Caster Semenya slams Olympic sex testing as ‘a disrespect for women’

Two-time Olympic track champion Caster Semenya has criticised the International Olympic Committee’s recent decision to make female athletes undergo a sex test in order to compete in the women’s categories.

Speaking at a press conference in Cape Town, Semenya called the new eligibility criteria “a disrespect for women”.

The IOC announced the ban on 26 March, sharing that eligibility for female sporting events will be determined by one-time gene-screening sex tests. The committee said the new policy will “ensure fairness and protect safety, particularly in contact sports”.

READ MORE: How many trans women have competed at the Olympics? The answer is far smaller than you might think

Under the new policy, any athlete found to have the SRY gene, which is found in Y chromosomes, will be deemed not “biologically female” and therefore ineligible to compete in the women’s categories. The eligibility criteria will also apply to intersex athletes that have gone through male puberty.

Semenya also criticised IOC president Kirsty Coventry, who is from Zimbabwe. “For me, personally, for her being a woman coming from Africa, knowing how African women or women in the global south are affected by that, of course, it causes harm,” the athlete said.

The new eligibility criteria will come into effect for the 2028 Olympic games in Los Angeles. Similar chromosomal testing for the games was previously deployed between 1968 and 1996. However, it was abandoned by the IOC following pressure from the scientific community, which questioned its effectiveness.

“It came as a failure. And that’s why it was dropped,” Semenya said of the abandoned testing. “For you as a woman, why will you be tested to prove that you fit? You know, it’s like now we need to prove that we are worthy as women to take part in sports. That’s a disrespect for women.”

Semenya has found herself at the centre of the debate around genetic testing in athletics since 2009 due to her naturally high testosterone levels.

Semenya isn’t the only professional athlete to call out the IOC’s new eligibility criteria. Non-binary track star Nikki Hiltz took to Instagram on 26 March to make their feelings known too.

“Attacks on trans people have consistently led to more policing and regulation of ALL women’s bodies,” they wrote. “Everyone is hurt by transphobia. Y’all already know where I stand on this but this policy is so f****** stupid and is not solving a problem that exists.”

They continued: “I don’t know who needs to hear this but ZERO trans women competed in the Paris Olympics. Only ONE trans woman weightlifter competed in Tokyo 2021 and she did not win a medal. Can we please stop obsessing over trans people? And [I don’t know] maybe focus our time, energy, and resources into real problems women’s sports face?”

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