Tag Archives: World Athletics

Recording of Play The Game panel on “The return of sex testing in international sport: is it justified? is it ethical?” available

The recording to today’s panel at Play The Game on “The return of sex testing in international sport: is it justified? is it ethical?”

is now available here.

Big thanks to Madeleine Pape for organising this panel, and to my wonderful fellow panelists Sone Erikainen, Payoshni Mitra, Sasha Gollish and Marcus Mazzucco (a pleasure finally meeting in person).

And the biggest thanks goes to the athletes harmed by the regulations who came to listen to us: Caster Semenya, Annet Negesa, Evangelina Matena Kyatena. What a privilege to have you in the room.

Recording of keynote at T.M.C Asser Institute, The Hague, October 27th, now available

On 26 and 27 October 2023, the T.M.C Asser Institute in The Hague hosted the 2023 edition of the International Sports Law Journal (ISLJ) Conference. I delivered the keynote lecture on day 2 titled “Eligibility criteria to compete in the female category: Values, norms and evidence”.

Abstract

There is a fundamental tension intrinsic in athletics: human sex is not binary, and there are only two categories in which people can compete: men, and women. In the late 1990s, all forms of sex testing had been abandoned by the International Olympic Committee due to some high-profile false positive cases. After a brief interval, sex testing re-emerged in 2009 with the case of South-African runner Caster Semenya, whose gold medal at the World Track & Field Championship in Berlin was revoked on suspicion of an unfair advantage derived from a “male biological make-up”. Following an investigation, in May 2011, World Athletics (WA)  enacted ‘Hyperandrogenism regulations’ which require that female athletes with endogenous testosterone levels above 5 nmol/Lit take androgen suppressive therapy as a condition to compete in the female category.   Since the original formulation, the WA Hyperandrogenism regulations have undergone multiple iterations, the most recent one in March 2023, and have been at the centre of three high profile legal disputes, two at the Court for Arbitration of Sport also known as the “Supreme Court for Sports” (2015; 2019), and one at the European Court of Human Rights (2023). Another one is forthcoming at the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in 2024. In this talk I review the evidence, values and norms underlying the World Athletics regulations to compete in the female category for athletes with DSD.

The recording is now available here.

World Athletics’ Regulations on eligibility to compete in the female category (2009- now)

casterAn almost complete (I hope!) list of my academic works on the topic of hyperandrogenism, and eligibility criteria for participation in the female category from 2009 up to now can be found here (email me to request PDFs of articles if you don’t have access):

Op-eds can be found here:

And you can find some of my early academic work on Caster Semenya here:

IMPORTANT!

Here you can download the original IAAF documents on Hyperandrogenism Regulations (they have been taken off website since suspension of regulation in July 2015 following CAS ruling)

IAAF guidelines Eligibility Hyperandrogenism May 2011

IAAF Hyperandrogenism Regulations – Appendices

MEDIA AND OUTREACH

Radio and Television Commentary and Expert Opinion

Al Jazeera Inside Story (May 2019, Television)

Commentary on CAS ruling against Caster Semenya:

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2019/05/athletics-rules-unfairly-target-caster-semenya-190502192112795.html

BBC Radio 5 (May 2019, Radio)

Commentary on CAS ruling against Caster Semenya:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0769g7f

 BBC Radio London (May 2019)

Commentary on CAS ruling against Caster Semenya:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0769g7f?fbclid=IwAR1BVHBoJc9R5TxHMJAZHkXNjLx5caiZYOw3StVnNhck81XJ6tqMuIQ2ajg

 BBC Inside Science (April 2019, Radio)

Commentary on experiments carried out at Yale University to reanimate pig heads:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00046sj

BBC Big Questions (June 2017, Television)

Panelist for episode “Is it ethical to interfere with the genome?”:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08vg018/the-big-questions-series-10-episode-20

 BBC News Hour Extra (July 2016, Radio)

Commentary for: “A flickering flame: Is the Olympic ideal dead?”:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04263n3

BBC World Service (March 2015, Radio)

Commentary on Dutee Chand’s case:

https://soundcloud.com/bbc-world-service/what-makes-a-woman  

BBC Have Your Say (March 2015, Radio)

Commentary on Dutee Chand’s case:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02m31rq

 

BBC Radio 4 News (March 2015, Radio)

Commentary on Dutee Chand’s case:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05mrc53

BBC World News (February 2015, Television)

Commentary on the case of eugenics victims receiving compensation for sterilization in Virginia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kDev7pyloM

My work on Caster Semenya has been quoted in mainstream media and other professional outlets:

IMPORTANT!

Here you can download the original IAAF documents on Hyperandrogenism Regulations (they have been taken off website since suspension of regulation in July 2015 following CAS ruling)

IAAF guidelines Eligibility Hyperandrogenism May 2011

IAAF Hyperandrogenism Regulations – Appendices