What Is a ‘Transvestigation?’ Misogyny Gets a Rebrand at the Paris Olympics

On August 1, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif competed against Italian boxer Angela Carini in the first round of the women’s welterweight boxing tournament at the Paris Olympics. The match lasted just 46 seconds, with Khelif emerging as the victor when Carini abruptly withdrew from the match.

You’d think that the sports world would immediately rally around the Algerian Olympian, celebrating her win and her stunning show of strength and athleticism. Instead, conservatives like J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk began tearing her down, claiming, falsely, on social media that Khelif is biologically male—as though a secret trans identity was the only way to have taken her opponent down so swiftly.

These accusations, which have been parroted by a number of conspiracy theorists online, are part of the strange and terrifying rise of “transvestigators,” or people who target a woman they deem to have “manly” characteristics, and work backwards in search of “clues” that that person is transgender. In other words, if you don’t fit inside conservatives’ narrow stereotype of what a woman looks like, or how she behaves, you must not really be a woman. It’s just another form of the same misogyny that has plagued women athletes since the beginning of time, just with a rebrand.

Imane Khelif of Team Algeria punches Angela Carini of Team Italy during the Women’s 66kg preliminary round match of the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.

Richard Pelham/Getty Images

According to GLAAD, the hate-fueled concept of “transvestigations” emerged in early 2017 and has seen a recent resurgence since 2023. Many transvestigators employ the ideology of trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), who do not recognize trans women as women, and who see them as a threat to cisgender women. The implication of a transvestigation is, of course, that being a trans woman is the ultimate sin, and that cisgender women need to be saved from them. The hateful rhetoric is rooted in both misogyny and transphobia, and its use in this case is especially ironic, because Khelif is a cisgender woman. She was assigned female at birth and identifies as a woman.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time she has been subject to these kinds of attacks. In 2023, the International Boxing Association (IBA) disqualified her from the world championships, citing high levels of testosterone in her system, per the Associated Press. However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has stated that the IBA’s tests were “flawed” and “illegitimate,” and has since discredited the organization. Per Reuters, the IOC claimed that the IBA was “mired in financial opaqueness and compromised by ties to Russian leadership.”

Speaking in Arabic following her win in the quarterfinals, Khelif noted the devastating impact of transvestigations on athletes’ mental health. She asked spectators “to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects.”

She added, “It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit, and mind.”

Ilona Maher at the Paris Olympic Games.

Hannah Peters/Getty Images

Transvestigating has not been limited to boxing at this year’s Olympics. Rugby player Ilona Maher, who won a bronze medal, has also spoken up on the issue of being misgendered.

“I get the comments of being called a man, being called too masculine, because I have muscles,” Maher said in an interview with Time. “I know that it’s from very sad, insecure people online. But I know they’re saying it to other girls as well. And that’s what I don’t like.” Prior to the Games, she had addressed the theories on Instagram, sharing how the hurtful comments have affected her confidence.

“There will always be negative people out there, and they put women in a box and they think women should be fragile and petite and quiet and meek,” she said through tears. “But that’s not the case. Women can be strong and they can have broad shoulders and they can take up space and they can be big.”

So why is this especially happening now? First, it speaks volumes to the amount of attention conservative media has given trans women in recent years, says Madison Werner, a trans rights advocate based in Los Angeles. “Since COVID’s 2021 Olympics, we’ve seen the world become even more polarized on trans issues due to an incredible rise of trans media representation,” she tells Glamour. (Trans visibility in the media has increased dramatically over the last 20 years, according to GLAAD’s annual LGBTQ representation reports.) “I think of words by Angelica Ross, who pointed out that more representation also creates more opportunity for harm against the community.”

A June 2024 analysis by Media Matters for America further contextualizes the phenomenon: “These false accusations come amid a broader ‘trans panic’ encouraged by right-wing media and politicians,” writes Ari Drennen. GLAAD notes that content related to this form of anti-transgender hate runs rampant across all social media platforms, and is especially popular in Facebook groups where users share “clues.”

Moreover, a transvestigation is a way to attack women while purporting to be on the side of women. Tranvestigators will use language which invokes the image of the oppressed woman, struggling under the weight of the patriarchy, but in reality, they are only on the side of women who look, behave, and dress a certain way. Says Werner, “Many [transvestigators] displace this very real, historical trauma onto trans women and, in turn, trans women become representative of the ‘male invader’ of spaces that cis women worked so hard to build.” But trans women, she continues, are here to support the fight for women’s rights, not to take away from them.

“Cis women and trans women are fighting the same fight.”