Furious JK Rowling slammed Olympian Imane Khelif for being a 'man beating a woman in public for entertainment' - and now angered fans have called out the author for her 'transphobic' slur.
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif fought Italy's Angela Carini in last night's women's boxing, but Carini quit to "save my life" just 46 seconds in, as she said she had been hit so hard that she "couldn't breathe". Her emotional reaction has resulted in a social media pile-on, with condemnation coming from various quarters including Reem Alsalem, who is the UN's special rapporteur on violence against women and girls (VAWG), some MPs, champion boxer Nicola Adams, along with JK Rowling.
The Harry Potter creator labelled Imane a "bullying cheat" for taking to the ring after previously failing a gender eligibility test, despite the athlete being born female. It's been reported that Khelif is a biological woman who has a rare condition categorised as differences in sex development (DSD). This can result in female individuals having male chromosomes or anatomy.
Taking to X to share her anger after Carini bowed out in tears, Rowling said: "Explain why you're OK with a man beating a woman in public for your entertainment. This isn't sport. From the bullying cheat in red all the way up to the organisers who allowed this to happen, this is men revelling in their power over women."
She then followed up with another post and said: "Could any picture sum up our new men's rights movement better? The smirk of a male who's knows he's protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he's just punched in the head, and whose life's ambition he's just shattered."
However furious fans have clapped back, calling out her 'cancerous' comments, with many correcting her over the gender of Khelif. "She's literally not trans. If you believe in only two genders that match what you were assigned at birth, she's not a male," one X user penned.
Another said: "She's not a trans woman, Joanne. This is part of why transphobia is so cancerous. You start attacking anyone who doesn't fit your image of what a woman looks like," and a third penned: "Wait a second, Imane was born a girl and has a functioning uterus. Where did all this talk about the «boxer man» come from?"
While a fourth said: "Imane Khelif is cis and like a lot of other cis women, she possesses higher levels of testosterone. It is misogynistic to put women in a box like you're doing right now."
"She tested for XY chromosomes. That's very different from being transgender. Scientists have said for years that testing chromosomes is not a good method for confirming gender. There are many XY women. So, there's no value in attacking two honest women just trying to compete," another chimed.
Rowling then followed up with a further tweet, responding to an X user who said: "Imane Khelif should sue every single account and outlet saying she is trans. Assholes are putting her life at risk, it is illegal in her country to be trans. The continuance of the blatant trans lie continues unfettered on Twitter."
The author replied: "The idea that those objecting to a male punching a female in the name of sport are objecting because they believe Khelif to be 'trans' is a joke. We object because we saw a male punching a female."
The anti-trans rhetoric dispute has seen other high-profile figures speak out, including billionaire Elon Musk, who made this thoughts clear. He retweeted a picture of Carini on X that American swimmer Riley Marie Gaines captioned: "Men don't belong in women's sports #IStandWithAngelaCarini." He then wrote alongside the post: "Absolutely".
However, Labour MP Nadia Whittome retweeted a post that said: "Serena Williams was accused of being a man when outperforming a white female. Caster sem*nya was accused of being a man when outperforming a white female. Imane Khalifa was accused of being a man when outperforming a white female. Take what you want from this."
Another added: "If Imane Khelif was such an unstoppable monster benefiting from an unfair advantage, she probably wouldn't have lost 20% of her international level fights...and would probably stop more than 8.89% of her opponents."
Both Imane and Taiwan boxing champ Lin Yu-ting failed their gender tests ahead of the 2023 women's boxing world championships and so were disqualified. However, they were permitted to compete in Paris due to the Olympics being run under a different governing body - the International Boxing Association (IBA).
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is administering the boxing event in Paris after stripping the IBA of recognition as the sport’s global federation last year, blamed the IBA's 'arbitrary' decision for the row, with a spokesman adding: "This is not a transgender issue. I should make this absolutely clear."
Sports Secretary Lisa Nandy said she will be speaking to bodies about "inclusion, fairness and safety" after what she described as an "incredibly uncomfortable watch" when asked about the Olympic boxing gender row. She said the "biological facts are far more complicated than is being presented on social media and in some of the speculation".
She told the BBC : "I know that there’s a lot of concern about women competitors, about whether we’re getting the balance right in not just boxing but other sports as well. The decision that successive governments have made is that these are complex decisions that should be made by sporting bodies. In this case, for example, I understand that the biological facts are far more complicated than is being presented on social media and in some of the speculation.
"But I think as sporting bodies try to get that balance between inclusion, fairness and safety, there is a role for government to make sure that they’ve got the guidance and the framework and the support to make those decisions correctly and it’s something that I’ll be talking to sporting bodies about over the coming weeks and months."
It's not the first time JK Rowling has been embroiled in a trans dispute and admitted she knew the first time she spoke out about her views on transgender issues "many folks would be deeply unhappy with me". Speaking to host Megan Phelps-Roper on the podcast The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, she said that despite assertions she has betrayed the messages in the Harry Potter novels, she believes she is “absolutely upholding the positions that I took in Potter”.
She spoke to Phelps-Roper about her 2019 tweet in support of Maya Forstater, who lost her job after tweeting that transgender women could not change their biological sex. Forstater later won her claim that she was unfairly discriminated against because of her gender-critical beliefs.
Rowling said on the podcast: "When I first became interested in, and then deeply troubled by, what I saw as a cultural movement that was illiberal in its methods and questionable in its ideas, I absolutely knew that if I spoke out, many people who love my books would be deeply unhappy with me.
"I knew that, because I could see that they believed that they were living the values I had espoused in those books. I could tell that they believed that they were fighting for underdogs and difference and fairness. And I thought it would be easier not to."
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