Author and outspoken critic of the transgender community J.K. Rowling slammed the Olympics after women’s boxer Imane Khelif defeated Italy’s Angela Carini in a fight Thursday.
The creator of “Harry Potter” turned to X, formerly Twitter, to complain about the boxing match, which saw Algeria’s Khelif lay into Carini for 46 seconds before the Italian boxer quit the bout.
In her post, Rowling repeatedly misgendered Khelif, who is a cisgender woman disqualified from the 2023 women’s world championships after officials claimed an unspecified “gender eligibility test” showed the athlete had a Y chromosome and elevated levels of testosterone.
Khelif previously competed in the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo in the women’s division without fanfare.
Nonetheless, Rowling shared a photo of a crying Carini with Khelif appearing to comfort her opponent following their fight and wrote, “Could any picture sum up our new men’s rights movement better?”
“The smirk of a male who’s knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered,” she continued.
Rowling followed the post up by sharing an opinion piece from The Telegraph, which claimed that Khelif’s genetics put her at an unfair advantage against her opponents.
But it could be argued that many, if not most, world-class athletes have some sort of biological edge.
Almost all Olympians were genetically blessed with bodies that let them excel at their sport, be it their size or other advantageous physical characteristics.
In fact, a 2023 paper published in the journal Genes found at least 251 genetic markers linked to athletic traits like endurance, power or strength.
One prominent example of a genetic outlier is swimmer Michael Phelps. He fortuitously inherited a gene that makes him produce half the amount of lactic acid as the average person, a mutation that gives him the ability to recover from physical activity far faster than his peers.
His 80-inch wingspan and double-jointed ankles also help.
Ignoring the nuance of the matter, Rowling’s stance was echoed by several other intolerant armchair sports critics.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump also chimed in on Thursday afternoon, taking to his Truth Social platform to declare, “I WILL KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS!”
Tech mogul Elon Musk endorsed a post from anti-trans activist and swimmer Riley Gaines that claimed “men don’t belong in women’s sports” by resharing it with the message: “Absolutely.”
Though the controversy around Khelif is clearly ongoing, officials for the Olympics have backed their decision to let the Algerian woman compete.
“Everyone competing in the women’s category is complying with the competition eligibility rules,” they shared in a statement. “They are women in their passports and it is stated that is the case, that they are female.”
Khelif will step into the ring for her next match on Saturday against Hungary’s Luca Anna Hamori.