Olympic boxer Imane Khelif of Algeria was awarded a bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics August 3, just days after another victory over Italy’s Angela Carini was met with widespread scrutiny and online abuse about Khelif’s gender identity from various anti-trans commentators.
Khelif is a cisgender woman, but the circumstances of her win and subsequent misconceptions about her gender drew her into long-festering controversies involving trans and gender diverse folks’ participation in the Olympics.
It’s been a long journey for trans and gender diverse Olympians, with the first intersex athlete competing nearly 90 years ago in 1936. However, the International Olympic Committee didn’t officially allow transgender folks to participate until 2004.
Around 16 known intersex athletes have competed in the modern Olympics, but with strict cultural views on the gender binary, there’s a chance others may have slipped through the historical cracks. The first one on record, Polish track runner Stanisława Walasiewicz also known as Stella Walsh, won gold in 1932 and silver in 1936. Walsh’s intersex identity wasn’t publicly discovered until an autopsy many years later.
Heinrich Ratjen, a German Olympian who competed in women’s high jump, was also at the 1936 Olympics—though Ratjen’s later story is a bit darker. In 1938, Ratjen was forcibly examined by the SS and forced to stop competing in sports and assume a male identity.
There were no gender regulations for the Olympics in the 1930’s, with physical gender examinations being mandated beginning in 1960. In 1967, they introduced chromatin testing for female athletes.
The first openly intersex Olympic athlete was Edinaci Silva, who competed for Brazil in judo in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008. Most sports had stopped enforcing overarching gender exams by then, but judo was not one of them. However, Silva had undergone prior surgery to Olympic appearances which allowed participation in women’s sports.
The first official guidelines by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for transgender folks was established in 2003, going into effect at Athens 2004.
The regulations stated those who went through gender reassignment surgery prior to puberty were free to compete as their gender with no restrictions, but those who surgically transitioned after would be under stricter guidelines—full gender reassignment surgery, legal sex change and a “sufficient length” of hormone replacement therapy. It recommended eligibility for the latter group to begin “no sooner than two years after gonadectomy.”
This initial policy was updated again in 2015 to remove the gender reassignment surgery requirement, and to allow trans male athletes to compete in the male category with no barriers. Trans female athletes, however, were required to declare their female gender—and could not change it for four years—and keep testosterone levels to a specific regulation for at least 12 months prior to competition. Despite these policies existing for nearly 20 years, the first openly transgender athletes competed at Tokyo 2021.
Quinn, a nonbinary midfielder for Canada’s women’s soccer team, became the first openly transgender person to compete and the first to win a medal in the Olympic games. For team U.S.A., Alana Smith became the first openly nonbinary athlete to represent America when they competed in women’s street skateboarding. American triathlon and duathlon athlete Chris Mosier also became the first trans man to compete alongside other men in an Olympic trial, but was unable to finish due to injury.
One of the biggest names at Tokyo 2021 was Laurel Hubbard, a New Zealand weightlifter and the first trans woman Olympian. Although she couldn’t complete her first three lifts on the Monday of competition, therefore putting her out of contention for medals, she is still a pioneer for trans Olympians.
Hubbard had faced backlash for her spot on the team, but was met by support from fellow competitors and folks all over the world for her role as a trans athlete on the world’s biggest stage.
Heading into Paris 2024, trans athletes were faced more regulations than 2021. The IOC now allows each individual sports’ governing body to set its own regulations, which has led to some sports being harsher on trans folks than others. Under these regulations, athletes such as American swimmer Lia Thomas, are being pushed out—the Court of Arbitration in Sport said trans women who’ve fully gone through male puberty cannot compete in women’s swimming.
The 2024 Paris Olympics runs through Aug. 11.