"People Need to Get Used to Seeing Strong Women.”

This article is a co-production between La Converse and The Rover.

You wouldn’t know Aya Ahmed Lechheb is a fighter if you sat across from her on the bus.

Outside the gym, Lechheb doesn’t take up much space — she’s a 22-year-old respiratory therapist who stands just over five feet tall, blushes easily and lives in a St-Michel apartment with her parents and little sister.

But five nights a week, you’ll find her in a church basement on Jarry Street, kicking ass.

Since February, Lechheb has made kickboxing the centre of her life. Some nights, she’ll get to the gym at 6 p.m., warm up for 20 minutes, do two hours of drills and 45 minutes of sparring that pits her against men twice her size. When she’s done putting her body through hell, Lechhab takes the bus home where — if she’s lucky — she’ll sleep five hours before waking up at dawn to start her shift at the hospital.

“When I’m here I don’t have time to focus on work or whatever’s going on in my head. When I’m here it’s just kickboxing,” said Lechheb, who was gearing up for a session at Barbu Kickboxing when she spoke to La Converse.

“Working at a hospital, it’s extremely stressful sometimes but I find all the training and sparring has helped me control my emotions a lot better. Knowing I can get hit and keep going, knowing that I might not be the best athlete here but I still keep showing up, it’s had a huge impact on my life, on how I carry myself.”

Since she was in college, Lechheb has worn a hijab and sometimes it attracts the wrong kind of attention.

One night, while walking home from the bus stop, a stranger started screaming at Lechheb about her headscarf. She was minding her own business when the woman approached her and derided Lechheb for being Muslim. It wasn’t the first time that happened and it won’t be the last.

She says kickboxing makes her feel less helpless walking down a dark street.

“I don’t have much self esteem but that’s changed since I started training,” Lechheb said. “Especially when I’m walking in the streets. I’m not She-Hulk but I definitely feel more secure out there.”

Whether it’s her newfound love of combat sports or the fact that her family is from Algeria, Lechheb says she was glued to the TV on Friday during Imane Khelif’s gold medal match at the Paris Olympics. When it became clear that the Algerian boxer was cruising towards a win against China’s Yang Liu, Lechheb felt her eyes well up.

“The announcer was crying, I was crying too, my mom was crying too and my dad had tears in his eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him cry,’” said Lechheb. “This story of Imane Khelif, it united the whole nation over boxing.”

Unfortunately, it took a barrage of hateful online posts, death threats and false accusations of cheating against Khelif for people like Lechhed to even know she existed. Khelif, 25, found herself in the middle of a media tsunami after defeating Angela Carini via technical knockout on Aug. 1.

The Italian fighter quit in the first round after eating a right cross to the nose, claiming she’d never been hit so hard.

Carini’s camp also contributed to speculation that Khelif is actually a man competing against women. The Algerian’s next opponent, Anna Luca Hamori, shared a post depicting Khelif as a mutant with horns.

These sorts of memes were amplified by Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, Harry Potter author JK Rowling, former U.S. President Donald Trump and a who’s who of culture warriors eager to pile onto an amateur athlete they’d never heard of before. And while the lie about Khelif’s gender practically burned down social media, Lechheb was not so easily fooled.

“Do a little bit of research — Algeria is not sending a transgender fighter to the Olympics, it just doesn’t make sense,” said Lechheb, who lived in Algeria until her family moved to Quebec when she was 6. “I feel like we’re advancing in the years but the mentality is going backwards almost. It’s just like, ‘Guys? Are we doing this again?’ Everyone needs to grow up and be less ignorant.”

But the smear campaign wasn’t a complete flop in Montreal’s combat sports scene. Event promoters and well-known fighters shared transphobic memes that photoshopped an Adam’s apple on Khelif, a bulge in her trunks or used words like “disgusting” and “monster” to describe the Algerian.

“At some point, it’s like, ‘Can we just exist? Are we allowed to be women in this sport?’” said Lechheb. “If (Khelif) is too strong, then she must be a man or taking steroids. If I wear a hijab, then I must be weak and need to be saved.

“It’s just so heavy sometimes.”

***

The firestorm over Khelif’s gender stems from a failed gender test that allegedly found male chromosomes in the boxer during the International Boxing Association championships in 2023.

The Russia-based IBA never released the results and have offered differing accounts of what tests were conducted.

Even so, they disqualified Khelif just three days after she defeated Russian prospect Azalia Amineva without offering the Algerian an opportunity to appeal the decision. Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting was also sidelined for failing an unspecified gender test during the IBA championships after she defeated a Bulgarian boxer.

In both cases, the women are accused of having XY chromosomes and/or unusually high levels of testosterone in their system, but these allegations have never been independently verified. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) no longer recognizes the IBA’s authority over boxing because of its ties to the Putin regime and history of financial opaqueness.

When the IOC took over Olympic boxing ahead of the Paris games, they determined both Khelif and Yu-ting were eligible to compete.

Further eroding their case, the IBA was forced to admit last week they tested just four women out of the hundreds who competed in the 2023 championships. Further, they acknowledged those tests were only conducted after complaints from opposing athletes, injecting bias into what should be an impartial process.

“You see an organization with the word ‘International’ in it so you assume it’s legit but when you actually look closer, the picture gets a lot muddier,” said Morgan Campbell, a sports journalist who covered the Olympics for the CBC and does colour commentary at boxing events across Canada.

“The IBA are no longer recognized by the (IOC) because of long-running and deep-seated corruption. You don’t suddenly do a gender eligibility test in the middle of a tournament. You test the athletes before they compete and determine if they’re eligible. That’s how international boxing works. Because if these accusations were true, the IBA allowed these fighters to put their fellow athletes at risk until the championship rounds and only then did they decide to test?”

“So while they may have the veneer of authenticity, these tests are just as spurious as some guy on the street saying, ‘Hey, that chick’s too tall to be a lady. She gotta be a dude!’”

As Campbell and other experts have pointed out, the recent slew of ‘gender doping’ allegations have almost exclusively been levelled against women of colour or women who don’t conform to western standards of beauty.

After winning the 800 meter spring at the 2009 world championships, South Africa’s Caster Semenya saw the rules that govern her sport amended to exclude her. Semenya was identified as female at birth, she was raised a girl and has always identified that way. But Semnya was born with an intersex condition that produces natural levels of testosterone at a higher rate than most women.

When World Athletics (track and field’s governing body) changed the rules in 2011, it forced women who compete in the 400, 800 and 1,500 meter sprints to take gender tests and suppress naturally occurring testosterone if it exceeded the “female range.” They did not initially add these requirements to the 100 and 200 meter races.

“They literally just changed the rules for the events Semenya competes in,” Campbell said. “It’s hard not to feel like she was being targeted there.”

Now, more than a decade later, the South African remains locked in a legal battle with World Athletics over her eligibility. Indian sprinter Dutee Chand, African American basketball star Brittney Griner and Indian middle distance runner Santhi Soundarajan have all been accused of gender doping.

Though much of the initial blowback against Khelif falsely accused her of being a trans woman, the IBA has since claimed she has a similar condition to Semenya’s. The boxing association provided no evidence to back those claims.

Though the gender debate has come back to prominence in recent years, the first compulsory gender test in international sport dates back to the Cold War.

As women from the Soviet Union began dominating the Olympics, western sporting authorities believed the athletes were unnaturally and inauthentically women. So in 1966, the International Association of Athletics Federation introduced a “nude parade” where officials would inspect each woman before they competed.

***

Campbell says despite Khelif competing in the Tokyo Olympics and countless other international tournaments, the ‘gender doping’ allegations only came when she elevated her boxing performances during the IBA championships.

“You want to know what’s different about Imane Khelif compared to when she competed in the Tokyo Olympics and lost? Algeria hired one of the best boxing coaches in the world to work on her game,” Campbell said. “Pedro Diaz, who is from Cuba. If you look at the 1990s, he was coaching teams that were racking up gold medals at the Olympics. He trained world champions like Miguel Cotto, Guillermo Rigondeaux. He’s the real deal. This guy’s a genius.

“Imane Khelif didn’t suddenly turn into a man between 2021 and now. The Algerian federation hired a genius boxing coach who got the best out of her, who showed her how to use her tools.”

While it’s true that Khelif was taller and more muscular than most of her opponents during the Olympic tournament, the gold medal match against Liu nullified those advantages. And it showed, early in the fight. Accustomed to slipping in and out of her opponents range while battering them with long range punches, it took most of the opening round for Khelif to start landing on Liu.

But despite those early struggles, Khelif was able to disrupt Liu’s rhythm, back her into the ropes and land her signature chopping right cross. She also fended off Liu’s attacks by sidestepping them and using the Chinese fighter’s forward momentum to set up hard counterpunches.

As amateur performances go, it was a masterclass in clean technical boxing.

Unlike professional boxing, which can last 12 rounds at the championship level, amateur matches go on for just three 3-minute rounds. Fighters who rely solely on power tend to poorly in the Olympic sport, which emphasizes footwork, defense and volume over damage.

The amateur rules tend to favour taller, rangier opponents who score from the outside and keep just out of the opponents reach (two things Khelif did brilliantly throughout the Olympic Games).

“Imane doesn’t have the body of a man, she has the body of an elite amateur boxer,” Campbell said. “Even in a sport with so many weight classes, there will be taller, rangier fighters who know exactly how to use their physical gifts. No one complains when this happens in men’s boxing.”

Perhaps the biggest drawback to the Khelif controversy is the effect it may have on amateur women’s boxing, a sport that made its first appearance in the Olympics just 12 years ago.

While the birth of women’s boxing at the games has fuelled the careers of professional champions like Clarissa Shields, Katie Taylor and Lauren Price, its growth has been slow in Canada and Quebec.

Luxia Godelive Lasuba is a 19-year-old boxer from the St-Leonard borough in Montreal’s North End.

She too was shocked to see the vitriol around Khelif during the Paris Olympics. But the controversy hasn’t stopped her from training at the Ness Martial Academy, a boxing school run by former pro champion Ali Nestor.

“I don’t see this stopping me, I’m going to keep building muscles and becoming a better boxer,” she said. “I will continue sparring, keep training and maybe one day I’ll compete in a (sanctioned) fight. It’s important in my daily life to be a woman who can defend myself. Sometimes I show my friends basic self defence tactics.”

While Quebec is the Mecca of Canadian amateur boxing — about half the members of the national amateur team hail from the province — there’s a scarcity of women and girls competing at the amateur level.

“When we’ve gone overseas to compete, the young women are always blown away at how developed amateur programs are in Europe,” said Kenneth Piché, the director general of Boxe Québec. “We have about 1,600 fighters registered and maybe 20 per cent of them are women across a variety of ages and weight classes. So to find them opponents with comparable experience, at the same weight class, it’s not always easy.

“And in amateur competition, you can’t advance to more competitive stakes unless you have enough experience. So it’s not easy but it’s something we’re working on.”

Despite these obstacles, Lasuba is determined to succeed at boxing because she’s used to adversity. The self-described “stubborn” 19-year-old didn’t always fit in so easily.

“I was often the only Black kid in my class but my parents encouraged me to be the best,” she said. “They would tell me: ‘Okay, you’re the only Black kid. So what? If the others can do it, you can too.’ At soccer, which was my first sport, I had to be the best to stand out. I was the only Black player, the only francophone player. It pushed me to get better and earn the respect of my teammates.”

Once she discovered boxing, she fell in love. In the ring, she experienced the oneness of boxing: to be alone in a ring with no one but your opponent.

“When I box, I feel powerful, I feel proud, I want to give everything I have,” she said. “What I love is the discipline it teaches you. It’s not just physical activity. You have to train your mind, improve your technique, learn how to breathe and absorb hits. All of that requires training.”

Lasuba says she doesn’t have any boxing role models that look like her in Quebec. She’d found inspiration in other sports, like tennis.

“Serena Williams, she lived through a lot of racism,” Lasuba said. “She was also accused of being a man and being too strong to be a woman. And yet, she blazed this incredible trail thanks to her mental toughness, her intelligence and her determination. That inspires me.”

If it’s true that Khelif was born with a genetic edge over her competitors, some experts argue that sport punishes her and other women athletes while celebrating those same advantages in men.

In the case of Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps, researchers found his body produces half the lactic acid of his competitors, allowing him to recover quickly and endure longer training sessions. Phelps also has an unnaturally long torso, double jointed elbows and short legs -- all of which make him glide through the water more effectively than most swimmers.

“No one’s saying Michael Phelps doesn’t train hard or taking away from his performance but he was born with these huge advantages,” Campbell said. “That’s just sports.”

***

Lechheb has been riding high since Khelif took home the gold last weekend.

At her first practice after the match, Lechheb proudly sported a pair of boxing trunks adorned in the Algerian flag and walked around with an even wider smile than she normally sports.

“When I came here, I didn’t know anyone, I was so shy, I didn’t really know if I was going to be able to keep coming,” Lechheb said, while strapping on a pair of boxing gloves. “But I’ve kept it up. It’s a sport that teaches you good values: discipline, patience, self-control. I can’t imagine my life without it. That’s why it hurts so much to see someone like me almost have it all taken away.”

What’s more, it looks like there may be some inkling of justice meted out against those who fueled the online harassment of Khelif. French prosecutors announced Wednesday that they were investigating instances of online harassment and a series of alleged hate crimes against the Algerian.

News of the investigation comes after Khelif’s lawyer, Nabil Boudi, filed a complaint with French authorities naming Musk, Rowling and other prominent figures who spread disinformation about the boxer. Rowling posted about Khelif 36 times throughout the Olympics, writing to her millions of Twitter followers that Khelif is a man “enjoying the distress of a woman he just punched in the head.”

She has not tweeted about Khelif since news of the legal complaint surfaced.

Throughout her six months at Barbu Kickboxing, Lechheb has made friends, sparred with women and men of all backgrounds, and trained alongside trans and queer fighters as well, opening her horizons and theirs too.

“For me, to see all this hate, that goes against the spirit of this sport,” Lechheb said. “You cannot say to a woman ‘I don’t think you’re a woman because you look like a man.’ Can we just exist, please? Can I? Can I breathe? And I have too much talent, why is that a problem? Talent is celebrated when male athletes have it but for me, as a woman of colour, my success will always be scrutinized.

“When I tell people I fight, they always tell me ‘I didn’t expect that, that you would do something so physical!’ It’s not necessarily a bad reaction, it’s just that people need to get used to seeing strong women.”

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