Trump references Imane Khelif in transphobic speech – here’s another reminder she isn’t trans

US president Donald Trump has once again mocked transgender athletes by performing a grotesque impression during a speech in which he also referenced Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who is not trans.

Trump, whose first year of his second term in office has seen him and his administration consistently attack the trans community, made the comments during a speech to Republican members during the House GOP’s annual retreat on Tuesday (6 January).

In a bizarre, rambling speech where his words would trail off and seemingly contradict one another, Trump performed an exaggerated impression of contenders in a weightlifting contest.

Firstly, he pretended to be a cis female athlete who struggled to lift the weight, using over-the-top grunting and groaning to showcase the effort he believed women have to go through to lift something heavy.

“Drops the thing, walks off the stage crying. Her mother’s crying, her father’s crying,” he states.

He then went on to impersonate a trans women in the same weightlifting competition, who he portrayed as lifting the weight with no effort at all.

“Guy gets up. He said, ‘Have you lifted before?’ ‘A little bit.’ And he walks up, ‘bing’,” Trump acted. “He could’ve gone ‘ding, ding’.”

“I think it’s 112 pounds – it’s crazy,” Trump went on to say.

Not for the first time, Trump then went on to bring up Olympic gold medal winning athlete Imane Khelif, who was thrust into the centre of a gender storm at the Paris 2024 Olympics and received a torrent of abuse from notable figures like JK Rowling and Elon Musk, who were subsequently named in a cyberbullying lawsuit filed by Khelif.

Despite being born a woman, living her life as a woman, not transitioning and stating resolutely that she is not a trans person, Khelif was labelled a trans woman, a “man” and a “cheater”.

Ahead of the Olympics, Khelif – alongside Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting – complied with the International Olympic Committee’s eligibility criteria, which subsequently said her inclusion was “not a transgender issue”, after they were previously disqualified from the World Championships after failing to meet eligibility criteria.

The IOC has since questioned the validity of the gender tests carried out by the International Boxing Association (IBA) at the time. The Russia-led IBA has been suspended by the IOC since 2019 because of concerns over its finances, governance, ethics, refereeing and judging.

“There is a beautiful boxer, they have boxing now,” Trump told the crowd of GOP members, as if female boxing is a new thing and has not been in the Olympics since 2012 and as a sport dates back hundreds of years.

“And they have a young gentleman who transitioned, whose a very good boxer but he wanted to be a woman, which y’know – to each his own,” again Khelif is not trans, “because I want to be very liberal when it comes to these subjects, I’m trying to get that vote, it’s not an easy vote to get, it’s very tough for me to get it.”

Trump went on to describe the bout during the Olympics between Khelif and Italian boxer Angelina Carini during the Olympics, who pulled out of a bout against Khelif after just 46 seconds into the fight.

At the time, Carini said she was “heartbroken” at having to concede defeat, saying: “I am in pieces because I am a fighter, they taught me to be a warrior. I have always tried to behave with honour, I have always represented my country with loyalty.”

The result of the bout only resulted in more backlash to Khelif.

A month later, in August 2024, Carina said she wanted to apologise to Khelif, saying the abuse she exprienced “makes me sad” and added: “If the IOC [International Olympics Committee] said she can fight, I respect that decision.”

Trump, however, has a different view on the matter.

“The whole thing is ridiculous,” he said.

“You have policy on your side, they don’t have policy on their side,” Trump told a clapping crowd of Republicans.

“It’s so demeaning to women,” he added.

In February of 2025, Trump signed an anti-trans sports executive order, entitled ‘Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports’, which he signed surrounded by young women and girls.

The order read: “In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports. This is demeaning, unfair and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”

It went on to state it would be the “policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity and truth”.

In response to the speech, folks on social media labelled his impression and entire demeanour as “embarrassing”.

“Trump is giving a speech at a Republican event in Washington,” one user said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

“He’s mimicking women weightlifting and talking about transitioning women boxing. Hasn’t he something more important to do or talk about?”