Olympic 800 metres champion Caster Semenya of South Africa goes to the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Monday to challenge proposed rules that would force her to lower her testosterone levels.
The South African government has said the rules proposed by track and field's governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), specifically target Semenya and has called them a "gross violation" of her human rights.
The controversial rules would force so-called "hyperandrogenic" athletes or those with "differences of sexual development" (DSD) to take drugs to lower testosterone levels below a prescribed amount if they wish to compete.
The rules were to have been introduced last November but have been put on hold pending this week's hearings at the Lausanne-based CAS which Semenya is expected to attend. A judgement is expected by the end of March.
The issue is highly emotive.
When British newspaper The Times reported last week that the IAAF would argue that Semenya should be classified as a biological male -- a claim later denied by the IAAF -- she hit back, saying she was "unquestionably a woman".
In response to the report, the IAAF -- stressing it was referring in general terms, not to Semenya in particular -- denied it intended to classify any DSD athlete as male.
But in a statement, it added: "If a DSD athlete has testes and male levels of testosterone, they get the same increases in bone and muscle size and strength and increases in haemoglobin that a male gets when they go through puberty, which is what gives men such a performance advantage over women.
"Therefore, to preserve fair competition in the female category, it is necessary to require DSD athletes to reduce their testosterone down to female levels before they compete at international level."
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