Kellie Maloney has offered her verdict on the Olympics gender eligibility row after public backlash over controversial athletes Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting.
Both Khelif and Lin were judged last year to have failed gender eligibility tests at the world championships. Khelif, 25, has male XY chromosomes but is not transgender. Both fighters are female in their passports.
Khelif came under scrutiny following her 46-second win against Italy’s Angela Carini, where Carini was forced to pull out of the fight during the first round.
Kellie, 71, who announced she was transitioning in 2014, was previously known as Frank and enjoyed a successful career as a famous boxing promoter.
Appearing on Good Morning Britain on Monday, Kellie admitted she ‘doesn’t see what the problem is’ because the competitors were born female.
Kellie did say that she thinks sports people who are born male should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports or be allowed to enter women’s spaces until they have undergone gender reassignment surgery.
Kellie Maloney has offered her verdict on the Olympics gender eligibility row after public backlash over controversial athletes Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting
Both Khelif (pictured) and Lin were judged last year to have failed gender eligibility tests at the world championships. Khelif, 25, has male XY chromosomes but is not transgender. Both fighters are female in their passports
When asked by host Kate Garraway what she makes of the media storm, she said: ‘They are biological women, so I don’t know what the problem is.
Read More
BREAKING NEWS
Gender row boxer Imane Khelif gives first sit-down interview since forcing female athlete to quit after 46 seconds – issuing a defiant warning to critics
‘They boxed in the Olympics four years ago. They were beaten by an Irish fighter and there was not one word about it.
‘They go into the World Championships, which are run by a Russian organisation that the Olympics don’t recognise and they claim they have failed a gender test.
‘But there’s no proof out there, they put no evidence of the test they did. So in Algeria you can’t be gay, you can’t be trans you get 10 years in prison. So I feel sorry for them, their lives have been destroyed.’
Co-host Ed Balls, added: ‘The International Boxing Association [IBA] say they’ve tested these women – but nobody has made these results public.’
KM: It’s unfortunate, it’s the same as the South African runner [Caster Semenya], her life has been destroyed since her story came out. She’s been stopped from competing. She was a great runner.
‘You can’t help how you’re born. I can’t help being born trans, I certainly didn’t want to transition, I had a great life as Frank Maloney, but I had to do it for my own sanity.’
Kellie, 71, who announced she was transitioning in 2014, was previously known as Frank and enjoyed a successful career as a famous boxing promoter
Khelif came under scrutiny following her 46-second win against Italy’s Angela Carini
During the conversation Kellie also discussed the access transgender women should have to female spaces.
After Ed said: ‘You’re Kellie, you’ve transitioned, but you’re also a dad’, she replied: ‘Yes I’ll always be a dad. I’m not a biological woman, I don’t try and kid anyone.
‘I’m a medically constructed woman. I’m fundamentally different from a lot of other transgender people. Because I do believe the transgender umbrella is too big.
‘I have daughters and I speak to them and I do agree that women should feel safe in their space, women’s sports should be for women. I don’t think trans women who have gone through puberty should be able to take part in women’s sport. And I don’t think if you haven’t gone through the full surgery and lost a certain part of their body they should be allowed in female spaces.’
Kellie is set to release a documentary about her life called Knockout Blonde.
Speaking about the impending release, she said: ‘The documentary was in the works for about three years, I had several offers from different companies but went with the Americans because they gave me a bit of a free hand in the production.
‘I wanted it to be all nuts and bolts and show that it isn’t just about my journey, it’s about the people in my life and how they were upset and I might have destroyed their lives. It was very emotional.
‘I wanted it to be very educational. For people to see that transexual women are just normal human beings and they just want to lead a normal life.’
Kate asked her: 'I remember interviewing you for a long time, as Frank but when I see you now as Kelly it feels like a different person. Do you feel like a different person?'
Kellie said: 'No, not really. Because I'm not from that community where Frank is dead, Frank is not dead. Frank is a part of who I am. I've taken the good sides of Frank and mixed him with Kellie. To become a better person.'
Read More
Strictly Come Dancing judge Motsi Mabuse weighs in on Imane Khelif's boxing gender row at the Olympics in a series of scathing posts
On Sunday evening, Khelif gave a bombshell sit-down interview for the first time since pulverizing female athlete Carini.
She issued a defiant warning to her critics while slamming bullying following her controversial win at the Paris Olympics.
The Algerian athlete tore into the scrutiny of her gender as 'harmful to human dignity' during the interview in Arabic to SNTV.
She said: 'I send a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects.
'It can destroy people, it can kill people's thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying.'
The victories of Khelif and fellow boxer Lin Yu-ting, of Taiwan, have become one of the biggest stories of the Paris Games.
Both have clinched their first Olympic medals despite being scrutinised over their gender.
Khelif acknowledged the pressure and pain of enduring this ordeal while competing far from home in the most important event of her athletic career.
'I am in contact with my family two days a week. I hope that they weren't affected deeply,' she said. 'They are worried about me. God willing, this crisis will culminate in a gold medal, and that would be the best response.'
The vitriol stems from claims by the International Boxing Association, which has been permanently banned from the Olympics, that both Khelif and Lin failed unspecified eligibility tests for the women's competition at last year's world championships.
Khelif declined to answer when asked whether she had undergone tests other than doping tests, saying she didn't want to talk about it.
In 2021, Kellie spoke about how she has lost friends since announcing her transition.
She told how some of her friends claimed they 'didn't understand' her decision to undergo gender reassignment surgery because they were 'real men's men.'
Kellie went onto defend her decision to transition by claiming she's only 'corrected something that was wrong at birth,' adding that she still feels 'lucky' as she had the support of her three daughters throughout her difficult journey.
In 2021, Kellie spoke about how she has lost friends since announcing her transition
She added she still feels 'lucky' to have had the support of her three daughters throughout her difficult journey (pictured with her younger daughters Libby and Sophie)
Challenging: In a series of Instagram posts posted in 2019, she shared intimate pictures of her journey
Speaking on talkSPORT's Fight Of My Life podcast, Kellie discussed the challenges she faced after publicly announcing her plans to transition to being a woman less than a year after retiring from boxing promotion in 2013.
She admitted she did lose the support of some friends who struggled to understand her decision.
Kellie said: 'Yeah, I did (lose friends). I'm not going to name the ones. And I lost a couple of people it hurt because these couple of people, I actually helped them when they were in trouble, you know?
'And I just felt, you know what? If you have a crisis in your family, well, I know how you dealt with it because I helped you in certain situations. And I just thought, you know what, I'm not going to hold it against him.
'But I've even had one of them say to me, one of his friends told me, and you know what? He just doesn't understand because he's a real man's man.
'And I said, ''sorry, well, what's a real man's man?'' Let's live in the real world here. I've not had a brain transplant, I've not grown to haunch.
'What I've done is corrected something that was wrong at my birth. If I had a hole in my heart or now the doctors would have done that as a baby because they could have seen it and I would have lived a normal life and everyone would have said, what a great surgeon, how lucky you are.'
Kellie added that deciding to transition was one of the 'hardest things in her life,' but looking back she's grateful she took the step.
She continued: 'You can't see into the brain when you're born. So no one knows how your brain develops. It develops as you get older.
'And obviously, I was born with a female brain and that was one of the hardest things in the world to me. It was hard for me to accept it, never mind anyone else for me to accept.
'Frank Maloney, the boxing promoter, actually is a female. Was one of the hardest things in my life, you know, and I had to do it because if I didn't do it, I would be sitting here talking to you today. I'd be in a wooden box now.'
Kellie added that she still have preferred to have been born as a woman, and is grateful to have had such a huge career in boxing promotion, as well as the support of her three daughters during her journey.
She included images of her scarred face just after undergoing surgery, as she thanked her mother and daughters for their support
She said: 'I would like to have been born as Kellie. That's probably only fair. But then or I would like to be able to transition very early and maybe not live in the public media, but then I would never hurt my daughter. So I have to look at the situation.
'I was very lucky that I had three beautiful daughters that came on my journey that have stood by me and are still in my life. Frank Maloney, I had a bit of luck becoming the manager of Lennox Lewis and becoming one of Britain's best promoters as Kellie.
'I've got a beautiful family still in my life where some transgender people lose their families.'
Kellie previously credited her three daughters Emma, Libby and Sophie, for standing by her, and shared pictures of her cosmetic procedures as she reflected on her journey.
In 2014, Kellie revealed she was living as a woman and had spent £100,000 on transforming her physical appearance, including a final gender reassignment surgery to become a 'fully fledged female' in 2015.
In a series of Instagram posts posted in 2019, she shared intimate pictures of her journey, including several of her scarred face just after surgery.
Speaking from her oldest daughter Emma's guest room bed, she said her rock throughout her journey was her daughters.
She said: 'Am I bored? Maybe that's why I'm putting up my life story in pictures, I don't know.
'My daughters throughout my whole journey have been my rock, my conscience and correct me when I'm right and wrong.'
Kellie also thanked her mother for her support and added that she wanted to 'share my life'.
'I hope it helps educate people,' she said, before adding: 'I'm hoping it helps people understand that, really, we don't choose this journey because let me tell you - I could have chosen to still be getting pictures of Frank Maloney.
'I don't know what I'd be doing but I certainly wouldn't be this happy and at peace with myself. That I do know.'
She added that she hopes that people don't think the pictures are 'over the top' and she decided to share them because she had been 'sitting looking at them, just thinking how lucky I am.'