(London) “I’m not going to be ashamed because I’m different,” hyperandrogenic South African athlete Caster Semenya told the BBC, saying she was determined to “fight” to the end for women, “not taken seriously” by sports authorities.
The double Olympic champion (2012 and 2016) and triple world champion in the 800m is deprived of her favorite race because she refuses hormonal treatment to lower her testosterone levels. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found her to be a victim of discrimination at first instance.
“At the end of the day, I know I’m different. I don’t care about medical terms and what they tell me. Being born without a uterus or with internal testicles. I am no less a woman,” Semenya emphasized. “These are the differences I was born with and I embrace them. I’m not going to be ashamed because I’m different.”
Semenya has a natural excess of male sex hormones and has been engaged in a standoff for more than ten years with the International Athletics Federation (World Athletics, formerly IAAF), whose regulations prevent her from running 800m. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), subsequently supported by Swiss justice, confirmed the latter.
The 32-year-old South African took the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which ruled in her favor. The judgment rendered in July does not, however, invalidate the World Athletics regulations and does not directly pave the way for his return to 800m without treatment.
The Swiss authorities have also obtained referral to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR, a sort of appeal body whose decisions are final.
This legal battle, “this is why we are fighting for women’s sport,” Semenya told the BBC. “The importance of women’s sport is not taken seriously and we need to take charge of our bodies. We must decide what is good for us. It’s not up to another gender to decide what we should look like.”
