What Is a 'Transvestigation?' Misogyny Gets a Rebrand at the Paris Olympics

glamour.com:

against Italian boxer Angela Carini in the first round of the women’s welterweight boxing tournament at the . The match lasted just 46 seconds, with Khelif emerging as the victor when Carini abruptly withdrew from the match.You’d think that the sports world would immediately rally around the Algerian Olympian, celebrating her win and her stunning show of strength and athleticism.

Instead, conservatives like and Elon Musk began tearing her down, claiming, falsely, on social media that Khelif is biologically male—as though a secret trans identity was the only way to have taken her opponent down so swiftly.These accusations, which have been parroted by a number of conspiracy theorists online, are part of the strange and terrifying rise of “,” or people who target a woman they deem to have “manly” characteristics, and work backwards in search of “clues” that that person is transgender.

In other words, if you don’t fit inside conservatives’ narrow stereotype of what a woman looks like, or how she behaves, you must not really be a woman.

It’s just another form of the same misogyny that has plagued women athletes since the beginning of time, just with a rebrand.Imane Khelif of Team Algeria punches Angela Carini of Team Italy during the Women’s 66kg preliminary round match of the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.According to GLAAD, the hate-fueled concept of “transvestigations” and has seen a recent resurgence since 2023.