The topic of testosterone in women’s sports has been dominating conversations on women’s athletics from childhood to professional sports. One group often overlooked but deeply affected by this topic is cis-identifying female intersex athletes.
In 2019, the Olympics did away the the archaic and humiliating system that was sex-testing for all female athletes and brought in testosterone testing instead. The idea was that this would be a less humiliating and invasive alternative for athletes and would even the playing field to a greater extent. This came with the side effect of excluding intersex athletes with heightened testosterone such as Caster Semenya of South Africa.
Semenya filed a suit challenging this new regulation as violating her human rights. It barred her from the Olympics, a stage on which she had shined again and again and a sport that has been a major part of her life. She filed her lawsuit in a Swiss court and was struck down as the court cited her argument as violating women’s rights and maintaining an unfair advantage. The court agreed that the regulation violated Semenya’s rights but upheld that the argument still violated the rights of women.
This shows me, as an intersex person, that at least in legal and legislative settings that I cannot be valid unless I undergo unnecessary medical procedures to reduce testosterone levels. People like my little sister, an extremely talented rifle athlete, should not be considered “true women” unless they conform to medical standards of the binary. I am far from athletic, but according to these governing bodies, I am a superhuman and a threat.
Article:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/18/caster-semenya-won-her-case-not-right-compete