page_title: Sex verification in sports
section_title: Hormone testing
hierarchical_section_title: Sex verification in sports / History / Hormone testing
caption_attribution_description: Caster Semenya
context_page_description: Sex verification in sports occurs because eligibility of athletes to compete is restricted whenever sporting events are limited to a single sex, which is generally the case, as well as when events are limited to mixed-sex teams of defined composition. Practice has varied tremendously over time, across borders and by competitive level. Issues have arisen multiple times in the Olympic games and other high-profile sporting competitions, for example allegations that certain male athletes attempted to compete as women or that certain female athletes had intersex conditions that gave unfair advantage.
  The first mandatory sex test issued by the International Association of Athletics Federations, the world's track and field governing body, for woman athletes was in July 1950 in the month before the European Championships in Belgium. All athletes were tested in their own countries. Sex testing at the actual games began with the 1966 European Athletics Championships’ response to suspicion that several of the best women athletes from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were actually men. At the Olympics, testing was introduced in 1968.
context_section_description: In August 2009, South African athlete Caster Semenya was subjected to mandatory sex verification testing at the request of the IAAF. In the wake of the Semenya case, testosterone testing was introduced to identify cases where testosterone levels were elevated above a particular level, termed hyperandrogenism, with national Olympics committees tasked by the IOC to "actively investigate any perceived deviation in sex characteristics".
  In football, FIFA's current gender verification policy dates to 30 May 2011. In June 2012, in advance of the 2012 Summer Olympics, the IOC released IOC Regulations on Female Hyperandrogenism to address these cases. It includes the statement, "Nothing in these Regulations is intended to make any determination of sex. Instead, these Regulations are designed to identify circumstances in which a particular athlete will not be eligible (by reason of hormonal characteristics) to participate in 2012 Olympic Games (OG) Competitions in the female category. In the event that the athlete has been declared ineligible to compete in the female category, the athlete may be eligible to compete as a male athlete, if the athlete qualifies for the male event of the sport."
  As with previous forms of sex testing, testosterone testing has been regarded as humiliating, unnecessary and discriminatory. Katrina Karkazis, Rebecca Jordan-Young, Georgiann Davis and Silvia Camporesi argued that the new IAAF policies on hyperandrogenism in female athletes will not protect against breaches of privacy, will require athletes to undergo unnecessary treatment in order to compete, and will intensify "gender policing". In fact, high-performing female athletes show a rate of Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome much higher than the general population—which shows 1 in 20,000–50,000, compared with elite athletes’ 1 in 429. They recommend that athletes be able to compete in accordance with their legal gender.
  In 2013, it was reported by Patrick Fénichel, Stéphane Bermon and others that four elite female athletes from developing countries were subjected to partial clitoridectomies (a form of female genital mutilation) and gonadectomies (sterilization) after testosterone testing revealed their previously unknown intersex conditions. Members of the same clinical hormone evaluation team report there is no evidence that innate hyperandrogenism in elite women athletes confers an advantage in sport. Raised levels of testosterone have not been shown to give an unfair advantage to the athlete. Scholars question whether any advantage should be considered “unfair” if it occurs naturally and outside the control of the athlete. For example, elite athletes have greater aerobic capacity and endurance in comparison to the general population. Furthermore, these cases have elicited criticism of the elite sporting system by showing clear vulnerability of women athletes to unnecessary medical interventions under duress, applied even though there was no evidence of cheating and no evidence of athletic advantage.
  Policies on hyperandrogenism were suspended following the case of Dutee Chand v. Athletics Federation of India (AFI) & The International Association of Athletics Federations, in the Court of Arbitration for Sport, decided in July 2015. Chand had been dropped from the 2014 Commonwealth Games at the last minute after the Athletic Federation of India stated that hyperandrogenism made her ineligible to compete as a female athlete. The ruling found that there was insufficient evidence that testosterone increased female athletic performance. In doing so the court immediately suspended the practice of hyperandrogenism regulation used by the IAAF and declared it void unless the organization could present better evidence by July 2017.
  In November 2015, the IOC held a meeting to address both its hyperandrogenism and transgender policies. In regards to hyperadrogenism in female athletes, the IOC encouraged reinstatement of the IAAF policies suspended by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It also repeated an earlier policy statement that, to "avoid disc
caption: SA runner Caster Semenya subject to Hormone Test
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