Caster Semenya, the South African athlete, has won her appeal at the European Court of Human Rights.

Semenya had gone to court as she had been barred from competing in international athletics competitions unless she artificially lowered her testosterone levels. The court found for Semenya, saying that she had been discriminated against by having to lower her naturally occurring levels of the hormone.

Semenya, an Olympic champion, was barred from international competition in 2019.

The ruling does not open the way for Semenya to participate in international competitions again immediately but allows her to appeal the decision by the global athletics body to bar her because of her level of testosterone.

Semenya is intersex and while she has XY chromosomes she was born with female genitalia. She was observed as female at birth and has identified as a woman her whole life.

Image: MaraXingjin, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons


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