have continued to spread false claims that two female Olympic boxers, Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting, are actually male, an allegation that gained steam after Khelif quickly defeated Italian opponent Angela Carini on Aug. 1.
On Harris Faulkner’s Fox News show Monday, commentator Clay Travis said it’s “completely indefensible that these two individuals have been allowed to compete as women while they are biologically men.”
“You basically have two males, when it comes to the biology of it, beating up women,” Fox News contributor David Webb said Sunday night, while contributor Charlie Hurt said “this is about preventing a man from beating a woman to death at the Olympics.” Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe said that female athletes at the Olympics are having their dreams “stolen by men.” In another Sunday segment on Fox News, contributor Joe Concha asked, “How can a biological male boxer possibly be allowed to compete against a biological woman?”
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Khelif and Lin are biological females, and the International Olympic Committee has said that both boxers are eligible as women to participate. A spokesperson for the IOC said the Algerian boxer “was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female and has a female passport.”
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The controversy began after the International Boxing Association, an organization that has been banned by the IOC because of a lack of transparency, said the two boxers had been disqualified from a 2023 competition as “a result of their failure to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition, as set and laid out in the IBA Regulations.” The organization, which is sponsored by Russia’s state-run oil company Gazprom, said the boxers failed “a separate and recognized test.” The head of the IBA, Umar Kremlev, also said the women have XY chromosomes, another assertion that has not been backed up by evidence. On Monday, the IBA held a “bizarre” news conference attempting the explain the 2023 disqualification without sharing any more details about the tests the boxers allegedly failed.
But that hasn’t stopped conservative politicians and commentators, most prominently on Fox, from accusing the women of having male biology and therefore having an unfair advantage over their female competitors.
On “Fox & Friends” Thursday, co-host Ainsley Earhardt identified Khelif as “a biological male identifying as a trans woman,” and said “there are two biological men fighting in the women’s division.”
Her co-host, Brian Kilmeade, reacted to Earhardt’s comments with outrage. “It’s ridiculous!” he said, as a photo of Khelif appeared on the screen. “Look at that: That’s a guy! You’re fighting a guy. Put him in the men’s division.”
Several members of the network’s news division have also repeated false claims. On Sunday, Fox News anchor Jon Scott said that “medical tests said [the boxers] were biological males.” On Thursday afternoon, anchor Sandra Smith said that Khelif “has male anatomy” and was “born male,” while anchor John Roberts previewed a segment about “the firestorm at the Olympics over genetic males beating up on women.” And the network’s 6 p.m. anchor, Bret Baier, has also stated as fact that Khelif “has male chromosomes.”
So far, the network has not issued any corrections or clarifications about the false claims. But, when asked by The Washington Post to comment, a network spokesperson pointed to examples of accurate reporting.
“This has nothing to do with transgender issues at all,” anchor Trace Gallagher said on Thursday afternoon. “This is a female boxer who was born, for all intents and purposes, as a female.”
As Travis spoke on Monday afternoon about the boxers being “biologically male,” Faulkner noted that the IBA’s test announcement needed to be confirmed. “I hear what you’re saying,” she said. “I want the test to be released. Let’s see what the facts are.”
On Fox’s 5 p.m. show on Friday, left-leaning Jessica Tarlov said “there’s been no conversation over them being certainly transgender, which we should note is illegal in Algeria anywhere, or even being intersex.”
But her co-host, Jesse Watters, said this is all about ginning up publicity for the Olympics, because “whenever you have a trans situation, in anything, it gets a lot of publicity.”
“We’re now at a point where we’re about to give gold medals to men for beating up women,” Watters said. When Tarlov pushed back, he said, “They’re men, okay? Everybody knows they’re men, Jessica.”
Other media platforms have also hosted inaccurate assertions about the female boxers. One America News network host Dan Ball referred to Khelif as “a transgender boxer” on Monday. “Look at this — man. That’s what it is. It’s a man. And I’m just fed up.”
On Newsmax on Thursday, an on-screen graphic read: “Female Boxer Has Dreams Crushed By Biological Male.” During a panel discussion, conservative pundit Matt Schlapp referred to Khelif as a “he” and asked whether “he has a chemical advantage because of the hormones in his body.”
A co-host of the radio talk show “The Breakfast Club” said on Thursday that Khelif “is a biologically born man.”
While Fox News has not issued any corrections, the Boston Globe apologized for a “significant error” after a headline in the newspaper’s print edition on Friday read “Transgender boxer advances,” referring to Khelif. The story was written by an Associated Press reporter, Greg Beacham, who noted on X that the word transgender did not appear in his story, which was about Khelif’s latest victory.
“We recognize the magnitude of this mistake and have corrected it in the epaper, the electronic version of the printed Globe,” the publication said. “This editing lapse is regrettable and unacceptable and we apologize to Khelif, to Greg Beacham, and to you, our readers.”
On Harris Faulkner’s Fox News show Monday, commentator Clay Travis said it’s “completely indefensible that these two individuals have been allowed to compete as women while they are biologically men.”
“You basically have two males, when it comes to the biology of it, beating up women,” Fox News contributor David Webb said Sunday night, while contributor Charlie Hurt said “this is about preventing a man from beating a woman to death at the Olympics.” Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe said that female athletes at the Olympics are having their dreams “stolen by men.” In another Sunday segment on Fox News, contributor Joe Concha asked, “How can a biological male boxer possibly be allowed to compete against a biological woman?”
ADVERTISING
Khelif and Lin are biological females, and the International Olympic Committee has said that both boxers are eligible as women to participate. A spokesperson for the IOC said the Algerian boxer “was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female and has a female passport.”
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The controversy began after the International Boxing Association, an organization that has been banned by the IOC because of a lack of transparency, said the two boxers had been disqualified from a 2023 competition as “a result of their failure to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition, as set and laid out in the IBA Regulations.” The organization, which is sponsored by Russia’s state-run oil company Gazprom, said the boxers failed “a separate and recognized test.” The head of the IBA, Umar Kremlev, also said the women have XY chromosomes, another assertion that has not been backed up by evidence. On Monday, the IBA held a “bizarre” news conference attempting the explain the 2023 disqualification without sharing any more details about the tests the boxers allegedly failed.
But that hasn’t stopped conservative politicians and commentators, most prominently on Fox, from accusing the women of having male biology and therefore having an unfair advantage over their female competitors.
On “Fox & Friends” Thursday, co-host Ainsley Earhardt identified Khelif as “a biological male identifying as a trans woman,” and said “there are two biological men fighting in the women’s division.”
Her co-host, Brian Kilmeade, reacted to Earhardt’s comments with outrage. “It’s ridiculous!” he said, as a photo of Khelif appeared on the screen. “Look at that: That’s a guy! You’re fighting a guy. Put him in the men’s division.”
Several members of the network’s news division have also repeated false claims. On Sunday, Fox News anchor Jon Scott said that “medical tests said [the boxers] were biological males.” On Thursday afternoon, anchor Sandra Smith said that Khelif “has male anatomy” and was “born male,” while anchor John Roberts previewed a segment about “the firestorm at the Olympics over genetic males beating up on women.” And the network’s 6 p.m. anchor, Bret Baier, has also stated as fact that Khelif “has male chromosomes.”
So far, the network has not issued any corrections or clarifications about the false claims. But, when asked by The Washington Post to comment, a network spokesperson pointed to examples of accurate reporting.
“This has nothing to do with transgender issues at all,” anchor Trace Gallagher said on Thursday afternoon. “This is a female boxer who was born, for all intents and purposes, as a female.”
As Travis spoke on Monday afternoon about the boxers being “biologically male,” Faulkner noted that the IBA’s test announcement needed to be confirmed. “I hear what you’re saying,” she said. “I want the test to be released. Let’s see what the facts are.”
On Fox’s 5 p.m. show on Friday, left-leaning Jessica Tarlov said “there’s been no conversation over them being certainly transgender, which we should note is illegal in Algeria anywhere, or even being intersex.”
But her co-host, Jesse Watters, said this is all about ginning up publicity for the Olympics, because “whenever you have a trans situation, in anything, it gets a lot of publicity.”
“We’re now at a point where we’re about to give gold medals to men for beating up women,” Watters said. When Tarlov pushed back, he said, “They’re men, okay? Everybody knows they’re men, Jessica.”
Other media platforms have also hosted inaccurate assertions about the female boxers. One America News network host Dan Ball referred to Khelif as “a transgender boxer” on Monday. “Look at this — man. That’s what it is. It’s a man. And I’m just fed up.”
On Newsmax on Thursday, an on-screen graphic read: “Female Boxer Has Dreams Crushed By Biological Male.” During a panel discussion, conservative pundit Matt Schlapp referred to Khelif as a “he” and asked whether “he has a chemical advantage because of the hormones in his body.”
A co-host of the radio talk show “The Breakfast Club” said on Thursday that Khelif “is a biologically born man.”
While Fox News has not issued any corrections, the Boston Globe apologized for a “significant error” after a headline in the newspaper’s print edition on Friday read “Transgender boxer advances,” referring to Khelif. The story was written by an Associated Press reporter, Greg Beacham, who noted on X that the word transgender did not appear in his story, which was about Khelif’s latest victory.
“We recognize the magnitude of this mistake and have corrected it in the epaper, the electronic version of the printed Globe,” the publication said. “This editing lapse is regrettable and unacceptable and we apologize to Khelif, to Greg Beacham, and to you, our readers.”
