Sympathy for Semenya but fairness prevails

From a strictly humanitarian perspective, it is absolutely heart-wrenching just to imagine what South African Olympic and World champion Caster Semenya continues to go through, having to live her life with the abnormal, often conflicting, inner and outer physiological nuances that render her so different from the typical human being.

Multiply that reality tenfold when she is an international star athlete at the level of Olympic and World champion, where every discrepancy and every imperfection associated with her unusual and extraordinary journey is literally exposed to the eyes of the world. It takes a special strength of character just to survive these adversities.

There is, however, a credible and principled reason why the Court of Arbitration For Sport (CAS) threw out Semenya’s appeal against the IAAF’s dictate that athletes with difference, in sexual development (DSD), a condition that leads to elevated levels of testosterone production, must take prescribed medication to reduce their hormones to an acceptable level because it is deemed to give the likes of Semenya an unfair advantage in competition against other female athletes with normal levels of the male hormone.

Amidst the cry of discrimination and injustice from the several sympathisers of Semenya, the world governing body for the sport has held firm. With now outright vindication from CAS, IAAF president Lord Sebastian Coe aptly summed up the situation, outlining that competition in the sport of athletics is categorised by age and gender, intimating that individuals must reasonably abide by the age stipulations for age-group competitions and, more fundamentally to this scenario, must be clearly and credibly identified as being either male or female.

Complicated

Semenya’s abnormalities unfortunately bring into question the specificity of her gender. Here, characteristics, physical and biological, are complicated and confusing. It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that the IAAF stands on firm grounds of principle in their consideration of the integrity and credibility of the sport which they govern. The compromise of requiring Semenya, and, we assume, other athletes with DSD, to take the necessary medication needed the get the proverbial playing field closer to being more level seems quite reasonable.

The cry that Semenya’s condition is natural and is in no way artificially induced, and the parallels drawn with athletes with long legs or an abundance of fast-twitch muscles smacks a desperate clutching at straws, or the quintessential proverbial comparison between apples and oranges. Being born with the advantage of longer legs or stronger muscles, etc, in no way brings into question an athlete’s qualification to compete by the basic age or gender requirements. There is no equivalent ambiguity of gender that can be attributed to long legs and fast-twitch muscles, while DSD and its effects clearly ignite legitimate doubts about the specificity of the gender of the athletes affected.

If there is a positive to be gained from this scenario for Semenya, it is in the fact that at 28 years old, because of the unusual dynamics of her case, she has been able to have a quite successful and lucrative career in the sport. She has managed to dance through the raindrops to become World and Olympic champion, with all the commensurate accolades and financial rewards.

Beyond Semenya, the IAAF might very well need to seriously consider the introduction of a third category in athletics competition. Call it what they may, but it appears increasingly probable that they will need to establish a category for athletes with issues of gender ambiguity, especially going forward in today’s strange, rapidly evolving, and interesting world.