Five days ago I posted a tweet from Richard Dawkins, saying that his Facebook account had been suspended because he had tweeted that Olympic boxers who were biologically male (both of whom have since won gold medals in the welterweight and 57 kg category) should not be boxing in the women’s event.

Here’s his tweet:

Because there didn’t seem to be absolute proof that this was the reason his FB account was suspended, I asked him about this, and he gave me the story, which he’s now posted on his Substack site.

In short, Dawkins was wrong—Facebook said his account had been suspended because it was hacked and had simply been taken down for some kind of repairs, perhaps to strengthen the anti-hacking features. At any rate, he apologized for criticizing Facebook. And I, of course, must also apologize for reproducing what he said because that claim was erroneous. I didn’t do due diligence.

Here’s Dawkins’s apology (click to read)

And here’s the text of his explanation and apology (my bolding):

On July 30th my Facebook account was closed down, with no reason given. Associates of mine got in touch with a kind lawyer (@Steinhoefel), very experienced in exactly this kind of case, and he offered, pro bono, to negotiate with Facebook on my behalf. I appreciated his generosity and accepted his offer. He approached Facebook and received no reply.

Because no reason was given for the shut-down, and no reply to the lawyer’s overtures, I am sorry to say we jumped to the wrong conclusion: might it have some connection with my contemporaneous stand against genetically male boxers fighting women in the Olympics? I then tweeted what turned out to be a false suspicion of Facebook’s motives, and I deeply regret this.

On August 10th , I received an e-mail from an official at Facebook, saying he was looking into the question. He sent me a second e-mail the same day giving a full explanation. Facebook’s records showed, he explained, that one of the admins with access to my account had been hacked as long ago as June 22nd, and the hacker added “a flurry of unauthorized admins”. Their subsequent behaviour alerted Facebook, who closed the account down while they worked on the problem. My Facebook account was restored on August 11th , and I am very grateful.

We knew none of this until August 10 th, eleven days after the account was shut down. Now I am left in the mortifying position of having unjustly imputed an ignoble motive to Facebook. I must say it’s a pity that whoever decided to close my account (certainly not the kind official who eventually was brought in to investigate the problem) omitted to get in touch at the time. Nevertheless I accept responsibility, and publish this to correct the record and apologise.

This is the way a scientist should behave, admitting that he jumped to conclusions, even though he did initially float the possibility that his account hadn’t been taken down because of his tweets. (What made me wary was that I didn’t understand why a Facebook account should be closed because of something said on another and rival platform: Twitter).

Of course the Dawkins haters won’t accept this apology nor acknowledge the gracious admission of error, but how many people on the internet ever admit that they were wrong?

And I too, as I said, must share in this apology. I was wrong to post Dawkins’s tweet without thorough checking, and I accept Facebook’s explanation.

Finally, note that Richard does not retract the implication that there were biologically male boxers competing against women in the Olympics.  I don’t retract what I said, either: that the likelihood is that at least two such boxers were unfairly competing against women in the Olympics. More and more evidence is accumulating that these boxers were indeed XY males, perhaps with a disorder of sex development (see posts by Emma Hilton, Colin Wright, and Carole Hooven).

UPDATE 1: I looked up Dawkins’s FB account and got this, showing no posts at all, even the ones from 2017 mentioned below:

UPDATE 2:  This report by 3Wire Sports and contributed by reader Isaac below gives quite convincing evidence that both boxers involved in this controversy had an XY (male) karyotype. The report’s author, Alan Abrahamson, has seen the IBA report and notes this:

The first page provides, along with basic identifying information for each athlete and date and time of sample collection, result summary – “abnormal” – and interpretation – “chromosome analysis reveals Male karyotype.” The second page offers photographic representation of the 22 paired autosomes and then, for each athlete, further depicts an X and a Y chromosome. Page three makes plain that the lab is a “national reference lab” and, as well, accredited by CAP, the Northfield, Illinois-based College of American Pathologists, and certified by the ISO, the Swiss-based International Organization for Standardization.

I continue to stand by my hypotheses that both of these boxers had XY chromosomes but likely had a disorder of sex development that may have given them ambiguous genitalia that led to their being raised as female. But my hypothesis adds that this DSD allowed them to go through male puberty, gaining an athletic advantages. In other words, both boxers were biological males.

UPDATE 3: It’s not clear what happened to get the Facebook account taken down. Some say it was hacked, removed, and fixed by Meta, and that may be the case. But if the hacking is because of Dawkins’s stand on gender and boxers, then it’s the same cause but not censorship by social-media networks. What makes me think that it may have been hacking is my failure to notice that Richard said his Facebook account had been deleted for something he “tweeted;” i.e., put on “X”, formerly Twitter. Twitter is run by Musk, who tends to lean toward Dawkins’s views, while Facebook is owned by Meta. Why would Facebook delete an account for something said on Twitter?  When I have definite info (I’ve written to Richard), I’ll add it here as Addendum #4. If I jumped the gun with my earlier post below, I’ll certainly admit it!

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I received this message from both the UK and US. Apparently Richard Dawkins’s Facebook account, except for two entries dating back to 2017, has been deleted because he criticized the Olympics allowing putative XY boxers, which are likely phenotypically and genetically male, to box against biological women in the Olympics. (See my posts here and here.)

I haven’t been much on the internet since I’m sightseeing and also have only sporadic connection to the world, so I’m not sure how this issue has shaken out. There are debates about whether the two boxers in question were of XY chromosome constitution, had high levels of testosterone (they had previously been disqualified in other competitions), or had genetic disorders of sex development (DSDs).

But regardless, to ban someone’s account for expressing the opinion that genetically male boxers shouldn’t fight against biological women is unconscionable. mRichard said that one of the boxers is “XY undisputed,” and since I’ve been out of touch, that may be the case.  And if that is the case, then there is a real debate to be had.

There’s a general debate to be had about these boxers anyway since, last I heard, people were arguing about every aspect of the two is subject to dispute.

Facebook botched this one very badly, and should restore Dawkins’s account.  What he wrote below is apparently on Twitter.

If some knowledge about these boxers has become generally accepted in the past week, please add it below. I know that Colin Wright has been following the case and wrote a Substack post a week ago called “Fact vs. fiction: Olympic boxer Imane Khelif is male and should not be allowed to fight women.” He also has a new post, which I haven’t yet read, subtitled, “There are no good reasons to doubt the IBA’s claim that both Khelif and Yu Ting have XY chromosomes.”

Richard’s Facebook post