Restrictions on trans athletes focus on exclusion, when participation should be the goal

The International Boxing Association announced this week that it's seeking a showdown in courtrooms in the U.S., France and Switzerland, where it plans to file criminal charges against the International Olympic Committee.

The alleged offence?

Letting Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan compete in Paris last summer. The IBA said the two women's boxers had failed gender eligibility tests at last year's IBA world championships. But the IBA didn't facilitate last summer's Olympic boxing tournament because the IOC had banished the organization over deep-seated corruption, and its dependence on sponsorship money from Russia's state-run energy corporation. 

And the impetus for acting right now? An executive order from U.S. president Donald Trump banning trans women from women's sports.

But neither does the IBA's flip-flopping on Khelif. She was eligible to compete in IBA tournaments until, suddenly, she wasn't. Her presence in Paris last summer triggered a meltdown from IBA president Umar Kremlev, who referred to the IOC as "sodomites" for letting Khelif box.

Yet there she was in December, a spectator at an IBA event in the Bahamas, credentialed like a VIP, moving freely among athletes and decision-makers alike.

And now the IBA is using her as an excuse to take the IOC to court.

WATCH | Former IOC medical adviser weighs in on women's Olympic boxing discussion:

IOC defends two female boxers over gender eligibility outcry

This latest campaign is less about Khelif than it is about this particular moment in U.S. history and politics, and using the idea of safeguarding women's sports to stride through an anti-inclusion door that Trump's executive orders have opened. It's about staying aligned with the