Is J.K. Rowling really a woman? The world needs proof.

The children's book author suggests a radical new way of determining gender: A disputed blood test trumps anatomy, life history or even official documents. So where's Rowling's blood test?

Over the last few days J.K. Rowling — the fantasy children’s book author, noted developmental biologist and longtime women’s boxing enthusiast — floated a radically new proposal for deciding how society should determine a person’s gender: Genetic tests or bust. She hasn’t responded to my Twitter request for comment on how her new idea would work, so I’m posting my questions here — in my first substack post, woohoo! — in the hopes she will clarify. 

Rowling and others in the “gender critical” movement have long argued that biology alone should determine one’s gender. I don’t agree with their position, but I’ll admit it had the advantage of simplicity. They say it all comes down to anatomy: if you have a penis, testicles or other male reproductive parts, you’re a boy. If you’ve got a vagina, uterus or other female reproductive parts, you’re a girl.

At least, I had thought that was their position. But in the controversy this week over Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer whose easy win in her first match of the Olympics really upset Rowling’s sense of sporting equity, the author seems to be discarding this ages-old binary. Rowling now suggests that anatomy, life history and even official documents — all evidence of which, in Khelif’s case, points to her being a woman — don’t really matter.

What matters instead are your chromosomes: Rowling and company now say that in order to be called a woman, you must carry two X chromosomes; if you have an X and Y chromosome, you’re a man.

Importantly, Rowling’s new gender test seems to prioritize genes over anatomy. As far as I can tell, Rowling and others on her side appear to have decided that if you were born with a uterus and a vagina but happen to have XY chromosomes due to a genetic condition — as lots of women do, including likely many female athletes at the Olympics — you are still a man. And not just for the purposes of sports: Rowling and others are flat-out calling Khelif “male,” referring to her with “he” and “him” pronouns, and suggesting that she is cheating as man who is pretending to be a woman. 

Imene Khelif is not transgender. She has been a woman all of her life. I don’t know that any sporting authority has inspected Khelif’s or any other boxer’s anatomy – and I don’t think even Rowling is calling for genital inspections in sports — but there’s no reason to believe that it differs from that of any other woman boxer’s anatomy. After all, Khelif was deemed a girl since birth in Algeria, a country not known for its acceptance of gender fluidity. In fact she was discouraged from boxing because she was a woman — women don’t box, she was told. 

Here is a childhood photo of Khelif; she’s the one on the right.

The only evidence Rowling can point to for Khelif being a man is that a Russian boxing federation once disqualified her from competing based on the results of an unspecified test. It’s been speculated that this meant that Khelif had been found to have high levels of testosterone or an XY sex chromosome, but the association never released the results or explained what they meant. The IOC, the governing body of the Olympics, has cleared Khelif to fight. Her passport and other official documents say she’s female.

And even the opponent she knocked out recognizes her as a woman:

“I want to apologize to her and everyone else,” that opponent, Angela Carini, told reporters about not shaking Khelif’s hand after the fight. “I was angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke."

It’s fine to discuss how people with certain genetic conditions should be categorized in sporting events. But Rowling and others smearing Khelif are not doing anything so high-minded. Rowling acknowledges that Khelif is not transgender.

She has provided no evidence that Khelif has any hormonal or genetic condition. The only thing Rowling seems to be going on is what she thinks she saw in a clip of a boxing match. As she posted yesterday, “The idea that those objecting to a male punching a female in the name of sport are objecting because they believe Khelif to be ‘trans’ is a joke. We object because we saw a male punching a female.” 

But Rowling’s new stance raises a question of paramount importance. I have never seen any evidence that J.K. Rowling has two X chromosomes. I have also never seen her in a boxing match, so I can’t determine her gender from how she performs in the ring, as she did of Khelif. 

Rowling claims that it is vital to protect “women’s spaces” from “biological men” — but that argument only carries weight if she’s actually a woman. How do we know that J.K. Rowling isn’t a man pretending to be a woman? After all, she’s a very imaginative fiction writer who has written under different pen names. Also, J.K.? Have you ever met a woman named J.K.? I haven’t. Seems very sus.

So, J.K. or whomever you really are, intellectual honesty demands that you provide strong evidence of your gender. Pictures of you as a young girl won’t do. Official documents won’t do. Even medical evidence of your anatomy won’t do. In order to speak out for the safety of women’s spaces you must show us that you are a woman, and the only way to do that is a genetic test showing that you have two X chromosomes. 

Until you meet your own level of proof that you’re a woman, how can we trust you to speak for them?