The extraordinary career of Caster Semenya took another twist on Tuesday when the European court of human rights (ECHR) ruled she had been let down by the Swiss legal system in her battle against limits on testosterone levels for female athletes.
Semenya, who won gold in the 800m at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, was born with differences in sex development (DSD), meaning her body naturally produces higher levels of testosterone than women without the condition. She has not been allowed to compete in elite events between 400m and a mile since 2018, when World Athletics, the sport’s governing body, implemented a new policy for DSD athletes that compelled them to reduce their testosterone levels to less than 5 nmol/L in order to race across those distances. DSDs are in the male range of 7.7-29.4 nmol/L.
The policy was upheld by the court of arbitration for sport (Cas) the following year, and then by a Swiss federal tribunal in 2020, leading to the 32-year-old South African taking her long-running legal battle against the regulations to the ECHR.
The ECHR ruled on Tuesday that Switzerland had not afforded Semenya “sufficient institutional and procedural safeguards” to allow her to have her complaints examined effectively. The “high stakes” involved for Semenya “should have led to a thorough institutional and procedural review”, the court said.
Semenya had been unable to obtain such a review, therefore the ECHR was “unable to determine whether the DSD regulations, as applied in the applicant’s case, could be considered a measure that was objective and proportionate to the aim pursued of protecting fair competition for female athletes”. The court said Semenya complaints of discrimination as a result of World Athletics’ DSD regulations were “substantiated and credible”, but that its judgment does not bring into question the governing body’s policy.
The seven ECHR judges found by a majority of four to three that Semenya’s rights under Article 14 of the European convention on human rights, which concerns discrimination, had been violated. The Swiss federal tribunal was also found to have violated Article 13 in not providing Semenya effective remedy against discrimination.
Sports are literally about finding the weirdest, rarest mutant hyper-competent in one particular task and then using them to sell shoes to children. This whole process has been bizarre because she's nominally exactly what they want - An outlier way, way, way out on the end of the bell curve who can do things statistically average people can't, performing stupendous acts for the amusement of the viewers at home.
Like the example is always that Phelps guy who has several mutations that make him just flat out better at swimming than any human without those traits could ever hope to be. Dude is a literal X-man, "Genetically different!" and he gets piled up with awards, but when it's a woman who has the rare physical make-up to race the sun now it's a problem, because of course it is.
idk competitive sports is eugenicist bullshit cmv.
Well, the issue as far as I can tell isn't specifically that a woman has a rare physical makeup but that the lines of that makeup happen to overlap with the surging reactionary gender ideology around testosterone and so on. If she "merely" had a new type of shin bone that let her run 5% faster, she'd probably be doing just fine.
Terfs constantly argue about trans women's bones because normal testosterone levels on HRT already mean we have a competitive disadvantage compared to a lot of cis women.
Oh yeah, she's entirely a victim of... well... fascism, I guess, though it's weird to say it like that. They only give a shit because the fascists picked trans people this time
My crank theory with this is that if they admit that a woman with DSD can compete despite higher testosterone levels, they'd have to admit that there's no ground to stand on to deny trans athletes (not that they have ground to stand on anyway but y'know)
Currently the only women with DSD that can compete regardless of testosterone levels are women with XX chromosomes. Women with XY chromosomes still have to limit their test levels, like Semenya had to.
The first version of the rules limited the testosterone of all athletes with disorders of sexual development, regardless of chromosomes they had, but it was scrapped.
The problem with Semenya's case is that her private medical results were leaked, which revealed that she had XY chromosomes. This caused a ton of public backlash, as most people's understanding of biology hasn't progressed past the sixth grade level, and they don't realise that women can be born with XY chromosomes, and men with XX chromosomes, in rare cases.
That has led to the current wave of discrimination against female athletes with XY chromosomes and disorders of sexual development. The real bullshit part is that female athletes with XX chromosomes and a disorder of sexual development can still compete with no restrictions, even if that disorder caused increased testosterone production.
Banned for being checks notes naturally really good at running like checks notes again all the other runners
All competition is based on genetical and environmental advantages, when are we putting the best performing male athletes on hrt or blockers to even the playing field?
Corruption, transphobia, gentrification, fuck olympics and terfs.
Just do musk vs zuck fight to death and the winner should be sent to a titanic submarine trip or be put on neuralink
This is a major W but also makes me think about the fact women assigned male at birth have to suppress their testosterone levels to such extreme amounts if they want to compete in women's sports, yet women assigned female at birth can compete even if they have abnormally high natural t-levels.
Only women assigned female at birth with XX chromosomes can compete with abnormally high natural free testosterone levels, even if they have a disorder of sexual development that causes increased testosterone production. Women assigned female at birth with XY chromosomes, like Semenya and a few other athletes now, have to limit their testosterone levels.
