Team USA middle-distance runner Nikki Hiltz secured a spot in the women’s 1500-meter semifinals after finishing third in their qualifying heat at the Paris Olympics on Tuesday.
After the race, Hiltz, who is nonbinary and transgender and uses their/them pronouns, shared a post on social media to celebrate their achievement, extend a message of encouragement to the trans and nonbinary community and seemingly weigh in on a heated gender dispute involving two female boxers.
“There’s a lot of ignorance and hate out there right now. For those who identify as nonbinary or trans and are doing cool things in the world (which is most likely all of you because all queer people are cool AF) remember you are magic and that it’s not the critic who counts. I love you. I need you. I see you. Keep going,” Hiltz wrote, in part, on Instagram.
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Hiltz’s message comes as two fellow Olympians, Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, have come under scrutiny and a barrage of online abuse after reports surfaced that the two women were disqualified from competing at last year’s Women’s World Boxing Championships. The International Boxing Association, the Russian-led sports organization that disqualified them, alleged that they had failed to pass unspecified gender tests that found they had male chromosomes.
Khelif and Lin were both cleared to compete in the women’s matches at the Paris Olympics, and the International Olympic Committee has fiercely defended them and their eligibility to compete. The IOC, which severed its relationship with the IBA last year, called the boxing association’s eligibility tests “flawed” and “not legitimate.”
Both boxers have consistently competed in women’s events, including at the Tokyo Olympics where neither won a medal. There is no indication that either Khelif or Lin identify as trans or intersex.
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Following Khelif’s first win in Paris last week — where she defeated Italian boxer Angela Carini in 46 seconds, after Carini stopped the match — frequent critics of transgender rights, including Elon Musk, “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, and Donald Trump weighed in.
“I will keep men out of women’s sports!” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, in all caps.
The day after the Khelif-Carini match, Hiltz spoke out against transphobia and misogyny in an Instagram story.
“Transphobia is going crazyyyy at these Olympics,” Hiltz wrote in an Instagram story. “Anti-trans rhetoric is anti-woman. These people aren’t ‘protecting women’s sports,’ they are enforcing rigid gender norms and anyone who doesn’t fit perfectly into those norms is targeted and vilified.”
Hiltz, one of at least three nonbinary competitors at this year’s Summer Games, was an outspoken LGBTQ advocate prior to the Olympics as well. After Hiltz qualified for the Games in June — running the second fastest time ever of any American in the women’s 1500-meter race — they extended a message of love and support to the queer community in a post-race interview with NBC Sports.
“This is bigger than just me. It’s the last day of Pride Month. ... I wanted to run this one for my community,” they said at the time. “All the LGBT folks, yeah, you guys brought me home that last hundred [meters]. I could just feel the love and support.”
Hiltz will compete in the women’s 1500-meter semifinal on Thursday. If they qualify, they’ll compete in the final on Saturday.
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