Semenya to lead fight against IOC’s gene-screening policy for female athletes
Double Olympic champion Caster Semenya says she intends to fight against the introduction of gender testing for the female category at the Olympics, a policy the South African insists “undermines women’s rights”.
The International Olympic Committee unveiled the policy last week and it is expected to become a universal rule for competitors in female elite sports after years of fragmented regulation that led to controversy.
Semenya has been at the centre of one of those controversies due to her long-running legal case against World Athletics over her right to compete on the track despite having a Difference of Sexual Development (DSD).
“We’re going to be vocal about it, we’re going to make noise until we’re heard,” the 35-year-old athlete told Reuters from Pretoria on Monday.
“Now it’s a matter of women standing for themselves to say, enough is enough. We are not going to be told how to do things.
“If really we are accepted as women to take part, why does my appearance or my voice, why do my inner parts need to be a problem to take part in the sport?”
DSDs are a group of rare conditions involving genes, hormones and reproductive organs. Some people with DSDs are raised as female but have XY sex chromosomes and blood testosterone levels in the male range.
The IOC policy document said including “androgen-sensitive XY-DSD athletes” in the female category in events that rely on strength, power or endurance “runs fundamentally counter to ensuring fairness, safety and integrity in elite competition”.
Semenya, who won two Olympic and three world titles in the 800 metres before being limited to shorter events, believes the IOC got the science wrong.
Semenya said “there’s no science” that XY-DSD gave an athlete an advantage. “I’ve been there, I’ve done that. There’s no such thing as that,” she said.
“There are people who are delusional. There are people who are convinced because a woman is masculine, a woman is born with intersex conditions, the DSD, they’ve mentioned all those things (that they have an advantage).
“But what I say is that if you’re going to be a great athlete, it’s through hard work.”
The test that will be applied to all athletes who want to compete in the female class will be conducted by a cheek swab or saliva analysis.
There will be further investigation for any athletes who test positive for the SRY gene, which is on the Y chromosome and triggers the development of male characteristics in mammals.
“What this decision does, it undermines women. It undermines women’s dignity. It violates women’s rights because we know historically, these (tests) have failed before,” Semenya said.
“Women need to be celebrated. Women are not supposed to be questioned about their gender. Why that is their physique? Why it is how they look like? It doesn’t matter. Neither also the hormone level. Those are the things that are obviously genetics that cannot be controlled.”
Semenya said IOC President Kirsty Coventry, the first woman and first African to hold the office, had failed to properly consult her or other athletes living with DSDs about the policy.
“They sent us a letter the day they were going to publish whatever they’re going to publish,” she said.
“If you’re going to consult, consult with a genuine heart because you’re consulting. Don’t consult because you’re ticking the box. Unfortunately, they have ticked a wrong box.”
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