An International sports court today ruled that female athletes with high testosterone can be required to take suppressants.
This follows the International Association of Athletics Federations track’s governing body's decision about high testosterone levels in female athletes. The IAAF said that women who have more than 5 nano-mols per liter of testosterone in their blood—like South African sprinter and Olympic gold medalist Caster Semenya—must either compete against men, or take medication to reduce their natural testosterone levels.*
Is it fair to penalise women like this? To make them compete against men would mean they would be competing against men with higher testosterone levels than them which if course immediately puts them at an unfair disadvantage. In that scenario a case could be put forward to force the men who she is obliged to compete against to reduce their testosterone levels accordingly seeing as that is being proposed as the alternative option for women with high testosterone levels to remain competing in the female category.
Another* option could be to have a third competitive category, "mens", "womens" and "womens with more than 5 nano-mols per litre of testosterone".
This follows the International Association of Athletics Federations track’s governing body's decision about high testosterone levels in female athletes. The IAAF said that women who have more than 5 nano-mols per liter of testosterone in their blood—like South African sprinter and Olympic gold medalist Caster Semenya—must either compete against men, or take medication to reduce their natural testosterone levels.*
Is it fair to penalise women like this? To make them compete against men would mean they would be competing against men with higher testosterone levels than them which if course immediately puts them at an unfair disadvantage. In that scenario a case could be put forward to force the men who she is obliged to compete against to reduce their testosterone levels accordingly seeing as that is being proposed as the alternative option for women with high testosterone levels to remain competing in the female category.
Another* option could be to have a third competitive category, "mens", "womens" and "womens with more than 5 nano-mols per litre of testosterone".