Caster Semenya Wins Human Rights Ruling in Long-Running Legal Battle Over Sex Eligibility Rules

South Africa’s Caster Semenya competes in the women’s 800-meter race during the Prefontaine Classic, an IAAF Diamond League athletics meeting, in Stanford, Calif., June 30, 2019

Double Olympic champion Caster Semenya secured a partial legal victory as the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that her right to a fair hearing was violated by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court in 2020 when it rejected her appeal against World Athletics' sex eligibility regulations. The decision marks another step in the South African runner’s extended battle against the rules that have effectively sidelined her from elite competition.

Semenya, 34, who was born with differences of sexual development (DSD), has been banned from competing in her signature 800m event since 2019, when World Athletics introduced regulations requiring athletes with certain DSD conditions to lower their testosterone levels in order to participate in races between 400m and one mile. These rules were later expanded in 2023 to apply to all female track and field events.

While the ECHR’s Grand Chamber reaffirmed a 2023 decision in Semenya’s favor, ruling that Switzerland failed to adequately protect her rights under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, it did not address the legality of the DSD rules themselves. The court found that the Swiss judiciary failed to conduct a sufficiently rigorous review of her case, resulting in a denial of a fair hearing. However, complaints related to her private life, access to legal remedy, and discrimination were dismissed as inadmissible on jurisdictional grounds.

Feb. 18, 2019, file photo, Caster Semenya, left, current 800-meter Olympic gold medalist and world champion, and her lawyer Gregory Nott, right, arrive for the first day of a hearing at the international Court of Arbitration for Sport, CAS, in Lausanne, Switzerland

The ruling applies to Switzerland, not directly to World Athletics, and does not overturn the DSD regulations. Nonetheless, Semenya welcomed the outcome, describing it as “great for me, great for athletes,” and emphasized the importance of respecting athletes' rights before imposing regulations. “This is a reminder to the leaders: athletes need to be protected,” she said outside the court in Strasbourg.

Semenya's lawyer, Schona Jolly, hailed the decision as a significant moment in sports governance. “The governance of international sport needs to sit up and take notice of an athlete’s fundamental rights,” she said. “It’s not possible to put this aside and say the substantive rights of the athlete don’t matter—they firmly do.”

Semenya’s legal journey began in 2019 with an unsuccessful appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland. The case later moved to Switzerland’s Supreme Court, which upheld the CAS decision. The ECHR's ruling now opens the door for Semenya’s legal team to request a review by the Swiss court, although it remains unclear whether the matter will proceed or impact World Athletics’ existing regulations.

South Africa’s Caster Semenya celebrates after winning the gold medal in the final of the Women’s 800m during the World Athletics Championships in Berlin on Aug. 19, 2009

The athlete, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time world champion in the 800m, has long argued that requiring women like her to medically suppress naturally occurring testosterone is discriminatory and harmful. Her condition, 46 XY 5-alpha-reductase deficiency (5-ARD), results in elevated testosterone levels despite being legally female and identifying as a woman. According to CAS, athletes with this condition have testosterone levels comparable to male XY individuals, which World Athletics claims confers a significant performance advantage over XX female athletes.

Semenya has consistently maintained that she is a woman and should be allowed to compete without altering her body. In 2023, she revealed that she was born without a uterus and with internal testicles, further highlighting the complex nature of her biology and the difficulty in categorizing athletes under rigid binary classifications.

While this court decision does not alter the eligibility rules, it could reignite global scrutiny of sports policies affecting DSD and transgender athletes. World Athletics, which has stood by its rules, is reportedly preparing to implement new biological sex verification tests, including DNA-based swab tests looking for the SRY gene, a male-determining marker found on the Y chromosome. The move, along with similar initiatives by organizations like World Boxing, has triggered concerns about privacy, ethics, and discrimination.

The International Olympic Committee, under new president Kirsty Coventry, is also considering uniform sex testing measures across all sports, further intensifying the debate. Critics argue such policies disproportionately target intersex and transgender women and may violate human rights, while supporters insist they are essential to protect fair competition in female sports.

Semenya, who dominated her event for a decade and remains a national icon in South Africa, has shifted her focus to advocacy and legal reform. “I am no longer chasing medals—I’m chasing justice,” she said last year.