I hope that, for once, the Betteridge law will not apply and the answer to the question in the title is "yes".
I have already written on the fact that I consider the presence of Semenya in women's athletics a scandal, since it makes women competitions unfair for the non-hyperandrogenic females. The IAAF tried to regulate this and the matter ended at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, just as the in the case of D. Chand a few years back.
The CAS has now ruled over the challenge made to the IAAF Eligibility Regulations for the female classification for athletes with differences of sex development. And they found that the regulations were necessary, reasonable and proportionate.
To put it in a nutshell, women with very high testosterone levels cannot compete against other women in races from 400 m to one mile unless they take drugs to suppress production of the hormone.
The new regulations were proposed in November but were immediately appealed by Semenya through her lawyers. As a result the IAAF decided to delay the application of these regulations so as not to create uncertainty among athletes seeking to compete in the women’s category. Now that the CAS decision has arrived the regulations will come into effect on May 8th.
In the IAAF communiqué it is made clear that the eligibility conditions require what they call a "relevant athlete" to reduce her testosterone levels to below 5 nmol/L for a continuous period of at least six months prior to competition in the female classification in races from 400 m to one mile at an international competition. Given the delay of the CAS decision the athletes who comply with the 5 nmol/L limit from 8 May 2019 will be eligible to participate in the 2019, Doha, World Championships (to be held at the end of September).
The decision of the CAS was based on evidence presented by the IAAF, based on the works of S. Bermon and collaborators. (For a nice summary of his findings you can read his review in the journal of Endocrinology). The approach of Bermon and Garnier was challenged by Pielke, Tucker and Boye who asked for a retraction of the paper. While one can discuss the methodology and formulate criticisms, the basic finding, that testosterone is what makes the difference between men and women when it comes to athletic performance is an incontrovertible fact. A glance at the results of Handelsman et al should suffice in order to convince the most refractory among us. Boys and girls perform almost equally well at the various athletic tasks till puberty. Then testosterone kicks in for the boys and major differences appear. I find the correlation between gender differences in performance and the serum testosterone levels almost spooky.
The IAAF, and the CAS, decision has not been an easy one. The difficulty was acknowledged in the preamble of the CAS ruling. In their words
“After setting out the parties’ evidence and submissions, the Panel begins its analysis of the merits by noting that this case involves a complex collision of scientific, ethical and legal conundrums. It also involves incompatible, competing rights. It is not possible to give effect to one set of rights without restricting the other set of rights”.
There you have it. The decision was to protect the vast majority of female competitors at the expense of a handful of individuals. Of course such a decision is discriminatory, but such discrimination was a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of achieving the IAAF’s aim of preserving the integrity of women's competitions.
There are nauseating articles around trying to depict Semenya as a victim, hurling accusations of antifeminism or even racism. No, Semenya is not a martyr. She knows very well that her internal testes give her an unfair advantage over the other women. And she tries to make the most of it. Although this may hurt the women's athletics. So, as far as I am concerned this has to stop. Starting, now!
D. Coleman was one of the five experts who testified before the CAS, providing evidence in support of the IAAF regulations on DSD females. She is a law professor at Duke University (and ex middle distance runner) and testified on April 2 before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on the "Equality act". You can find the full transcript here. She starts her testimony by stating that:
"Approaches to addressing equality that elide relevant differences are not only ineffective; they can actually serve as cover for ongoing inequality".
The argument is that because some males identify as women, some women have testes and thus sex-linked traits can’t be the grounds for distinction (since that would exclude the women with testes). But females have to be treated differently precisely because of their reproductive biology and stereotypes about that biology. Pretending that biological females and women with testes are the same for all purposes is unfair. All athletes know that segregation on the basis of sex or at least of sex-linked traits is necessary to achieve equality in athletics.
Women, even at their absolute best, would lose to literally thousands of boys and men (in fact, even to second-rate athletes). But it only takes three male-bodied athletes to preclude the best females from the medal stand, and eight to exclude them from the track. So it doesn’t matter if only a handful turn out to be gender nonconforming.
If we can longer distinguish females from women with testes for any purpose that would be the end of women's athletics. Semenya and the other DSD athletes are seeking personal glorification and the applause of a bunch of sycophants, but their presence undermines the very basis on which their reputation has been built.
As far as I am concerned I find the IAAF regulations erring on the over-cautious side. If an excess of testosterone is providing an unfair advantage to females with DSD then why limit the applicability of the rules to middle distances? If the rules have a scientific basis (and they do) they should have had a blanket applicability, covering all athletics events. C. Semenya has too heavy a morphotype to move to longer distances, like 3000 or 5000 m, but I wouldn't exclude a lighter one like F. Niyonsaba to make the move.
And before concluding I cannot resist the temptation to go back to the question of the tile. When Semenya appealed the IAAF decision, Lord Sebastian announced that a compromise had been reached. The IAAF had agreed not to enforce the regulations against any athlete until the contested regulations were upheld by the CAS. In exchange, the opposite party had agreed "not to prolong the process". Does this mean that Semenya and her lawyers will not appeal the CAS ruling. Unfortunately there are rumours to the opposite. So this may not be quite the end to the scandal.
PS 1. Professor Coleman has written an extensive article entitled "Sex in Sport". You can find it here. If you are interested in the questions of sex, gender and identity and their impact on athletics and sports in general I suggest you take the time to read it. It's a eye-opener.
At one point she remarks "athletes who present with testosterone outside of the female range are exceedingly likely to be male or to be doping". And I am sure Semenya is not doping.
PS 2. Ross Tucker, the well known physiologist I am often referring to, wrote an excellent article on the DSD in sports issue, as pertains to Caster Semenya and others, and the CAS decision that ruled in favour of the IAAF’s regulations. It is an excellent summary of the situation and, if you can spare the time, I suggest you read it.
I have already written on the fact that I consider the presence of Semenya in women's athletics a scandal, since it makes women competitions unfair for the non-hyperandrogenic females. The IAAF tried to regulate this and the matter ended at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, just as the in the case of D. Chand a few years back.
The CAS has now ruled over the challenge made to the IAAF Eligibility Regulations for the female classification for athletes with differences of sex development. And they found that the regulations were necessary, reasonable and proportionate.
To put it in a nutshell, women with very high testosterone levels cannot compete against other women in races from 400 m to one mile unless they take drugs to suppress production of the hormone.
The new regulations were proposed in November but were immediately appealed by Semenya through her lawyers. As a result the IAAF decided to delay the application of these regulations so as not to create uncertainty among athletes seeking to compete in the women’s category. Now that the CAS decision has arrived the regulations will come into effect on May 8th.
In the IAAF communiqué it is made clear that the eligibility conditions require what they call a "relevant athlete" to reduce her testosterone levels to below 5 nmol/L for a continuous period of at least six months prior to competition in the female classification in races from 400 m to one mile at an international competition. Given the delay of the CAS decision the athletes who comply with the 5 nmol/L limit from 8 May 2019 will be eligible to participate in the 2019, Doha, World Championships (to be held at the end of September).
The decision of the CAS was based on evidence presented by the IAAF, based on the works of S. Bermon and collaborators. (For a nice summary of his findings you can read his review in the journal of Endocrinology). The approach of Bermon and Garnier was challenged by Pielke, Tucker and Boye who asked for a retraction of the paper. While one can discuss the methodology and formulate criticisms, the basic finding, that testosterone is what makes the difference between men and women when it comes to athletic performance is an incontrovertible fact. A glance at the results of Handelsman et al should suffice in order to convince the most refractory among us. Boys and girls perform almost equally well at the various athletic tasks till puberty. Then testosterone kicks in for the boys and major differences appear. I find the correlation between gender differences in performance and the serum testosterone levels almost spooky.
The IAAF, and the CAS, decision has not been an easy one. The difficulty was acknowledged in the preamble of the CAS ruling. In their words
“After setting out the parties’ evidence and submissions, the Panel begins its analysis of the merits by noting that this case involves a complex collision of scientific, ethical and legal conundrums. It also involves incompatible, competing rights. It is not possible to give effect to one set of rights without restricting the other set of rights”.
There you have it. The decision was to protect the vast majority of female competitors at the expense of a handful of individuals. Of course such a decision is discriminatory, but such discrimination was a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of achieving the IAAF’s aim of preserving the integrity of women's competitions.
There are nauseating articles around trying to depict Semenya as a victim, hurling accusations of antifeminism or even racism. No, Semenya is not a martyr. She knows very well that her internal testes give her an unfair advantage over the other women. And she tries to make the most of it. Although this may hurt the women's athletics. So, as far as I am concerned this has to stop. Starting, now!
D. Coleman was one of the five experts who testified before the CAS, providing evidence in support of the IAAF regulations on DSD females. She is a law professor at Duke University (and ex middle distance runner) and testified on April 2 before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on the "Equality act". You can find the full transcript here. She starts her testimony by stating that:
"Approaches to addressing equality that elide relevant differences are not only ineffective; they can actually serve as cover for ongoing inequality".
The argument is that because some males identify as women, some women have testes and thus sex-linked traits can’t be the grounds for distinction (since that would exclude the women with testes). But females have to be treated differently precisely because of their reproductive biology and stereotypes about that biology. Pretending that biological females and women with testes are the same for all purposes is unfair. All athletes know that segregation on the basis of sex or at least of sex-linked traits is necessary to achieve equality in athletics.
Women, even at their absolute best, would lose to literally thousands of boys and men (in fact, even to second-rate athletes). But it only takes three male-bodied athletes to preclude the best females from the medal stand, and eight to exclude them from the track. So it doesn’t matter if only a handful turn out to be gender nonconforming.
If we can longer distinguish females from women with testes for any purpose that would be the end of women's athletics. Semenya and the other DSD athletes are seeking personal glorification and the applause of a bunch of sycophants, but their presence undermines the very basis on which their reputation has been built.
As far as I am concerned I find the IAAF regulations erring on the over-cautious side. If an excess of testosterone is providing an unfair advantage to females with DSD then why limit the applicability of the rules to middle distances? If the rules have a scientific basis (and they do) they should have had a blanket applicability, covering all athletics events. C. Semenya has too heavy a morphotype to move to longer distances, like 3000 or 5000 m, but I wouldn't exclude a lighter one like F. Niyonsaba to make the move.
And before concluding I cannot resist the temptation to go back to the question of the tile. When Semenya appealed the IAAF decision, Lord Sebastian announced that a compromise had been reached. The IAAF had agreed not to enforce the regulations against any athlete until the contested regulations were upheld by the CAS. In exchange, the opposite party had agreed "not to prolong the process". Does this mean that Semenya and her lawyers will not appeal the CAS ruling. Unfortunately there are rumours to the opposite. So this may not be quite the end to the scandal.
PS 1. Professor Coleman has written an extensive article entitled "Sex in Sport". You can find it here. If you are interested in the questions of sex, gender and identity and their impact on athletics and sports in general I suggest you take the time to read it. It's a eye-opener.
At one point she remarks "athletes who present with testosterone outside of the female range are exceedingly likely to be male or to be doping". And I am sure Semenya is not doping.
PS 2. Ross Tucker, the well known physiologist I am often referring to, wrote an excellent article on the DSD in sports issue, as pertains to Caster Semenya and others, and the CAS decision that ruled in favour of the IAAF’s regulations. It is an excellent summary of the situation and, if you can spare the time, I suggest you read it.
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