The decision on whether Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya would have to artificially lower her testosterone levels to compete in her signature events under new IAAF rules has been postponed, the Court of Arbitration for Sport announced in a press release last week.
Last April, the IAAF (the governing body for track and field) announced new regulations for female athletes competing in running events 400 meters and longer. The new rules are aimed at athletes with higher-than-normal levels of testosterone, and the IAAF says the new policies are about leveling the playing field. As of last November, female athletes with blood testosterone levels above a certain threshold are required to either lower their testosterone level or compete in a male or intersex classification. You can read more about those rules here.
Semenya and CAS participated in arbitration proceedings in February with the stated intent of announcing a decision March 26. The involved parties have since “filed additional submissions and materials and agreed to postpone the issuance of the CAS award until the end of April 2019.” The decision needs to be made well before the crucial 2019 IAAF World Championships, beginning in Doha in late September.
The South African Semenya, who won the 800m race at both the London and Rio Games, is hyperandrogenous and has been subjected to controversial gender testing throughout her career. She is currently classified as having “Differences of Sexual Development” (DSD), but under the new rules, would likely not be allowed to compete against women, or have to artificially reduce her testosterone levels.
According to the IAAF, most women have low levels (0.12 to 1.79 nmol/L) of testosterone circulating naturally in their blood. Men’s levels are typically around 7.7-29.4 nmol/L, and the IAAF says “no female would have serum levels of natural testosterone at 5 nmol/L or above unless they have DSD or a tumour.”
The International Olympic committee is likely waiting on the Semenya verdict before determining its own testosterone limits for transgender athletes in the 2020 games, The Guardian reported in February. In other words: Semenya’s case has implications for all Olympic sports, including swimming. The issue recently gained prominence in the swim world when USA Swimming announced it would allow age group swimmers to compete in their stated gender category. To make a junior or senior national team, however, athletes must still comply with the IOC’s medical requirements.
Just to be clear: Semenya is not transgender, and in an interview with the BBC last year stated that she “just want[s] to run naturally, the way [she] was born.”
Proponents of the IAAF’s new policy, including Olympic swimming medalist Sharron Davies, say that the inclusion of trans women will hurt women’s athletics. Opponents argue that the policy is based on shoddy science: it’s not yet clear that testosterone is actually a key determinant of athletic performance.
She has no ovaries, and no female hormones. She has testicles that did not descend. Her body is more male than lots of males, and that is the problem.
I m not going in other funny facts like her sexual orientation (L of course) or her male physique (no breasts, Adam’s apple, super muscular, etc)…
The event focus is what gets me. Why 400m and longer? Wouldn’t testosterone help just as much, or more, in the shorter, more explosive events? Interesting that they limited it to the events that Caster Semenya runs. Whether or not the condition constitutes an unfair physical advantage is best left to the scientists, but the inconsistent application of the rule makes it seem pretty discriminatory to me.
Anyway, if she becomes a 100/200 sprinter, there is apparently no issue, so hopefully she’s been working on that speed a bit.
Whatever the IOC decides, I just hope their rulings don’t end up destroying women’s sports as we’ve come to know them. In the past 30 years, women have gained many opportunities in women’s sports (for skill development, for team camaraderie, for scholarships, for recognition, and for money). I’d hate to see those opportunities decrease or disappear (see Connecticut girls’ high school track competitions).
if she was competing against the men, she would still be ranked in the top dozen or so in South Africa in Olympic distance events, which is a remarkable achievement in itself. The vast majority of athletes can only dream of reaching such high, tiny percentile in their event of choice, so it is OBVIOUSLY fair to have her compete against biological males, which, as an intersex individual, she partially is. The male category of sports should always remain open for biological males (including transgender women) and those with male sex characteristics (intersex), and the female category must remain, unequivocally, for biological females, which Caster Semenya and all intersex, as well as transgender, athletes are. It is discriminatory to women… Read more »
No, she would not. She would be AVERAGE TO GOOD high school male athlete in her best event 800m.
These are results from the South African Championship in 2018, as you can see, her best time would defeat some of the men competing at the highest level in South Africa, if you scroll down to item 37 and compare her best time to them http://athletics.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Full-Summary-ASA-Seniors-Results-2018.pdf
“It’s not yet clear that testosterone is actually a key determinant of athletic performance.” The problem with this statement is that it is an exercise in semantics. Testosterone is not a determinant factor in athletic performance, it is an enhancement to performance. Essentially, the opponents of these new guidelines argue that just having higher testosterone does not give you an athletic advantage which in many cases can be true, when applied across the board to society. I can take all of the testosterone enhancement I want, it’s still not going to make me an elite athlete. The issue is when dealing with elite athletes (let’s just say for argument’s sake, athletes that can make the Olympic standard in their event)… Read more »