The current circus over Imane Khelif made me look into her, and while a lot of people are purposefully using her to attack trans people, she's not trans. She was born a girl. She has "female" on her birth certificate. She has a vagina. She has never "transitioned" to female, because she has been treated, medically and socially, as a woman for her entire life. She lives in a country where gender transition is not legal.

She has higher levels of testosterone than other women, and she has XY chromosomes. She is intersex, which means that the conversation is not at all about "a trans woman beating up women in order to cheat" but is exactly like Caster Semenya: a cis woman has grown up all her life thinking she is a woman, being told she is a woman, and being treated like a woman. Now she has learned something that is likely very distressing for her.

I still don't have an opinion on how trans people or intersex people should compete in sports, but she is not trans. She is not tricking anyone. She is trying to be the person she has always been. She's owed sympathy, regardless of whether you think she should be competing or not.