A criminal complaint filed this week with French authorities alleging “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” against Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer and Olympic gold medalist whose gender identity was questioned at this year’s Paris Games, names influential figures including the author JK Rowling and tech billionaire Elon. Musk.
Khelif’s lawyer, Nabil Boudi, confirmed to Variety on Tuesday that Rowling and Musk are mentioned in the complaint, filed Friday in Paris. However, the lawsuit does not identify any specific defendants, which Boudi said will ensure that the prosecution “has full freedom to investigate all people,” including individuals who may have posted hateful messages under pseudonyms.
Former President Trump will also be part of the investigation, he said. “Trump tweeted, so whether or not he is named in our lawsuit, it will inevitably be reviewed as part of the indictment,” Boudi said Tuesday. Boudi did not respond to The Hill’s requests for comment.
Conservative pundits, media personalities and lawmakers ignited a firestorm earlier this month over Khelif’s gender identity following reports that Khelif and another Olympic boxer, Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, failed to meet an unspecified gender eligibility requirement. at last year’s Women’s World Boxing Championship in New Delhi.
The tests were administered by the International Boxing Association (IBA), which the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to expel last year due to the governing body’s failure to implement certain ethics and governance reforms.
The IOC challenged the validity of the gender tests administered to Khelif, 25, and Lin, 28, neither of whom identify as transgender. Both athletes competed in the women’s category at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo with little or no controversy.
Misinformation about Khelif’s gender spread quickly on social media following her Olympic fight against Italian Angela Carini, which Carini abandoned after just 46 seconds. Later, Carini told reporters that she ended the fight because of severe pain in her nose.
Rowling posted a photo of the match on social platform X, writing that Khelif was “enjoying the anguish of a woman he just punched in the head.” Musk, the platform’s owner, shared a post by Riley Gaines, a former swimmer at the University of Kentucky who frequently advocates against the inclusion of transgender athletes, who claimed that Khelif is a transgender woman.
Trump also took advantage of the backlash and, on August 1 post on Truth SocialOn his social media site, he used video of the fight to reinforce a campaign promise to “keep men out of women’s sports” if he were re-elected in November. At a rally in Bozeman, Mont., on Friday, Trump repeated the false statement that Khelif is transgender, describing her as a “young woman who transitioned from male to boxer.”
In an interview with the Associated Press this month, Khelif said the wave of hateful comments and misconceptions about her gender “harms human dignity.”
“I send a message to everyone in the world to defend the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from intimidating all athletes, because this has effects, enormous effects,” Khelif told APin Arabic. “It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. This can divide people. And because of that, I ask you to refrain from bullying.”
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