This July, a landslide victory for South Arican Olympic track athlete Caster Semenya was reached. Semenya, who has been barred from elite track competition distance since 2018, won her legal battle against World Athletics, the international governing body of the athletic discipline, in the European Court of Human Rights.

Semenya is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, three-time World Championships winner, and two-time Commonwealth Games gold medalist. Despite her plethora of successes on the track, Semenya has faced countless hurdles off it.

Recently she has been locked in a legal case against the World Athletics’ policy that would require her to reduce her testosterone levels before competing. Caster is DSD which means her sex development is different from those of their biological sex. DSD can involve a difference in the development in one’s genes, hormones, and reproductive organs. Methods or reducing testosterone include medication, monthly injections, or even surgery to remove internal testes (which can produce testosterone).

Semenya is a biological woman who, as a DSD athlete, naturally produces higher levels of testosterone. DSD athletes typically produce testosterone levels which are within the range of male athletes.

This World Athletics policy, requiring the reduction of testosterone, is harmful to women’s sport and a direct attack on the very integrity of elite sporting competition. The beauty of elite sport lies in the extra-ordinary ability of men and women athletes. Male athletes such as Olympic finish skier Eero Mäntyranta, decorated American Olympian swimmer Michael Phelps, and five-time Olympic gold medalist Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe all possess known genetic advancements which are envied and celebrated around the world. Mäntyranta, now deceased, had a genetic condition which increased his number of red blood cell mass and haemoglobin, which affected his performance positively. Phelps produces just half the amount of lactic acid a regular athlete produces, which means he recovers faster between swims. He also possesses double-joined ankles which aid his swimming. Thorpe’s feet are also unusually large which can provide the same advantages as flippers for swimming. While Thorpe and Mäntyranta were both involved in alleged doping scandals throughout their career because of their “freak of nature” genetic abilities, these scandals have never amounted to more than rumors, and both have been able to have successful sporting careers without any talk of the unfairness of their genetic advantages. Why is it that these genetic advantages are deemed fair enough for their fellow competitors to compete against yet when it comes to Semenya, she is too fast and must thus alter her natural biological state?

Women’s sport and hormone levels have recently been in the news quite significantly, stirred up by the success of transwomen swimmers such as Leah Thomas. To boil it down, the controversy stands around determining if it is fair that a transwoman, who has grown up as a man and possesses male genetics and testosterone levels, should be allowed to compete in the female category even if they do take hormone suppressants to alter their hormones to the same level as female athletes.

However, it is not fair that the controversy around Semenya has been drawn into this debate. DSD athletes are not trans athletes. Semenya is a biological woman and should thus be allowed to compete in women’s sports despite her testosterone levels. Her natural advantage is what makes elite sport elite- the top percent of athletes are the closest we will get to superheroes. Most athletes have an edge which, combined with years of dedication and training, is what sets them apart from the average athlete.

What is probably most infuriating about the entire ordeal Semenya has had to go through is the scrutiny and doubt she has received since she first entered the sporting world in 2009. At 18 years old, she won gold at the African Junior Championships 800m and 1500m. In less than nine months, she improved her winning 800m by seven seconds at the following African Junior Championships (a HUGE difference in the sporting world). At the time, this was a world leading time and a national record.

What should have been an incredible beginning for the young athlete’s career, was instead the start of worldwide questioning of Semenya’s gender and whether she was “really a man” and fit to compete in sport at all. Semenya is a woman who is fast. She is strong and as a black African woman beginning to dominate the track discipline; she was met with doubt and treated as a mutant.

The same comments have been said about now retired tennis star Serena Williams, a strong black woman who has undoubtedly been one of the most successful tennis players of the 21st century. Similarly, Namibian silver- Olympic athlete Christine Mboma and Olympic teammate Beatrice Masilingi have also faced difficulty in World Athletics events due to the same genetic elevated testosterone levels Semenya has. It seems that celebrations of above average athletes appear to only become a problem when it is a black woman who is dominating the discipline.

While Semenya’s legal battle is the first step towards her return to elite competition, she still has a long, upward battle ahead of her. The legal battle she has won was not directly against The World Athletics organization and their DSD policies. She took her case of being actively discriminated against through these policies to The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Europe’s most senior court which fights for human rights. There, the court ruled that her rights to protest the World Athletics policy had not been adequately addressed or heard. What this win means is that she can challenge the World Athletics policy barring her from competition once again as she previously lost her first attempt at challenging the institution’s DSD athlete policy. While the World Athletics DSD athletes’ policy still remains in place, her win is hopefully the first step to dismantling the discriminatory practice from athletics.

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Tell us: what do you think of how Caster Semenya has been treated by World Athletics?
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