Taiwanese Olympic gold medalist Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) on Sunday called Taiwan a “friendly” place that can accept people’s differences in response to false accusations about her gender made by former US president Donald Trump and J.K. Rowling.
“This is a friendly society, we are able to tolerate different voices,” the 28-year-old athlete said at a promotional event in Taipei. “Each of us can have a different appearance, so of course we can also have different voices.”
At a political rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Republican presidential nominee Trump falsely pledged to “keep men out of women’s sports,” adding that the Olympics had included two athletes who had “transitioned,” although he did not name Lin and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif by name, The Associated Press reported.
Photo: Nian Miao-yun, Taipei Times
“They were men. They transitioned to women, and they were in the boxing,” Trump said.
Neither Lin nor Khelif are transgender, and were born and raised as women.
Lin, who earlier this month won the gold medal in the women’s under-57kg division at the Paris Games, said she was unable to give a specific response, because she had not read the reports about Trump’s remarks.
At a separate event in New Taipei City earlier on Sunday, Lin was also asked about her views on comments made by British author Rowling.
On July 30, the author of the Harry Potter series posted on X a link to a Guardian article featuring a photograph of Lin and Khelif.
“What will it take to end this insanity? A female boxer left with life-altering injuries? A female boxer killed?” Rowling wrote underneath the photo.
Lin downplayed the significance of Rowling’s post by thanking the famous author for raising her profile on the world stage.
“Thanks to that ‘friend’ for letting everyone get to know me,” Lin joked.
Rowling’s X account, which has more than 14 million followers, has been unusually quiet since Aug. 8, a day before lawyers for Khelif filed a lawsuit in Paris over the posts, the US magazine Newsweek reported.
Taiwan’s “Queen of Boxing” has consistently appeared unfazed by the brouhaha over her and Khelif’s gender eligibility that emerged after the discredited International Boxing Association (IBA) disqualified the athletes from the Women’s World Boxing Championships last year, saying they failed unspecified gender-eligibility tests.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) described the IBA’s statements about Lin and Khelif as “misleading information.”
The IOC suspended the IBA in 2019 and revoked its recognition last year due to corruption scandals and financial mismanagement at the Russian-led association. The IBA had “no involvement” in the Tokyo Games or the Paris Olympics, an IOC statement issued in May said.
Taiwan has stood firmly behind its boxing star with leaders from across the political spectrum expressing their unreserved support for her.
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