Caster Semenya v IAAF: a ground-breaking gender test case

Caster Semenya's battle with world athletics' governing body over testosterone-curbing regulations for female athletes will likely have long-lasting ramifications for gender definition in sport as a whole.

The South African, a two-time Olympic 800m gold medallist, is locked in a bitter dispute with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), and both parties are awaiting a ruling from Switzerland's supreme court on Semenya's appeal against the regulations.

Semenya is classified a woman, was raised as a woman and races as a woman.

But for the IAAF, women like Semenya, with certain masculine attributes due to differences of sexual development (DSD), are classified, biologically, as men. It is a position hotly contested by South African officials.

The IAAF, seeking "to ensure fair competition for all women", argues that DSD athletes, like Semenya, born with the "46 XY" chromosome rather than the XX chromosome most females have, would have an advantage in all events based on their levels of testosterone that are in the male range.

"Does the IAAF have the legitimacy to define the sex of somebody, to question that person's civil state?" asks anthropologist Philippe Liotard, an expert in discrimination in sport.

"This ruling is judging the identity of that person."
- Regulations have contested basis -
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But is it possible to force people who are not ill to take medication which could cause secondary effects?