From the beginning of her tennis career, in the mid-1990s, Serena Williams’s body was a battlefield. After turning pro at 14, she battled her way through 23 Grand Slams, faced down a slew of injuries, and later, in her 30s, survived a birth experience that nearly killed her. Her body went through a lot—and it was as often a focus of praise and awe as ludicrous, petty criticism. “People would say I was born a guy, all because of my arms, or because I’m strong,” Williams told Harper’s Bazaar in 2018. “I was different to Venus: she was thin and tall and beautiful, and I am strong and muscular – and beautiful, but, you know, it was just totally different.”
Williams is far from the only cisgender Black female athlete to contend with such cruelty; basketball player Brittney Griner and runner Caster Semenya have dealt with similar remarks. All three women were on my mind last week after 25-year-old Algerian boxer Imane Khelif defeated Angela Carini of Italy in under a minute at the 2024 Paris Olympics, promptly starting a firestorm. Carini has since apologized for refusing to shake Khalif’s hand after the fight, and calling her win “not fair”—what some understood as a reference to the fact that in 2023, the International Boxing Association (IBA) determined that Khalif and another boxer, Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting—both cis women—had “competitive advantages over other female competitors,” and disqualified them from the world championships. But gender-critical celebrity opportunists including J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk had already descended to question Khelif’s womanhood and mire her hard-won success in the muck of racist and transphobic rhetoric.
The pain of this kind of accusation is multifaceted, particularly when it’s leveled against women of color. Not only does it further demonize and demean actual trans girls and women (far too many of whom are still denied the opportunity to compete at the highest athletic levels or even simply play sports in school), but it deliberately otherizes cis women of color, punishing them for excelling and telling them—and the millions of young women looking up to them—that their very selfhood is negotiable.
One thing that isn’t remotely questionable in all of this, however, is Khelif’s talent. After besting Carini last Thursday, Khelif went on to defeat Luca Anna Hamori of Hungary over weekend—shortly after Hamori reportedly shared a Instagram meme attacking Khelif’s appearance—and then Janjaem Suwannapheng of Thailand in the women’s welterweight semifinal this afternoon.