[FALSE] Does a video show Chinese female weightlifter Hou Zhihui is actually male?

Screenshot of the Facebook post.

The Claim and Our Verdict

• The claim: a video was posted on Facebook along with a claim that Chinese female weightlifter Hou Zhihui is actually male.
• Fact-checking:
  • The video clip actually shows a scene of the men’s 61kg weightlifting event on July 25, 2021 during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The man in the video is Chinese male weightlifter Li Fabin, not Hou Zhihui.
  • The athlete in the video was wearing a black top, while Hou was wearing a white top during the competition. Therefore, it is self-evident that the person in the video could not be Hou.
  • According to the official websites of the Chinese Olympic Committee and the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, Hou is a female athlete. There were neither official announcements from International Olympic Committee nor news reports concerning or investigating her gender identity. Since 2011, when she was 14, Hou has been competing as a female weightlifter.
• Our ruling: Therefore, we rate the claim as FALSE.

News Brief

A video posted July 29, 2021, on Facebook, claims to show Chinese weightlifting athlete Hou Zhihui is actually a man. The post has sparked widespread discussion among netizens.

As of the issuance of this report, the post had been shared 3,700 times, and had received 2,300 likes or reactions.

Hou is a Chinese female weightlifter born in 1997 in Hunan Province in southcentral China. She represented China in the women’s 49kg weightlifting event during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She won a gold medal. Hou’s appearance and physical features raised the question among netizens of whether she is a woman or man.

It also provoked a debate on her gender identity and the fairness of transgender athletes participating during the Olympic Games.

Fact-checking

According to a screenshot comparison of footage shared in the claim and the one of the men’s weightlifting competitions at the Tokyo Olympics, we can conclude the video discussed in the claim shows a scene of the men’s 61kg class weightlifting competition during the 2020 Summer Olympics. The competition took place July 25, 2021. The person featured in the video is Chinese male weightlifter Li Fabin, not Hou Zhihui. Li was born in 1993 in Fujian Province on the southeastern coast of China. He represented China to compete in the men’s 61kg weightlifting event and claimed a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. He also responded to netizens’ queries regarding the controversial video on an Instagram post.

Screenshot comparison of the video shared on Facebook (left) and the video of men’s 61kg weightlifting events at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (right).

Screenshot of Li Fabin’s Instagram post.

In the video of women’s 49kg weightlifting competition at Tokyo Olympics, Hou wore the Chinese team uniform with a white short-sleeved top (see screenshot below), rather than the black top. The person in the video discussed in the claim, therefore, is not Hou.

Hou in the women’s 49kg weightlifting events during Tokyo Olympics.

Keyword searches found Hou on the member list of China’s weightlifting squad at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, as well as a biography page of Hou on the official website of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The above information shows her gender as female. Further keyword search found neither official announcements from International Olympic Committee nor news reports concerning or investigating her gender identity.

Screenshot of the biography page of Hou on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics website.

According to a news article published by Rednet, a Chinese state-run media outlet, Hou competed in China’s National Junior Weightlifting Championships in 2011, at the age of 14. She ranked first in snatch, clean and jerk, and overall total in the women’s 41kg weightlifting events in the 14-year-old age group. Later, she also competed as a female athlete in China’s first National Youth Games in 2015, the International Weightlifting Federation Junior World Championships in Poland in 2015, and the National Games of China in 2017.

Hou competed at China’s first National Youth Games in 2015.