Rights Group Demands End to Sex Testing of Female Track Athletes

Semenya, who identifies as a woman and has declined to undergo testosterone suppression, has lost appeals before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which is based in Switzerland, and the Swiss Supreme Court. Last month, her lawyers said she would take her case to the European Court of Human Rights, though it is unclear if any decision can be reached before the Tokyo Games, scheduled to start on July 23. Otherwise, Semenya, 29, has suggested she will try to run the 200, an event free of the recently introduced testosterone restrictions, at the Olympics.

In a 120-page report, the New York-based Human Rights Watch amplified with athletes’ voices what critics of the current testosterone regulations have long argued: that they are medically unnecessary and humiliating; encourage coerced medical intervention; can result in physical and psychological injury and the loss of careers; violate fundamental rights to privacy, dignity, health, nondiscrimination and employment; and adhere to standards of femininity that are racially biased, disproportionately affecting women of color from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania.

“Whether it is hormone therapy or surgery, why should a perfectly healthy woman agree to do so to compete in sports?” Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi in East Africa said in an email to The New York Times. She finished second to Semenya in the 800 at the 2016 Olympics and is also affected by the testosterone regulations.

Like Semenya, Niyonsaba has refused to undergo hormone suppression and is now training to run the 5,000 meters, a distance at which the biological restrictions do not apply.

“They treat us as if we are cheats,” Niyonsaba said. “We deserve to be respected as athletes, as champions.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/sports/olympics/intersex-athletes-human-rights.html