Since she first won an international track event in 2009 at age 18, the South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya has had every aspect of her body subjected to scrutiny. Semenya is one of many women around the world targeted by regulations that require women with naturally higher-than-typical levels of testosterone to submit to so-called sex testing and undergo unnecessary medical interventions to reduce hormone levels in order to keep competing.
Her case isn’t an isolated incident: After being dropped at the last minute from an international competition in 2014 because sports officials deemed her testosterone too high for a woman, the Indian sprinter Dutee Chand challenged the regulations at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland. Chand won her case, but World Athletics, the international governing body in global track and field, fought back with a similar regulation targeting middle-distance runners like Semenya. Those regulations were revised again during a case taken to the same court in 2019 by Semenya, who then lost. The new regulations remain in force for now—and they continue to do lasting damage to the careers and dignity of competitive athletes globally.
