“I would never want my identity to be weaponized against my community,” the 29-year-old told reporters in Paris. “I think trans women are women, and they deserve to compete wherever they’re comfortable.”
Controversy over transgender women competing at the Olympics exploded in the women’s boxing competition, where Algerian Imane Khelif — who was also born female, but failed a gender confirmation test at the world championships last year — is in the 66 kilogram semifinal.
“The past week’s been hard and there’s been a lot of hate and transphobia and just a lot of ignorance,” Hiltz said. “I’ve had to, you know, put up some barriers and boundaries with social media and things like that. But I think I was gonna do that anyways.”
“It was all about patience. This is incredible,” they told NBC. “I think I can officially call myself an Olympian now. It’s been a lot of patience this past month and then today in the race, that’s what I kept repeating to myself. Patient, be patient, be patient.”
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