A shocking new development has emerged in the case of Algerian boxer Imane Khelif after a French journalist reportedly gained access to a damning medical report revealing Khelif has “testicles.” The news comes months after Khelif seized a gold medal in women’s boxing at the Paris Olympics.
The report was drafted in June of 2023 via a collaboration between the Kremlin-Bicêtre hospital in Paris, France, and the Mohamed Lamine Debaghine hospital in Algiers, Algeria. Drafted by expert endocrinologists Soumaya Fedala and Jacques Young, the report reveals that Khelif is impacted by 5-alpha reductase deficiency, a disorder of sexual development that is only found in biological males.
The genetic abnormality influences the normal development of a child’s sexual organs. At birth, male babies impacted by 5-alpha are often incorrectly assigned female due to the presence of deformed genitalia that sometimes takes on the appearance of a “blind vaginal pouch.”
This disordered development typically becomes apparent by puberty, when 5-alpha adolescents begin to experience signs of masculinization such as muscle growth, hair growth, and an absence of breast tissue development or menstruation. Without access to a proper clinical examination, males with 5-alpha may incorrectly believe they are female into adulthood.
At the end of October, French journalist Djaffar Ait Aoudia obtained a copy of a thorough physical examination that was conducted on Khelif in order to verify the presence of a disorder of sexual development.
According to Aoudia, the clinical report reveals that an MRI determined that Khelif had no uterus, but instead had internal testicles and a “micropenis” resembling an enlarged clitoris. A chromosomal test further confirmed that Khelif has an XY karyotype, while a hormone test found that Khelif had a testosterone level typical of males. Aoudia also noted that doctors suggested Khelif’s parents may have been blood relatives.
The report concludes by recommending Khelif be referred for “surgical correction and hormone therapy,” to help him physically align with his self-perceived gender identity, and adds that psychological support would be required because the results had caused a “very significant neuropsychiatric impact.”
This report coincides with an earlier admission by Khelif’s coach, Georges Cazorla, that the Algerian boxer had been subjected to an assessment at the Kremlin-Bicêtre Hospital after being disqualified from women’s boxing by the International Boxing Association (IBA) in March of 2023.
In an interview from August, Cazorla tepidly conceded that the endocrinologists had determined there was a “problem with [Khelif’s] chromosomes” at the time. Despite this fact, Cazorla insisted that Khelif should still be allowed to compete against females.
Cazorla also stated that Khelif was placed on testosterone suppressants following the 2023 medical assessment. However, the International Olympic Committee has not submitted athletes to chromosomal testing since 1999 and, at the Paris Olympics, the only requirement to participate in women’s boxing was to have a female sex marker on legal documents.
Further confirmation of the boxers’ karyotype was given by Alan Abrahamson, an associate professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, who is a specialist in Olympic sports and member of the International Olympic Committee’s press committee. In an August statement, Abrahamson said that he had personally viewed the results of the hotly-contested chromosomal tests ordered by the IBA in 2022 and 2023 which “concluded the boxer’s DNA was that of a male consisting of XY chromosomes.”
The news of Khelif’s leaked medical report comes after he won gold at the Paris Olympics in the women’s 65kg category.
In collaboration with the Independent Council on Women’s Sport (ICONS), Reduxx was the first outlet to break the news of Khelif’s participation in women’s boxing at Paris, raising alarm bells due to his previous disqualification from women’s boxing by the IBA. The news sparked a firestorm of controversy, with the IBA coming out in opposition to the IOC’s decision to allow biological males to box against women in Paris.
During a press conference in August, the IBA repeatedly confirmed that Khelif had failed multiple chromosomal tests, but was unable to release barred from releasing the results of those tests by the Algerian Olympic Committee.