The thorny issue of testosterone testing has made news, not just the growing skills on the field.
Beatrice Masilingi (left) celebrates with her Namibian teammate and silver medal winner Christine Mboma at the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Ryan Pierse/Getty Images
The controversy over female athletes being tested for testosterone levels is not just a contested scientific issue but also one of human rights.
Women’s 800-metre silver medal winner Margaret Nyairera Wambui, left, shakes hands with gold medal winner Caster Semenya on the podium at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia. Both runners have refused to take hormone-reducing drugs so they could compete at the Tokyo Olympics.
(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Mandatory sex testing at the Olympics might have stopped in the 1990s, but the policing of high performance female athletes’ bodies is still ongoing.
The decision by World Rugby to ban trans players from participating in women’s events is another setback for transgender athletes.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
If “fairness” is why trans players have been banned by World Rugby, then sport bodies need to realize many athletes have an unfair advantage because of issues like class and cultural backgrounds.
USA vs Spain in a 2019 friendly.
EPA/MANUEL LORENZO
If the Semenya ruling by the Court for Arbitration in Sport remains unchallenged, this way of thinking and behaving might filter into the International Olympic Committee
Caster Semenya is legally female, was from birth raised as female and identifies as a female.
Jon Connell on flickr
Athlete Caster Semenya will need to take hormone-lowering agents, or have surgery, if she wishes to continue her career in her chosen events. But the decision to ban her is flawed on many grounds.
South Africa’s Caster Semenya in the moments before the women’s 800-meter final during the Diamond League athletics event in Doha, Qatar on May 3. The world champion easily won the race, but her future remains in doubt.
(AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
The great South African runner Caster Semenya may have competed in her last 800-metre race. She has been demonized for more than a decade, like many other female athletes before her.
Caster Semenya of South Africa is clearly a superb athlete.
Tracey Nearmy / AAP
Sport is a special domain, but it is not immune from the law and human rights. We’re yet to see if the United Nations Human Rights Council will take steps following a new ruling on testosterone.
Arbitration case between athlete Caster Semenya and the IAAF centres on eligibility to compete based on testosterone – but there are other factors in play.
South Africa’s runner Caster Semenya, the current 800-meter Olympic gold and world champion, arrives with her lawyer Gregory Nott (right) for hearings at the international Court of Arbitration for Sport.
EPA/Laurent Gillieron
The International Association of Athletics Federations wants athletes who have differences of sexual development to medically reduce their testosterone levels. But this may be in breach of human rights.
Caster Semenya celebrates winning the women’s 800m at the Rio Olympics.
AAP
One way to get beyond gender barriers in sport would be to scrap sex segregation and replace it with a system similar to that of Paralympic disciplines.
Caster Semenya’s gold medal in the women’s 800 metres track event at the Rio Olympics may be supplemented, in coming months, by an upgrade from silver to gold for the same event at the London Games. Re-testing…
Predictions that top women athletes will soon be competing with the best men, and may even outperform them someday, have not borne out.
Ted Goldring/Flickr
A 1992 paper predicted that if women’s running performance continued to improve as rapidly as it had since the 1920s, top women athletes would soon be running as quickly as the men.
Does it make sense to target female athletes with high testosterone levels? Caster Semenya competes in the women’s 800-meter semifinal during the London Olympics.
Gary Hershorn/Reuters
Some women naturally produce high levels of testosterone. Why is this innate condition treated differently from other conditions that potentially enhance athletic performance?
The Olympic Games are a theatre — sometimes farce, sometimes tragedy, reality TV, morality play or soap opera — where geopolitical, social and technological dramas are played out.
Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford