The Paris Olympics 2024 quota of controversies is not ending and the latest is a gender row when a BBC host used the wrong pronouns concerning a non-binary American shot putter Raven Saunders at the Paris Olympics.
The BBC host repeatedly used the wrong pronouns to welcome American shot putter Raven Saunders at the Paris Olympics 2024 until he had to be corrected live on air.
Raven Saunders Pronouns
American shot putter Raven Saunders identifies herself as non-binary and uses the pronouns “they/them.”
On Thursday they appeared to compete for the qualifying round in the women’s shot put at the Paris Olympics.
Raven Saunders who had won a silver medal for the event at the Tokyo Olympics wore a mask hiding their face and hair dyed green and purple.
BBC Olympics commentator Steve Backley who was giving a commentary for Thursday’s women’s shot put qualifying event in the Stade de France, Paris, repeatedly referred to Saunders as “her.”
Steve referred to Raven Saunders as a colourful character and said that it was good to see her. He went on to add that he meant that he Sort of saw her about Raven Saunder’s mask which hid most of their face.
Backley’s co-host Jazmin Sawyers corrected him live for misgendering the American non-binary athlete.
Sawyers said,
“Well we can’t see them very well. Raven Saunders is actually non-binary and wearing the mask there, we’re quite used to seeing them with interesting attire,”
Controversy
The moment soon made its way into social media and a debate raged on gender identity at the Paris Olympics.
There was no dearth of netizens who questioned why a non-binary athlete was competing in a women’s sport.
An X user named James Esses said.
“More gender madness at the Olympics in the women’s shot put… If they’re not women, why are they in the women’s competition?”
His post managed to rake in a stupendous 6.3 million views on X.
Another X user stated,
“I’m ok with them identifying as non-binary and competing as a woman, as long as they are genetically a woman,”
The incident closely followed another controversy involving Algerian boxer Imane Khelif.
Imane Khelif was earlier disqualified by the Russian-led IBA from last year’s world championships after failing the gender eligibility tests.
However, she was approved by the IOA to compete at the Paris 2024 Olympics in the women’s boxing event.
What is Non-Binary?
For the unversed, ‘Non-Binary’ is a term which refers to gender identities which do not follow or conform to the traditional binary distinction between a male and a female.
It is believed that persons who identify themselves as non-binary have a variable gender identification that does not conform to the categorizations or amalgamates the two.
In a nutshell, non-binary can be defined as gender identification that do not conform to the conventional conception of gender.
