Transgender Athletes

"Specifically, we know that Semenya was identified as having elevated testosterone levels after her gold medal in Berlin (1:55.45, as an 18-year old).  We know that some intervention was applied, and we can, through pretty basic deduction, figure out that it involved lowering her testosterone levels.  How?  Well, at the time Semenya emerged, from nowhere, the IAAF and IOC policies on gender verification (they should call it ‘sex verification’, by the way, because sex is biological, gender is social, but anyway) were vague and unrelated to testosterone.

It was as a result of Semenya, and the absolutely disastrous handling of that situation, that the policy changed, and until last year, the policy in place said that women could compete only if their testosterone levels were below an upper limit.  That upper limit, 10 nmol/L, was set up based on a study done on all the women competing in the World Championships in 2011 and 2013.  The researchers took the average testosterone levels of women with a condition called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, which was already elevated at 4.5 nmol/L, and then added 5 SD to it.

The addition of 3 SD (which created a level of 7.5 nmol/L) would have meant that 16 in 1000 athletes would exceed the cutoff.  That’s why the extra 2 SD were added, to make sure that the upper limit would apply only to those with hyperandrogenism (or those who are doping).

99% of female athletes, by the way, had testosterone levels below 3.08 nmol/L. So the upper limit of 10 nmol/L was three fold higher than a level that applies to 99 in 100 women participants.

Semenya’s performances, under this policy of reducing testosterone, dropped off in a predictable manner.  Having run the 1:55.45 at 18, she never got close again, though did win Olympic silver in London (behind a doper), and a World silver in 2011.  Last year, she failed to advance beyond the semi-finals in Beijing, and hadn’t even made the qualification mark for the preceding year’s Commonwealth Games.  2:00 had become a significant barrier, when the world record had been plausible at 18.

Now, she is untouchable.  People will (and have said) that it’s down to her focused training, recovery from injury and so forth, but I’m not buying that.  The change has happened for an obvious reason – the restoration of testosterone levels, and that is thanks to the courts – CAS, the Court of Arbitration for sport, last year ruled that the IAAF could no longer enforce the upper limit of testosterone, and in so doing, cleared the way for Semenya, and at least a handful of others, to return to the advantages that this hormone clears provides an individual.  That CAS ruled this way because they felt that there was insufficient evidence for the performance benefits is one of the stupidest, most bemusing legal/scientific decisions ever made."

https://sportsscientists.com/2016/05/hyperandrogenism-women-vs-women-vs-men-sport-qa-joanna-harper/

This is the most scientifically accurate analysis of the whole Semenya saga you will find.

http://sportsscientists.com/thread/caster-semenya/?doing_wp_cron=1523521166.0635280609130859375000