World Athletics is likely to tighten rules governing the participation of transgender women in female competition. Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images
BREAKING: Caster Semenya wins appeal against testosterone rules
Caster Semenya was banned from participating due to high levels of testosterone. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in her favour.
World Athletics is likely to tighten rules governing the participation of transgender women in female competition. Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in favour of South African Olympic Champion Caster Semenya regarding the restriction of testosterone in female athletes.
Semenya was barred from participating in Olympics and in 2021 she filed a lawsuit in the European Court of Human Rights challenging restrictions of testosterone in female athletes. Semenya refused to take testosterone-lowering medication as mandated by the sport’s international federation, World Athletics, if she wants to compete at her favoured distance.
VICTORY FOR CASTER SEMENYA
On Tuesday, 11 July, the European Court of Human Rights found that Semenya was not afforded sufficient institutional and procedural safeguards in Switzerland to allow her to have her complaints examined effectively, especially since her complaints concerned substantiated and credible claims of discrimination as a result of her increased testosterone level caused by differences of sex development (DSD).
The World Athletics governing body in 2018 banned Semenya and other female athletes with differences of sexual development from races between 400 metres and a mile unless they take hormone-suppressing drugs.
Semenya, unsuccessfully challenged those rules at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.
ALSO READ: Quote of the day: Caster Semenya
On February 19, she made another fresh attempt — taking the matter to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
“Semenya’s ongoing fight for dignity, equality, and the human rights of women in sport took a crucial step forward with the filing of an application” to the ECHR, her lawyers Norton Rose Fulbright, announced in a statement.
ALSO READ: Caster Semenya: Athletics SA exploring legal options after new World Athletics rules
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ARTICLES BY NOKWANDA NCWANE
Additional reporting by AFP
