In the interview, her French trainer and biology professor stated that he referred her to a world class endocrinologist, who confirmed “she is indeed a woman, despite her karyotype and testosterone levels.” In other words, she’s XY and male testosterone levels. (They never made it clear what facts were relied on for the “she is indeed a woman” statement, but obviously it wasn’t her genome). The following exchange took place between the journalist and trainer/bio professor immediately after this statement about her karyotype: Some claim that XY profiles have a physical, muscular superiority over XX profiles. “People say that everyone should play sports. Everyone, except these people? Some suggest creating special categories, but even within a group of hypoandrogenic or hyperandrogenic people, there are differences among them. There is such a significant variation that categories cannot be established.” Her trainer also admitted they had to lower her testosterone levels to below male levels.
I consider Imane a woman, obviously - she was born this way and lived her life this way. At the same time if karyotype is XY, then I don’t think she should compete with women. I find it unfair to Imane, but fair to all XX women and there’s MANY more of them.
If a science progresses to a point where we can have a more fair, but still well defined properties of a “women category in sports” then great, just amazing. Until then, karyotype is pretty much all we have (+ a few well defined conditions where Y is pretty much non active). I don’t discuss testosterone since it’s checked anyway along with steroids etc.
Statistically, if there was no benefit from XY then it would be borderline impossible for Imane to have gold. There is tens of thousands more XX women training hard, so for this to be coincidence that gold is won by XY women it would have to be a miracle. And it’s not. Reality is that she had an unfair advantage over XX women.
It’s not a matter of categorization as a woman or not. It’s a matter of classification in sports category. Unboundedly testosterone has significant effects on performance and body composition and is rightfully considered as a doping substance.
So the current rules create double standards and promote unfairness.