Taiwan embraces Olympic gold medal boxer Lin Yu-ting amid unwarranted gender controversy · Global Voices

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Lin Yu-ting met with the press after she won the Olympic gold medal. A screenshot from Taiwan Plus News’ YouTube Channel.

Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) won the Olympic gold medal in Paris’s women’s 57-kilogram (featherweight) division on August 10, 2024, amid gender controversy and transphobic smears.

Debates about gender parity and the Olympic committee’s often unfair rules on hormone levels and gender testing have dominated the 2024 Olympic Games. For weeks, both Lin and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, another female boxer who won the Olympic 66-kilogram gold, have faced international scrutiny and online bullying about their womanhood.

Amid the rumors and smear campaigns, most of Taiwanese society, regardless of differences in political stances, has rallied behind Lin and taken pride in her victory. Taiwan-based journalist Andrew Ryan explained why her victory resonated in the self-ruling island:

Gender misconception

The claims that they were trans women or males (with XY chromosomes) were based on the disqualification ruling made by the International Boxing Association (IBA) in 2023. The IBA banned the boxers from participating in the 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships after they failed unspecified gender-related eligibility tests. However, the IBA was permanently banned from running the Olympic boxing games in 2019 due to it tie to Russian mafia groups and judging scandals.

Gender testing in sports is notoriously opaque and unscientific and is often biased against women of color. According to researcher and author Walter Michales, who has written the book “The Other Olympians” which explores gender controversy and bias against queer athletes in the Olympics, many of the gender and hormone standards that women athletes have to undergo are outdated and meant “to promote this specific notion of femininity and especially white femininity.”

Yet, after Italian boxer Angela quit her match in 46 seconds after receiving several punches from Imane Khelif on August 1, the gender misconception, along with hate speech toward both Lin and Khelif, erupted online. One of the most distressing comments that perpetuated the online smear campaign came from prominent author JK Rowling:

Following the online uproar, the IBA organized a press conference on August 5, claiming, but without presenting details of the tests, that the two athletes had male XY chromosomes. Even if IBA’s claim is true, scientists have established the finding that some women do have Y chromosomes due to differences in sex development.

Both Lin and Khelif were born female, and both have passed numerous gender tests, in particular testosterone (male hormone) tests, in their professional boxing careers. In fact, both boxers had participated in IBA’s World Championships for years and had never been asked about their gender until 2023. Moreover, according to IBA’s own minutes, their disqualification decision was taken solely by the IBA Secretary General and CEO and ratified by the Board later. In fact, IBA does not have a standard procedure for gender testing.

Lin started playing boxing when she was only 12 years old, and her motivation was to protect her mother from domestic abuse. After ten years of training, at the age of 22, she won her first golden medal at the bantamweight division of the Asian Women’s Amateur Boxing Championship in 2017. In the following years, she won gold and bronze in the 2018 and 2019 AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships. She also won a gold medal from the IBA’s World Championships (featherweight), but in 2023, she was stripped of her bronze medal as a result of the arbitrary disqualification decision.

Lin competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics but did not win a medal. Despite the smear campaign, she won the gold medal in Paris — Taiwan’s first boxing gold in the Olympics.

Lin’s coach thanked JK Rowling for hyping the online storm, which became “the key” to Lin’s winning the gold medal.

As for Lin Yu-ting, she told CNA, a Taiwanese news agency, in an interview that she was receiving much hate online before she entered the final match because she did not fit the stereotypical image of a woman:

我們不能干涉人家說甚麼，畢竟我們生活在那麼民主自由的社會，人人都有發言權，我也有我的自主權，我想做甚就做甚麼，不用受你傳統的刻板印象所限制。至於去年被取消資格一事，畢竟我那麼辛苦備戰，一塊獎牌沒有了，一個更至於酸民怎麼講，我覺得還好。

We cannot interfere with what people say. After all, we live in such a democratic and free society where everyone has the right to speak, and I also have the autonomy to do whatever I want without being restricted by stereotypes. Regarding the (IBA) disqualification last year, what matters to me is that I had worked so hard to prepare for the competition, but I lost a medal and a better source of income. As for what the haters say, it doesn’t really matter.

Upon winning the gold medal, Lin plans to join public campaigns against bullying in Taiwan:

藉由我的事件，可以鼓舞那些曾經生活在黑暗面的人，希望他們可以不要因為遭遇過這樣的黑暗，而失去對生活的熱愛，希望他們可以因此重新找到生活的動力。

I hope my experience can be inspiring to those who have suffered in the dark. I hope that they will not lose their love for life because of their bad experience. I hope that they can re-establish the motivation to live a better life.

Daughter of Taiwan

While Lin takes the online hateful comments lightly, the majority of Taiwanese were enraged by the smear campaign, and many spoke out in support of Lin using the hashtag #IStandWithLinYuTing on social media. Her victory unified the society, which has been split by bipartisan politics:

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te embraced Lin’s victory by crowning her as the “daughter of Taiwan.”

Taiwan’s military even deployed F-16s to welcome Lin back to Taiwan:

The nationalistic allegory was very appealing to the Taiwan public given Taiwan’s marginal diplomatic status, as reflected in @MeowerBark tweet:

(Lin) represents a country that is not recognized, being called by another country’s name, a woman who is not recognized as a woman, (she) won in a venue where (her supporters) can’t even hold the flag of her home . The flag flying (during the medal presentation) is not our country’s flag; the music playing is not our national anthem. But the islands are real, the country is real, and Taiwan is real. The gold medal that Lin Yu-ting won is real. Our existence is real. Wipe away the tears, and we will keep going.

After the Republic of China (ROC) of Taiwan was replaced by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole China representative in the United Nations in 1971, most countries in the diplomatic world stopped recognizing Taiwan as an independent state despite being a de de facto self-ruling entity with a population of 23 million.

Since 1981, Taiwanese athletes have had to compete under the name “Chinese Taipei” at the Olympic Games. Hence, Taiwanese athletes must carry a plum blossom flag instead of their national flag. The national anthem is also replaced by a traditional flag-flying song when its athletes are on the podium.

This year in Paris, the One China Principle has been enforced in a more extreme manner. Audience members that tried to display signs that represented Taiwan, including the shape of Taiwan’s main island, were booed and had them confiscated by security — occasionally aggressively:

But all these repressive gestures only added fuel to Taiwan’s nationalistic sentiment. Wthem Taiwan’s badminton duo Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin won the gold against mainland Chinese team in the Olympic Men’s Doubles Badminton, emotions ran high:

As a filial daughter who has been humiliated for being a fighter, Lin Yu-ting’s victory is even more symbolic.

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