Semenya mounts class action against IOC sex testing
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- Caster Semenya is encouraging athletes to mount a class action against the IOC's decision to reintroduce mandatory sex verification testing and exclude transgender women and athletes with differences of sex development (DSD) from women's events starting at the 2028 LA Olympics.
- The IOC, under new President Kirsty Coventry, reversed its Paris 2024 stance against sex testing and now requires all entrants in women's events to be tested, including girls as young as 15 competing in the Youth Olympics.
- Semenya dismissed the scientific basis for the rules, telling Sky News 'there's no scientific proof about what has been said. It's an ideology,' and noted the full research behind the decision has not been published.
- Coventry justified the policy by citing IOC data showing at least a 10% performance advantage for biological males in most running and swimming events, rising beyond 100% in 'explosive power' sports like boxing.
- Semenya, who was found to have XY chromosomes and high natural testosterone after her 2009 World Championship win, was cleared to race and won Olympic gold in 2012 and 2016, but lost legal challenges against World Athletics' hormone-reduction requirements and now works as a coach.
- The policy shift marks a sharp break from former IOC President Thomas Bach's position, who had ruled out returning to the 'bad old days' of sex testing during Paris 2024, with the new rules also extending Donald Trump's political pressure to 'stop men beat and batter female athletes.'
Why it matters: The dispute now pits a high-profile athlete and her legal allies against an Olympic movement that has reversed its own 2024 position and aligned with the Trump administration's political pressure on gender eligibility — and the rules' application to 15-year-old Youth Olympians means the policy's first legal tests will involve minors, raising the stakes for any class action Semenya builds before the 2028 LA Games.
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