Sex Matters zooms in on the problem:

Which is why the IOC’s flapping its hands and telling us they’ve always identified as female is so evasive and useless.

So let’s read that statement.

Every person has the right to practise sport without discrimination.

All athletes participating in the boxing tournament of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations, as well as all applicable medical regulations set by the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit (PBU) (please find all applicable rules here). As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport.

Well that’s not good enough. When there’s an issue, that’s obviously not good enough.

We have seen in reports misleading information about two female athletes competing at the Olympic Games Paris 2024. The two athletes have been competing in international boxing competitions for many years in the women’s category, including the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, International Boxing Association (IBA) World Championships and IBA-sanctioned tournaments.

Many years? That’s silly. They’re young, so it can’t have been all that many. That’s just hand-wavey and imprecise, i.e. manipulative rhetoric. Less rhetoric, more precision, bros.

These two athletes were the victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA. Towards the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process.

Wait a second. Was it really arbitrary? Was it nothing at all to do with the fact that both of them in fact appear to be men?

According to the IBA minutes available on their website, this decision was initially taken solely by the IBA Secretary General and CEO. The IBA Board only ratified it afterwards and only subsequently requested that a procedure to follow in similar cases in the future be established and reflected in the IBA Regulations. The minutes also say that the IBA should “establish a clear procedure on gender testing”.

Could that possibly be because more and more men are invading and ruining women’s sports?

The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure – especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years.

See above. Also, doing the wrong thing for many years doesn’t make the wrong thing the right thing.

Such an approach is contrary to good governance.

Eligibility rules should not be changed during ongoing competition, and any rule change must follow appropriate processes and should be based on scientific evidence.

It’s clearly far from ideal to do it during competition, but at the same time, it’s far from ideal to continue the injustice to women during competition.

The IOC is committed to protecting the human rights of all athletes participating in the Olympic Games as per the Olympic Charter, the IOC Code of Ethics and the IOC Strategic Framework on Human Rights. The IOC is saddened by the abuse that the two athletes are currently receiving.

But, apparently, entirely indifferent to the abuse the other two athletes have received.