AN SNP MSP has intervened after a Tory counterpart lodged a "dog-whistle" motion on female sport at the Olympics.
Over the summer, Tess White was accused of engaging in "ugly and divisive" politics after questioning the "safety" of female athletes in Paris, referencing the highly disputed failed gender tests of two boxers.
She lodged a motion in the Scottish Parliament expressing concern at the decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to permit Algeria's Imane Khelif to compete in the women’s boxing alongside Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting.
Now SNP MSP Karen Adam has put forward an amendment congratulating the athletes and highlighting the “torrent of misogynistic abuse” they have faced.
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Both boxers garnered huge attention during the Olympics as controversy overshadowed their victories.
The two fighters were disqualified from the World Championships - run by the Russian-led International Boxing Association (IBA) - for reportedly failing to meet “eligibility criteria” following “gender testing”.
The IBA - which was stripped of its status as global governing body last year by the IOC - said blood testing on the two fighters was conducted in May 2022 and March 2023, and that the results “conclusively indicated" that the pair “didn’t match the eligibility criteria for IBA women's events".
The background surrounding the two boxers – who have always competed in the women’s division - led to them receiving a torrent of online abuse and Khelif has filed a legal complaint against social media platform Twitter/X for harassment.
White’s motion asks the Parliament to agree to say it “believes it is paramount that the IOC should balance inclusion against fairness and the safety of female athletes, and considers that it should urgently review the way it assesses eligibility for participating in women’s events at the Olympics”.
But Adam’s amendment states that the Parliament should note “with concern what it considers to be a torrent of misogynistic abuse that she [Khelif] and other female boxers, including Lin Yu-ting, who represented Taiwan, faced throughout the competition” and “deplores what it sees as the widespread disinformation and misinformation concerning the eligibility of the two women to compete in the Olympics Games”.
Thomas Bach, IOC president, said the “hate speech” directed at the boxers was “totally unacceptable”.
"We have two boxers who are born as a woman, who have been raised as a woman, who have a passport as a woman and who have competed for many years as a woman,” he said.
"This is the clear definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman."
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