Rule traps runner in a gender absurdity
Caster Semenya is a woman who is too much a man, according to new, wrongheaded rules in track and field.
The South African runner moved up to gold in the women’s 800 meters after the 2012 London Games because the Russian winner was caught dop- ing. Semenya finished first in the 800 at the 2016 Rio Games — but can’t score a three-peat at the 2020 Tokyo Games unless she’s the one who’s doping.
That, at least, is how it appears at the moment. Sound crazy? It is: The rulebook that prohibits performanceenhancing drugs seems to require performance-diminishing drugs in certain cases, all in the name of fair play.
The International Association of Athletics Federations, governing body for track and field, released rules that are scheduled to go into effect in November. The rules say women who have high levels of naturally occurring testosterone may not compete in women’s middle-distance races unless they take medication to reduce those levels.
The governing body says the rule — a new version of an old rule — is about fairness for the majority of female athletes. That sounds like a noble motive, but how do you balance athletes’ rights with human rights?
Testosterone helps build muscle, endurance and speed. It is one of the reasons that men and women compete separately in most sports. But science can’t say with precision how much advantage female athletes with high levels of testosterone have. Yet the IAAF would have these athletes take medication to alter what their bodies produce naturally.
The governing body says its regulations are not “intended as any kind of judgment on, or questioning of, the sex or the gender identity of any athlete,” though it would seem that is precisely what it does, no matter what’s intended.
Semenya keeps on keeping on.Asked why she hadn’t spoken about the regulations (except on Twitter), she said, “I don’t talk about nonsense.”
She burst onto the world scene in 2009, and almost immediately, unseemly speculation about her powerful physique burbled up. IAAF General Secretary Pierre Weiss infamously said, “She is a woman, but maybe not 100%.”
Some women are born with differences of sex development, also known as intersex, which means they “do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies,” according to a definition by the human rights arm of the United Nations.
Sprinter Dutee Chand of India challenged the IAAF’s original rule that called for women with elevated levels of the hormone to submit to testosterone-suppressing medication. The Court of Arbitration for Sport suspended the rule before the Rio Games because it was unable to conclude that such women have so great an advantage that they should be excluded “from competing in the female category.”
Men have varying levels of naturally occurring testosterone, but no one checks to see if that gives some men an advantage over others. Why would authorities assert an advantage for women?
Track and field authorities in South Africa said they will appeal. If they do, the Court of Arbitration for Sport should toss out the new rule, just as it did the old one, only for good this time.
Semenya is her own best spokesperson on all of this.
“God made me the way I am,” she wrote on Twitter, “and I accept myself.”
So why won’t the rest of us?
The governing body says the rule is about fairness for the majority of female athletes. That sounds like a noble motive, but how do you balance athletes’ rights with human rights?