Caster Semenya, of South Africa, competes during a heat in the women's 5000-meter run at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Ore., Wednesday, July 20, 2022. Caster Semenya's legal victory on Tuesday is a "huge victory for human rights," says a professor from the University of Toronto. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Ashley Landis
Champion runner Caster Semenya’s legal victory on Tuesday is a “huge victory for human rights” and a “long time coming,” say advocates.
The European Court of Human Rights decided that Semenya was discriminated against by sport rules that forced her to medically reduce her natural hormone levels to compete.
Bruce Kidd, a professor emeritus of sports policy at the University of Toronto, said the decision benefits both athletics and the wider world of sports.
“I think it’s a huge victory for human rights in athletics and all of sport,” he said. “If it’s upheld, it will, as I understand it, compel the Court of Arbitration for sport, and all of the international sports bodies in Switzerland, including the IOC, FIFA and so on to abide by human rights.”
Kidd previously helped initiate a successful appeal of a previous attempt to legislate natural testosterone in female athletes by the International Association of Athletics Federations in the case of an Indian sprinter.
The 32-year-old Semenya, a two-time Olympic champion from South Africa, has been barred from running in her favourite 800-metre race since 2019 and has lost four years of her career at her peak.
Semenya has one of a number of conditions known as differences in sex development which cause naturally high testosterone that is in the typical male range.
Phyllis Ellis, a Canadian Olympian and documentary filmmaker, produced a film about Semenya and other female athletes who had to undergo medical intervention in order to compete and said the decision is “fantastic.”
“It’s a long time coming. She shouldn’t have had to go so far,” Ellis said.
“For her to win the case is epic and really, it’ll change so much for so many people, I think, in the long run.”
The case also highlights what both say is a double standard in sports, where male athletes are not subject to the same scrutiny for testosterone levels as their female counterparts.
“There’s a long history of the male leaders and rulers of sport policing women because of a fear that they’re getting too fast and too strong,” Kidd said. “This effort by World Athletics to police these women is just another expression of the long-standing fear. It’s a terrible double standard.”
There has been a “witch hunt” against these female athletes who set records and then get questioned about their accomplishments and refused entry to compete, Ellis added, which has wider effects – particularly among communities in the Global South.
“You threaten their livelihood. They feed their communities, they support their families, they support themselves. It’s their vocation,” she said. “So basically, you’re taking them away from their job.”
The other issue, Kidd said, is there has been no conclusive evidence that naturally produced testosterone helps athletic performance in the same way that injected testosterone used in doping does.
His hope, he added, is the ruling forces international sporting bodies to drop narrow and discriminatory rulings when it comes to athletes competing.
World Athletics said it would encourage the Swiss government to appeal the decision.
Switzerland was the respondent in the case because Semenya was challenging her last legal loss in the Swiss Supreme Court. Switzerland’s government has three months to appeal.
– With files from The Associated Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 11, 2023.
