The sex-test results from the 2023 International Boxing Association (IBA) Championships have revealed that Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who gained attention after sweeping through a women’s boxing division at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, has male DNA. 

The test report was obtained by 3 Wire Sports, which reported that the testing was done at India’s Dr. Lal PathLabs ahead of the New Delhi championships. The lab is a "national reference lab" that is accredited by the Illinois-based College of American Pathologists and certified by the Swiss International Organization for Standardization. 

The report stated that the test was conducted on March 17, 2023, and stated, "Chromosome analysis reveals Male Karyotype," which refers to an individual’s complete set of chromosomes.

Just days before the report was released by 3 Wire Sports, World Boxing, which has been provisionally approved to run Olympic boxing at the LA 2028 Olympics, announced that all athletes, including Khelif, would be required to undergo sex testing to determine gender eligibility. 

World Boxing issued a statement to the Algerian Boxing Federation on May 30 that stated, "Imane Khelif may not participate in the female category at the Eindhoven Box Cup, 5-10 June 2025 and any World Boxing event until Imane Khelif undergoes genetic sex screening in accordance with World Boxing’s rules and testing procedures."

IOC Spokesman Mark Adams had said during a Paris Olympics news conference regarding the IBA testing, "Those tests are not legitimate tests. The tests themselves, the process of the tests, the ad hoc nature of the tests are not legitimate. The testing, the method of the testing, the idea of the testing, which happened kind of overnight. None of it is legitimate and this does not deserve any response."

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach defended the organization’s decision to allow Khelif to fight in the women’s division ahead of Khelif’s semi-final bout, saying, "We have two boxers who were born as women, who have been raised as women, who have a passport as a woman, and who have competed for many years as women."

In November 2024, a leaked clinical report revealed that Khelif has a 5-alpha reductase deficiency, a deficiency in sex development is only seen in biological males. The report, drafted in June 2023 through a collaboration between the Paris Kremlin-Bicetre hospital and the Alters Mohammad Lamine Debaghine hospital, revealed that an MRI had found the boxer had no uterus, and in its place were internal testicles and a "micropenis" that resembled an enlarged clitoris. 

As Khelif was going up the ranks in Paris, Jemele Hill called for Khelif to sue "some people over their reckless remarks. All this story did was expose ugliness, hatred, and transphobia."

In the middle of August, Khelif filed a lawsuit against author JK Rowling, X owner Elon Musk, and others alleging "cyber harassment." The complaint filed with the anti-online hatred center of the Paris Prosecutor’s Office urged an investigation "into the counts of cyber harassment due to gender, public insult because of gender, public incitement to discrimination and public insult because of origin," the National Center for the Fight Against Online Hatred said. 

Rowling has been continually criticized for noting the testing results of Khelif, with the Executive Director of Equality Amplified writing just days before the 2023 testing results were revealed, "You literally launched a campaign of abuse and hate against the female boxer Imane Khelif."