Caster Semenya wins appeal against testosterone rules
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.
Caster Semenya celebrates victory
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.
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.
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