Mumbai: Actress Taapsee Pannu has proven her acting talent by taking on challenging roles. Apart from being a versatile actress, she has also been vocal on various topics and never shies away from expressing her views. The ‘Baby’ star, who has played the roles of sports personalities several times, shared her opinion on the gender eligibility controversy involving Algerian boxer Iman Khalif at the Paris Olympics 2024.
Khalif defeated China’s Yang Liu in the final to secure the Olympic gold medal in the welterweight (women’s 66 kg) competition. Khalif, who was banned from competing at the World Championships after failing testosterone and gender eligibility tests, scored a controversial win over Italy’s Angela Carini after her opponent quit in the opening round.
In the semi-finals, she defeated Janjem Suwannapheng of Thailand 5-0 via a points margin win. The win over Carini attracted adverse comments from several prominent figures such as JK Rowling and Elon Musk, who questioned Khalif’s gender on social media. Just before the gold medal bout at the International Boxing Association (IBA) Women’s Championships held in New Delhi last year, Khalif was disqualified as she failed to meet the IBA’s eligibility criteria. According to ESPN, she was not allowed to compete due to elevated testosterone levels. The IOC defended the rights of Khalif and Lin Yu-ting, who is under investigation for failing an unspecified eligibility requirement in a biochemical test, to compete at the Olympics.
In an exclusive conversation with ANI, Taapsee spoke on the issue and revealed how her critically acclaimed film ‘Rashmi Rocket’ also deals with the topic of gender testing in sports. In the film, Taapsee was seen playing the role of a professional runner.
“I had played a role on that subject. I did a film called ‘Rashmi Rocket’ which was about a female athlete being banned because she was found to have high levels of testosterone. So, I took up that role. I mean we presented our views and that’s why you know the beauty of the films that I get is that sometimes my films talk about issues that I personally believe in without any external statements.”
Set in Kutch, ‘Rashmi Rocket’ is the story of a young girl from a small village who wins laurels for the country as a professional runner. However, her life changes when she is called for a gender verification test.
Directed by Akarsh Khurana, the film also stars Supriya Pathak and Abhishek Banerjee.
Produced by Ronnie Screwvala, Neha Anand and Pranjal Khanddia, ‘Rashmi Rocket’ is written by Nanda Periyasamy, Aniruddha Guha and Kanika Dhillon.
He said his role in ‘Rashmi Rocket’ touched upon this issue and questioned the disqualification criteria on the basis of high testosterone levels. “That was a film I talked about in which I played an athlete. And it’s not in my control what my hormones are. It’s not like I took supplements. It’s not like I injected any hormones. It’s just that I was born with it. Our argument in the film was that there are a lot of athletes who are born with an edge over others. Like Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps, all these people are also born with a certain biological edge over others. Why not ban them? And why ban only the person who has high levels of testosterone? If he has taken injections for this particular competition, then definitely it should be illegal and he should be banned. But if he hasn’t done that, from something that is not in his control, you have banned him. So that’s the character I played in the film as well. So that was my statement,” he said while talking about the controversy.
Taapsee is known for her strong performances in films like ‘Pink’, ‘Thappad’, ‘Rashmi Rocket’, ‘Shabash Mithu’. Although she made her Bollywood debut in 2013 with ‘Chashme Baddoor’, she gained immense fame with films like ‘Baby’ and ‘Pink’.
