Sharice Davids voted for men in women’s sports, but silent on Olympics boxing firestorm

It took just 46 seconds and two staggering blows from a man boxing as a woman in the Paris Olympics to thrust the men-in-women’s sports debate onto the world stage last week. 

But Sharice Davids, the former women’s Mixed Martial Arts fighter now representing Kansas’ 3rd District in Congress who has often supported “transgender” issue changes in the U.S. that have allowed men to compete against women in women’s sports –  isn’t coming out of her corner on the topic.

Twenty-five year-old Algerian Imane Kehlif  was disqualified from the 2023 Women’s World Championship for ineligibility – not confirmed by the WWC but reported by other sources to have been because he was found to possess a “Y” chromosome in a DNA test and elevated levels of testosterone. Having always represented himself and competed as a female, Kehlif was allowed to compete in the women’s division by the International Olympic Committee, which has less stringent eligibility rules.  

Kehlif landed two punches on Italy’s Angela Carini’s face, one nearly dislodging her headgear, that prompted the Italian to immediately quit the fight, saying “I had to preserve my life,” after she emotionally broke down in the ring.

Kehlif reportedly suffers from a gender deformity which leaves him without functioning male genitalia but with undescended testicles and no ovaries or uterus. The presence of his “Y” chromosome, as well as advanced musculature and other masculine traits, defines him biologically as a man.

Asked to comment on her own women’s combat sports experience and her pro-LGBTQ positions as the issue stole the Olympics spotlight last week, Congresswoman Davids’ office did not reply to questions for this story. The Shawnee Democrat representing Johnson, Miami, Franklin, Anderson and part of Wyandotte counties voted against a bill that would have banned men from competing in women’s sports in U.S. schools and colleges in April 2023.

As the debate became inflamed worldwide, an initially distraught Carini was later cowed into an apology to Kehlif for the public outrage he suffered on social media.

“I’m sorry for my opponent,” she told the Italian sports channel La Gazzetta dello Sport. “If the IOC said she can fight, I respect that decision. It wasn’t something I intended to do. Actually, I want to apologize to her and everyone else. I was angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke,” Carini said.

Amid the blowback from the Olympics incident, IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said Kehlif was “born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport.”

“This is not a transgender case,” Adams told reporters.

Still, Carini’s Olympics prospects have been ended under at best questionable circumstances. Kehlif went on Saturday to defeat Hungarian fighter Luca Anna Hamori, who also defended the Algerian’s legitimacy. Taiwanese fighter Lin Yu-Ting, who was also previously disqualified on gender basis by the WWC, also won his first round in the women’s 57 kg matchups.

At 5’3” and 115 pounds, Davids had a 5-1 amateur record in strawweight women’s MMA and a 1-1 professional record before her last bout in 2014. All the fights were against biological females.

So-called “transgender” females – men who claim to be women – fighting actual female competitors in MMA has been an issue for much of the past decade, though only two fighters, the now-retired Fallon Fox and former U.S. Army Special Forces member Alana McLaughlin, are known to have fought organized larger-league MMA. Fox fought six bouts from 2012 to 2014 during the final years of Davids’ career, and was called out by one doctor for breaking the skull of one female opponent in a bout.

Davids has refused to say whether she would have been willing to fight a man presenting as a female MMA fighter when she was competing.