Gender verifications vs. anti-doping policies
Résumé
This chapter explores history of the establishment of "gender verification" in athletics. It presents the treatment of Caster Semenya's case by the medical commissions of sporting events such as the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the International Olympic Committee (IOC), or by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and analyzes its consequences in the "definition" of sex. Caster Semenya, in 2009, was suspected by some of her adversaries, as well as by athletic authorities, of not being a "real" woman; and thus, that this would disrupt the equilibrium of the competition, by way of a hidden physical advantage. This "physical advantage" is supposedly attributed to a level of androgens higher than the threshold authorized in the female category, thus reaching the threshold considered as "masculine", without having resorted to the use of exogenous hormones. Caster Semenya is far from being an isolated case in the history of athletics and "gender verification".