Why Imane Khelif’s biggest fight yet could be against JK Rowling

The boxer was at the centre of a gender row that engulfed the Olympics. Now, the gloves are off as she’s filed a complaint over harassment

She won an Olympic gold medal in the boxing ring in Paris, but can the controversial Algerian competitor Imane Khelif – who was at the centre of the gender row that dominated the games – now land a knockout blow in court? 
We will soon find out, as lawyers acting for Khelif have filed a complaint with French authorities over aggravated cyber harassment – and several high-profile individuals could be named in the suit, including JK Rowling, Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
Khelif’s lawyer Nabil Boudi said in a statement that they had filed the complaint last Friday with the online hate centre of the Paris prosecutor’s office. 
“The criminal investigation will determine who initiated this misogynistic, racist and sexist campaign,” Boudi said. “But will also have to focus on those who fueled this digital lynching.”
It’s the latest bout in what has proven to be the 2024 Olympics’ most bruising fight, throwing up passionately debated issues around sporting fairness, gender equality, online bullying, and free speech protection. 
Khelif, 25, won the women’s 66kg welterweight boxing title last week to the vocal delight of her Algerian supporters and to the dismay of those who felt the athlete had an innately unfair physical advantage. Khelif was disqualified from competing in last year’s World Championships final by the International Boxing Association (IBA), which said that they had conducted “gender testing” in May 2022 and March 2023, and that the results showed that Khelif had XY chromosomes, and so was biologically male.
Khelif reportedly has one of a number of conditions referred to as DSD or “differences in sex development”. People with DSD can be born with both ovarian and testicular tissue. The South African runner Caster Semenya, who won the 800m gold in the 2016 Rio Olympics, has a form of DSD, which means she produces testosterone levels more usually found in male athletes. 
However, the IBA has since been stripped of its rights to govern global boxing, so it was down to the International Olympic Committee to decide which athletes were eligible to compete at the Olympics – and they allowed Khelif to enter. The Algerian then went on to win, in a victory that angered some female sporting greats. Tennis legend Martina Navratilova labelled it “a travesty”.
But this next crucial round isn’t between Khelif and another fighter, but between Khelif and her detractors. In the red corner stands the defiant Olympic boxing champ, who calls her critics “enemies of success” and has said her victory has a “special taste” because of them. In the blue corner: those who have taken to social media to furiously question Khelif’s right to compete in women’s events.
On X (formerly Twitter) Harry Potter author J K Rowling characterised Khelif’s fight against Italian competitor Angela Carini, who tearfully quit after just 46 seconds, as “male violence against women becoming an Olympic sport.” She posted a picture of the pair, writing that it showed “the smirk of a male who 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”.
Donald Trump posted an image from that same fight on Truth Social, captioning it “I will keep men out of women’s sports”. Elon Musk shared the American college swimmer Riley Gaines’s post on X stating that “men don’t belong in women’s sports”, with Musk adding “Absolutely” in agreement.
Boudi said that French law allows the prosecution “latitude to be able to investigate against all people”, which is presumably why he has named a billionaire and a former US president in the case.
But it’s not quite that simple in practice, explains lawyer Mark Stephens. “There is a difference between expressing a view about a matter of fact and making a threat. Khelif may feel that someone denying her gender is itself a form of bullying, but there has got to be a degree of tolerance. Just a denial of sex isn’t going to be sufficient to criminalise that speech. 
“People are allowed to hold what some may consider uncomfortable, even repugnant views, and in this case it’s part of a legitimate public debate.”
Stephens continues: “It’s when you combine, for example, that challenge to her gender with hateful speech, abuse or threats – those are the people who could be held criminally responsible. That’s what the prosecutors look for. It’s usually someone who takes that original comment and amplifies it in an objectively intimidating or abusive way, then it moves over into wrongdoing.”
That means it’s more likely that someone who, say, quoted a Rowling post and added an explicit threat to it could be in trouble in this case, rather than Rowling herself. However, we’re into slightly murky territory when it comes to social media. 
Stephens points out these platforms should be looking at whether such speech is a breach of their community standards, but that doesn’t always happen. “X is not policing as rigorously as Meta [which owns Facebook and Instagram].” 
That might be why governments are now stepping in, but there’s plenty of variation between nations. “The French laws have always been more stringent than ours,” Stephens observes. 
“There’s a natural distaste in continental Europe for social media platforms, plus there are sensitivities around the rise of the far right at the moment. The fact that some [far-right individuals] feature prominently on these platforms could well feed into public policy.”
Taking all of that into account, including the febrile political context, Stephens reckons that Khelif “has a very good opportunity to win her case in France”.
In 2014 the French government put in place the first of their actions against online harassment. Anyone who repeated remarks or behaviour, with the effect of deteriorating the living conditions of another person, would become liable to a year of imprisonment and a fine.
The online hate centre (“pôle national de lutte contre la haine en ligne” in French, known as the PNLH) to which Khelif’s lawyers have brought their case was established in 2021 and has jurisdiction over the whole country. But its reach has already extended beyond French borders: in 2020 a teenage girl who had received around 50,000 death threats after posting a video criticising Islam took her case to the PNLH, even though it had originated in Vienna.
Khelif might also be motivated by the fact that she’s resident in a conservative Muslim country where differences aren’t generally tolerated. Homosexuality is still illegal in Algeria, and vigilante crimes are widespread. In 2019, student Assil Belalta was found in his dormitory at the University of Algiers with his throat slit and “he is gay” painted on the wall in blood. If her fellow Algerians believed online claims (whether false or not) that Khelif is transgender or intersex, she could not only lose her national treasure status, but her life might even be in danger. 
But if Khelif does deliver a swift right hook in court by winning her French case, will that convince her most vocal critics to back down? Definitely not in Rowling’s case, believes feminist campaigner and Telegraph columnist Suzanne Moore. 
“All I can say is, ‘Bring it on’, as Khelif will have to show some proof of sex. If Rowling was ever going to ‘back down’, she would have done so years ago. She stepped forward during the Hate Crime legislation [in Scotland] and dared them to arrest her. They blinked first.
“Everything I know of this woman is that ‘backing down’ is not genetically possible for her. Anyone who takes her on needs to realise this. She knows what this fight for women’s rights is and what it means and how long it will take, and she is prepared to go the distance.”
So, even if Rowling isn’t directly named in the final court case she may well continue to comment on it, and to defend the rights of those who are targeted.
She won’t be alone, either, as the zealous advocates on both sides of this fight – from Khelif’s punchy defenders to those who fear free speech could wind up with a black eye – watch avidly to see how this vital test case plays out, and who is left standing.