Caster Semenya, the South African two‑time Olympic 800m champion, said on Sunday that the reinstatement by the International Olympic Committee of sex verification tests for the 2028 Los Angeles Games was “a disrespect for women”.
The hyperandrogenic former athlete also expressed disappointment that the measure was taken under the leadership of the new IOC president, Kirsty Coventry of 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,” Semenya said during a Cape Town press conference on the sidelines of a sporting competition.
On Thursday the IOC reinstated genetic testing to determine female sex, starting with the 2028 Olympics, in effect banning transgender athletes and a large number of intersex athletes from women’s sports.
The IOC used chromosomal sex testing between 1968 and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, before abandoning it in 1999 under pressure from the scientific community, which questioned its effectiveness, and from its own athletes’ commission.
“It came as a failure. And that’s why it was dropped,” Semenya said in Cape Town.
1 in every 10,000 births has an ambiguous sex. If we forced every human on earth to undergo this a lot of people would unexpectedly find out their chromosomes didn’t dictate their sex their genitalia.
It’s a fishing expedition. They’ll always find something if they look because human genetics are messy as fuck. How many of us are walking around with an undiagnosed something? We all have a weird unknown thing going on. Mosic condition? Mothers with XY chromosomes? One of the -tisms? And believe you me, they’ll make sure to test the fuck out of the ladies who’re wining too much or are from countries without the resources to bribe or refuse. This isn’t about trans people or fairness. It’s fucking political bullying. But we’ll all yell science and talking points at each other while the real reason whooshes right over all of our heads.