Controversial Taiwanese Boxer Lin Yu-Ting Wins Gold Medal In Women's Featherweight Division
Controversial Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu Ting is now an Olympic gold medalist after defeating Poland's Julia Szeremeta in the women's featherweight final Saturday at the Paris Games.
Lin won the bout by unanimous decision.
Lin — along with Algeria's Imane Khelif, who won gold in the women's welterweight division Friday — were removed from the Women's World Boxing Championship in March 2023.
Umar Kremlev, president of the International Boxing Association (IBA), announced the disqualifications after he met with executives to discuss "fairness among athletes and professionalism." He said that after "a series of DNA-tests," the IBA "uncovered athletes who were trying to fool their colleagues and pretend to be women."
Kremlev told TASS News that the tests had proven the athletes in question "had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded from the sports events."
Lin Yu-Ting was disqualified from the Women's World Boxing Championship after tests showed the boxer "had XY chromosomes."
(Photo by Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
Neither boxer identifies as transgender, but it has been reported that both are impacted by a Difference of Sexual Development (DSD) — meaning they have both male and female genitalia.
It's the same condition that affects runner Caster Semenya, who won two Olympic gold medals before World Athletics revised its policy to require DSD athletes to reduce their testosterone levels to compete in women's events.
READ: Olympic Champ Says Being Born With Internal Testicles Doesn't 'Make Me Less Of A Woman'
Lin Yu Ting Has Been At The Center Of Olympic Gender Controversy
Still, the International Olympic Committee allowed Khelif and Lin to compete. And both boxers dominated in Paris — both winning every round in all of their Olympic bouts.
Multiple female boxers have protested the IOC's decision to allow the two boxers to compete in the women's division, even making "XX" hand gestures to symbolize their female XX chromosomes.
But IOC President Thomas Bach condemned the criticism directed at the two boxers as "hate speech," saying the IOC "will not take part in a politically motivated cultural war."
"We have two boxers who are born as women, who have been raised as women, who have a passport as a woman and have competed for many years as women," Bach said. "Some want to own a definition of who is a woman."
There are no blanket Olympic rules on transgender athletes, DSD athletes or testosterone levels. Instead, it is left to the governing bodies of each sport to decide.
Right now, it's unclear whether boxing will be included in the 2028 Summer Olympics. But after both of the "XY" boxers in question took gold medals in Paris, the boxing community and the IOC will have a lot of questions to answer regarding fairness ahead of the Los Angeles Games.