Boston Globe apologizes for incorrect headline stating Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is transgender

The Boston Globe on Saturday apologized for a print headline above an Associated Press story about Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif that incorrectly referred to Khelif as transgender. Khelif is not trans, and has identified as a woman since birth.

The AP article, authored by Greg Beacham, which ran in print on Friday in the Boston Globe, was headlined “Transgender boxer advances” in the paper. That was a striking departure from the AP’s own online headline, “Algeria boxer Imane Khelif wins first Olympic fight when opponent Angela Carini quits.”

In a note published on Saturday, the Globe apologized for the error.

“A significant error was made in a headline on a story in Friday’s print sports section about Algerian boxer Imane Khelif incorrectly describing her as transgender,” the correction reads. “She is not. Additionally, our initial correction of this error neglected to note that she was born female. We recognize the magnitude of this mistake and have corrected it in the epaper, the electronic version of the printed Globe. This editing lapse is regretful and unacceptable and we apologize to Khelif, to Associated Press writer Greg Beacham, and to you, our readers.”

Outrage was first sparked when Khelif’s opponent, Italian boxer Angela Carini, withdrew and forfeited her match against Khelif after 46 seconds. Carini’s emotional postgame remarks were then used as ammunition for posters on social media and writers to decry that the Italian was forced to face, what many of the critics said, without any factual proof, was a man. Khelif is not transgender, and has identified as a woman since birth. Her passport — the document used to determine her eligibility — reflects as much.

The IOC issued a statement confirming the Algerian is eligible to compete and Carini even apologized to Khelif for how her emotional post-match remarks were weaponized.

That didn’t stop the outrage, though, as Khelif’s opponent on Saturday morning — Hungary’s Anna Luca Hamori — shared a number of vitriol-filled Instagram stories and a TikTok. Khelif defeated Hamori in their match on scoring.

Along with reposting an Instagram story seemingly depicting Khelif as some sort of muscular, horned animal in the ring, Hamori reposted other stories that continued to — wrongly — claim that Khelif is not a woman and used a Hungarian slur that closely translates to “half breed” and is used most commonly to describe dogs or other animals in a negative connotation. One of the posts that Hamori shared also referred to Khelif as a “monster.”

Hamori has since shut down much of her social media presence after the posts were discovered.

In a TikTok that Hamori also posted, she wrongly cited an International Boxing Association test that was used to disqualify Khelif from the 2023 World Championships, claiming that Khelif is biologically male. The IBA — which the International Olympic Committee has cut ties with due to corruption and lack of transparency — has provided little, if any, detail on the 2023 testing that was used to disqualify Khelif, only saying that it discovered she had XY chromosome. And the presence of XY chromosomes in cisgender women is a known medical phenomenon, called Swyer syndrome.

Hamori, in her TikTok, also repeatedly misgenders Khelif, implying that the Algerian women’s boxer — who had competed for years without incident prior to the 2023 disqualification — is not a woman, despite little if any concrete evidence to suggest as much.

Hamori has also apparently shut down the comments on her TikTok account, too.