The phrasing in the article I complained about stopped about a hair short of actually saying it, but yeah, the implication was (to my eyes) fairly clearly there. Summarizing the article beat by beat:
* Carini in tears after controversial fight
* Opponent permitted to fight at Olympics even though barred from World Championship for failing gender eligibility test*
* Lengthy description of how Carini felt with quotes
* Very brief quote from Khelif (and a noticeably less-than-sympathetic one, too, compared to the quotes from Carini cited)
* Lengthy quote from UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls
* Quote from Italian Prime Minister
* Description of controversy around Khelif's permission to fight at Olympics
* Description of failure of gender eligibility test which originally read "Last year both fighters were disqualified from the world championships, with the International
Boxing Association (IBA) president, Umar Kremlev, saying that DNA tests had “proved they had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded”. XY is the combination of chromosomes in males, while XX is the combination in females"
By this point we're more than halfway through the article.
* IOC defending its decision and criticizing the IBA's disqualification process
* Back to criticism of Khelif being permitted to compete, with a lovely little misgendering of Khelif in a quote: “I don’t agree with
them being allowed to compete in sport, especially combat sports,” Parker said. “It can be incredibly dangerous.” (emphasis mine. And yes, them can be neutral but in this context? It's not calling Khelif
him, but as it's very clear Khelif uses
her, it's certainly not neutral here)
* Borderline rumor mongering about Khelif thanks to lovely use of scare quotes (Agence France-Presse reported that Khelif claimed to be the victim of a “big conspiracy” after being disqualified just before the final at last year’s world championships.)
* Quotes from Algerian Olympic Committee defending Khelif.
* Quote from Khelif's next opponent.
The bulk of the article definitely leans towards "Khelif should have been barred". Note also that the statements picked to defend the decision to have Khelif compete are just about all superficial ones that
claim there to be a conspiracy,
accuse the IBA of changing their rules mid-competition, while the (many, many) statements out there that
substantiate or explain that claim are left out.
Then add that there are plenty of people cited in favor of the "Khelif should have been barred" side who look somewhat neutral, while the only people cited in favor of "Khelif was rightfully permitted to compete" are cases of "Mandy-Davis applies".
They aren't the Daily Mail, for sure. They know very well how to not
outright state the stuff they're insinuating.
But yes, to me they were fairly clearly insinuating "the only people who are defending the decision to have Khelif compete are Khelif, her Olympic Committee, and the IOC (all of whom pretty obviously would), and their arguments are all pretty shallow, while it's clear to everyone else that Khelif is not a valid competitor in the female category because she's not female".
* I also hate the constant conflating of gender and sex. If someone has the chromosomes, hormone production, physical build, and what-have-ye within the boundaries of what's deemed "female", it doesn't matter one whit whether their gender is man, woman, genderfluid, genderqueer, agender, and so on; and clearly identifying as woman can still see you fail such a test. So they're not testing whether someone is of an eligible
gender, they're testing whether they're of eligible
sex. That's not the Guardian's fault, but it still gets on my nerves.
