On Monday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Running Shoes & Gear Eliud Kipchoge Wins the Mens Olympic Marathon testosterone can’t compete against other women unless they undertake medical treatment to lower their testosterone levels. Runners and medical experts contacted by Runner’s World Newswire say they’re worried and confused by the ruling.
In its finding, the CAS acknowledged that testosterone makes a difference in running performances—the average gap in men’s and women’s running world records is 10 to 11 percent—but said the difference has not been proven large enough to warrant action. This male-female performance gap occurs because men have more and stronger muscle, bone and support structures, greater blood volume, and a higher percent of red blood cells. These effects are all modulated by testosterone.
The ruling came after Indian sprinter Dutee Chand challenged the regulation, which the International Association of Athletics Federations instituted in 2011. Chand, who has hyperandrogenism, or a naturally high level of testosterone, can resume competing against other women, which she hasn’t done since last year. In the meantime, the CAS gave the IAAF two years to provide more convincing evidence for its regulation; if the IAAF doesn’t, the regulation will become permanently void.
However, most track observers are not overly concerned about Chand herself. That’s because she seems unlikely to play a major role in women’s sprints; she’s simply not that fast. Her best 200-meter time of 23.57 lags almost two seconds behind Allyson Felix’s winning 21.88 at the 2012 Olympics.
Rather, it’s Caster Semenya’s name that keeps popping up in conversations.
The CAS decision may affect the approach the IAAF and International Olympic Committee took with Semenya in 2009. That’s when the lean, muscular, deep-voiced South African won the world championships 800 in a startling 1:55:45, much to the dismay of several runners-up. Global track officials decided to review the situation, and appointed a n expert panel to determine what, if anything, should be done.
The panel opted for what might be called “the high testosterone rule.” That is, if a woman athlete has high testosterone and active testosterone receptors, the woman can be prohibited from competing unless and until she follows medical procedures to lower her testosterone.
This is apparently what Semenya did in order to continue racing, though the exact details are unknown due to confidentiality and medical privacy. Semenya hasn’t dipped back into the 1:55s since 2009, though she ran 1:56 to 1:58 every year between 2010 and 2013. Last year, her best was 2:02:66; this year, it stands at 2:04:19.
Unlike Chand, Semenya, who hopes to race in August’s world championships in Beijing, is a known world-class runner. Not only that, but the CAS decision might mean she can stop taking medications meant to lower her testosterone. What if Semenya starts running 1:55 and dominating her competition again?
Among those concerned by the repeal of the high-testosterone benchmark are elite women athletes who fear they could lose medals and prizes to competitors with rare biologies.
“I was surprised by the verdict, given the high-profile Semenya case a few years ago,” U.S. 5,000-meter record holder Molly Huddle told Newswire. “I think there should be a place in sports for everyone, but high testosterone is a sensitive topic. There’s so much at stake at the international level of competition that fairness and a level playing field have to be preserved.
“Gender may be fluid in many areas of life, but in sports the more functional testosterone you have, the closer you can come to men’s performances. It’s going to be tough to be fair to the majority of women and the high-T women at the same time.”
According to testimony given to CAS, about 1 in 20,000 women in the general population have the kind of high testosterone seen in Chand and Semenya. Among elite female athletes, the rate is 140 times greater.
The United States and parts of the world have made progress in their understanding of gender identity and civil rights, but perhaps less in understanding the vast ranges of sexual variation. If some women are to be kicked out of sports, what will be the basis for such action? Some would like to see a strict biological test. Others believe that such tests are inevitably flawed, and that the best way forward is to accept all who self-define as women.
Deena Kastor, American record holder in the half marathon and marathon and bronze medalist in the 2004 Olympic Marathon, told Newswire that she was reluctant to comment on divisive issues like this one. Still, she added that the “Chand case is intriguing,” and concluded, “It’s unfortunate if an athlete has naturally high testosterone numbers, but there need to be limits in our sport to fight the culture of cheating.”
Others, mainly doctors and scientists, appear more concerned about logic, consistency, and culture when it comes to determining female eligibility.
Medical historian Alice Dreger, Ph.D., told Newswire that she and journalist David Epstein are among the few who have read all 161 pages of the CAS decision. “It’s a very strange document,” observes Dreger, known for her support of many LGBT issues. “As I read through it, I found myself agreeing with many things. But then at the end, I thought the logic got all twisted around.”
In a Running Shoes & Gear opinion piece published Thursday, Dreger argued that the various sports bodies don’t appear to know what they want. At times, they support a biological test for women; at other times, they say they don’t want to be in the gender verification business. It certainly hasn’t worked in the past, as the IAAF and IOC have had to drop tests such as a visual inspection of genitalia and a DNA cheek swab.
Three years ago, just before the London Olympics, Dreger wrote about “The Olympic Struggle Over Sex” for The Atlantic. On that occasion, she admitted to having a personal opinion, favoring the “anatomists” and their biological-physiological approach over the “identifiers.” Why? Because “we're not actually talking about law and justice,” Dreger wrote. “We're talking about games.” And in games, unlike in the quest for civil liberties, body differences are important.
Some of the rarest, hardest-to-define gender complexities are now termed disorders of sex development, or intersex. On average, most men have more testosterone than most women, but the ranges overlap, and some women have very high levels of testosterone due to unusual medical conditions. These conditions don’t make them non-female; they simply make them rare females. Some women’s rights advocates are unhappy about the way sports groups have created two classes of women—eligible and not-eligible. There is only one class of men, as all are eligible. This includes men with the same condition, hyperandrogenism, as Chand and Semenya.
Medical historian Alice Dreger, Ph.D., told The Sports Gene, says he’s not sure what should be done to regulate women’s participation.
“Given that sports bodies are trying to impose a binary result on non-binary human biology, they’re going to end up drawing an arbitrary line somewhere, and that’s okay with me,” says Epstein. “I’d just like to see them be open and honest about this. They should admit that they can’t be fair to everyone, because an arbitrary line is just that—arbitrary.
“I don’t like the logic of the CAS decision, and I can’t think of another single parameter that could replace testosterone for determining a woman’s eligibility, so maybe we’re just headed towards self-identification. Then we’d continue to see over-representation of women with certain conditions, just as we do now. This hasn’t brought sports crumbling to the ground, and I don’t think it would going forward.”
Medical historian Alice Dreger, Ph.D., told Newswire that there’s no easy answer.
“Sports have tried repeatedly to sort out gender identity issues, and there are just too many limitations,” he says. “It’s a categorical error to say anyone can deal with these issues scientifically or ‘objectively.’ Science and medicine can explain what’s going on biologically, but can’t remove the need for judgment calls as to who is eligible and who is not.”
