SEMENYA MAY SPARK A GENDER SHAKE-UP
‘A’ and ‘B’ classifications could replace men and women labels
ATHLETICS may have to consider replacing male and female competitions with ‘A and B’ classifications if the world governing body lose their landmark case against Caster Semenya this week.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport is due to announce tomorrow if the South African middle- distance star has defeated world athletics chiefs’ attempts to restrict testosterone levels in women runners.
If Semenya wins, it could lead to the most radical change in the history of international sport, with the IAAF considering the introduction of new categories based on factors such as testosterone levels.
One senior athletics insider suggested the sport may have to contemplate replacing male and female categories with ‘A and B’ classifications that take into account transgender athletes as well as people with differences of sexual development (DSD) such as Semenya.
Victory for the IAAF would render such a revolutionary, and for many unpalatable, change
unnecessary. To continue competing as a woman in any running event between the 400m and the mile, female athletes such as Semenya would have to take testosterone suppressants like the contraceptive pill to stay under the permitted level. Central to the IAAF’s case,
Sportsmail understands, is the blood data of DSD athletes when they have competed with and without testosterone suppressants.
In 2015 the IAAF were forced to abandon their ruling on hyperandrogenism because CAS concluded there was a lack of evidence to prove testosterone increased female athletic performance and was therefore unjustifiably discriminatory.
But on this occasion the IAAF have used data from the athletes who competed while taking suppressants when the rule was in place, in a bid to prove levels of testosterone almost on a par with men do provide a significant advantage over women with normal female levels of the hormone.
If, however, CAS reject the IAAF’s argument and side with South Africa’s double Olympic champion, the IAAF may consider changes that would recognise the shift in attitude towards gender in society.
It could, however, mean that a transgender athlete identifying as a woman or a DSD runner would find themselves in the same category as David Rudisha if they wanted to a win an Olympic medal in the 800m, and would almost certainly be met by further legal challenges.
Athletics has taken the lead on this issue but it could be that other sports look to define athletes in categories other than men and women if Semenya and legal advisers she labelled the ‘A Team’ on social media on Sunday prove victorious.
In Switzerland, CAS have been deliberating for months over what is a hugely divisive, emotive issue.
While Lord Coe and the IAAF would argue they are acting for the human rights of female athletes with normal levels of testosterone, their stance has been politically polarising.
The United Nations Human
rights ri ht C Council il has h called ll d th their i proposed rule changes ‘unnecessary, harmful and humiliating’. South Africa’s sports minister has called them a ‘human rights violation’, not least because the rule changes would give athletes no choice but to take medication to compete.
Semenya is the darling of South S th Af African i sport t and d she h too has branded the iAAF plans ‘ unfair’. She says she wants to ‘run naturally, the way i was born’.
The iAAF have gone to some lengths not to personalise the issue and have published research that details the physiology of DSD athletes. Their condition can mean they lack a uterus and ovaries, but do have internal testes that produce the high levels of testosterone.
The iAAF’s rule proposal would require athletes to keep their testosterone levels below a prescribed amount ‘for at least six months prior to competing’, although the delay in this case means they would still allow athletes to compete at the World Championships in Doha in September if they begin taking medication within a week of the CAS decision.
The rules were intended to be brought in on November 1 last year, only for the legal challenge from Semenya and Athletics South Africa to cause the delay.