Caster Semenya’s career might soon be over. The International Association of Athletics Federations has announced new eligibility rules for women’s competitions, affecting running races between 400 meters and one mile. The regulations, which place limits on natural testosterone levels and androgen sensitivity, will come into effect on Nov. 1, and are expected to significantly impact athletes like Semenya who do not seem to fit neatly within the binary classification of male and female.
Semenya burst onto the international circuit as a South African 17-year-old in 2008, winning the 800-meter track races at both the World Junior Championships and Commonwealth Youth Games. By 2009 both Semenya and the IAAF were embroiled in controversy after the organization had compelled her to take a sex verification test amid rumors that she may be intersex. Her world championship title, won that August, seemed in jeopardy.
South Africans broadly came out in support of Semenya. “We wish to register our displeasure at the manner in which Ms. Semenya has been treated,” said South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma in August 2009. “They’re not going to remove the gold medal. She won it,” he added. In an interview for the South African magazine YOU a month later, Semenya said “God made me the way I am and I accept myself.”