Testosterone limit: Caster Semenya wins appeal at European Court of Human Rights

Caster Semenya, a 32-year-old South African double Olympic 800 m champion, was subjected to discrimination by the rules that required her to suppress her testosterone levels in order to compete, according to the European Court of Human Rights.

Semenya was born with Differences in Sexual Development (DSD) and is not allowed to compete in any track events without taking testosterone-reducing drugs.

The ECHR on Tuesday, ruled in Semenya’s favor in a dispute regarding testosterone levels in female athletes.

Semenya, a three-time world champion in the 800 meters and a Commonwealth champion in the 800 and 1500 meters has been embroiled in a protracted legal battle with World Athletics ever since the organization’s rules mandating her to receive hormone therapy were implemented in 2018.

She has twice failed in legal battles to overturn the decision and the case at the ECHR was against the government of Switzerland for not protecting Semenya’s rights and dates back to a Swiss Supreme Court ruling three years ago.

In a lengthy judgment published on Tuesday, the ECHR found the Swiss government did not protect Semenya from being discriminated against when its Supreme Court refused to overturn a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), which upheld the World Athletics rules.

An ECHR statement read: “The court found in particular that the applicant had not been 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.”

The DSD rules of World Athletics were also determined to be “incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights” and “a source of discrimination” for Semenya “by the manner in which they were exercised and by their effects”.

Semenya, who has always been legally identified as female, has said she should be able to compete in women’s events even if her testosterone levels are higher than her competitors.

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