Transgender Swimmer Banned For Five Years, Spotlight Back on Olympic Boxer Imane Khelif

Swimmer "Hannah" Caldas is banned after refusing to take chromosome test; Algerian gold medalist in women's division, Imane Khelif, also refuses to take chromosome test.

Multiple newspapers recently reported that transgender swimmer Ana Caldas has been penalized with a five-year ban and has been stripped of all competition results between June 2022 and October 2024 by World Aquatics—the international governing body for aquatic sports— for refusing to take a gender verification test.

The 47-year-old Caldas, who calls himself Hannah, claimed it is “not medically necessary” to submit to chromosomal testing that is not covered by insurance. “Hannah” ultimately accepted the punishment.

“Hannah” is obviously a man, so it’s understandable that he refused to take a chromosomal test that would have confirmed his male sex. One wonders how it ever occurred to World Aquatics to allow him to compete in the women’s division. What was the governing board thinking when he enjoyed his winning streak in races against women in the years 2022 - 2024?

Hannah Caldas

The case of Hannah Caldas puts the spotlight back on Imane Khelif, the Algerian women’s division gold medalist at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. As many readers will recall, Khelif was widely suspected of being a male, and “she” easily beat all his female contenders, hitting Italian boxer Angela Carini so hard that she withdrew from the bout after 46 seconds.

Imane Khelif

As is now the case in the sport of swimming, in May 2025, World Boxing announced a new mandatory policy requiring a PCR test to determine chromosomal sex for athletes to compete in its matches. The organization specifically mentioned Khelif when it announced the new policy, which triggered the usual paroxysm of virtue-signaling outrage, which it turn prompted Wold Boxing to issue a public apology for “singling out” Khelif.

Khelif protested the new requirement and appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) seeking to overturn the decision and to be allowed to compete without taking the chromosome test. The CAS dismissed “her” request to suspend the decision while “her” appeal is being heard.

This new development is of great significance to the young women who competed against Khelif at the 2024 Olympics. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) cleared Khelif to compete in the Paris Olympics under its own regulations, which did not require this specific test at the time.

The year before the 2024 Olympic Games, the International Boxing Association (IBA), disqualified Khelif from its 2023 world championships based on what the media characterized as “unspecified eligibility tests.” IBA’s then-president, Umar Kremlev, claimed that DNA tests had revealed Khelif to have XY chromosomes.

The International Olympic Committee claimed that the International Boxing Association had not provided evidence to back this claim. This particular dispute arose within the context of the IOC claiming that the IBA was under undue Russian influence due to its Gazprom sponsorship—a conspicuous example of Russian Derangement Syndrome co-mingling with Transgender Derangement Syndrome. Both of these are syndromes are what I characterize as Mind Viruses in my forthcoming book with this title (click on image below to pre-order your copy).

Why is Khelif appealing IOC’s new chromosome test requirement at the Court of Arbitration for Sport instead of simply taking the PCR test? Will “she,” like the swimmer Hannah Caldas, be stripped of all competition results, including “her” Olympic Gold Medal?