2025 Volume 23 Pages 6-18
Since 2011, the International Association of Athletics Federations enacted a regulation requiring certain intersex female athletes to suppress their testosterone levels, typically through oral contraceptives, to be eligible to compete in the women's category (hereinafter "the DSD regulation"). In 2018, South African athlete Caster Semenya filed a petition with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (hereinafter "CAS") seeking to suspend this provision, but her petition was dismissed (hereinafter "Semenya v. IAAF").
This study focuses on the requirement of oral contraceptives, assuming that it may be in conflict with the "right to bodily integrity" of intersex female athletes. It examines how the CAS balanced the impact that this requirement has on athletes with the necessity of the DSD regulation in its decision regarding the effects of testosterone-suppressing medical treatment in Semenya v. IAAF. Then it evaluates the decision's validity from the perspective of the right to bodily integrity.
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the DSD regulation, Semenya v. IAAF, and the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in the appeal process.
Chapter 2 examines the definition and significance of the right to bodily integrity. The study defines it as "the right not to undergo unwanted interventions on one's body, thereby preserving it in a state of completeness". It also emphasizes the significance of protecting this right, as the body serves as a medium through which one's subjectivity is developed in relation to society. Based on this, in considering whether the requirement to take oral contraceptives constitutes a restriction on Semenya's right to bodily integrity, it concludes that the DSD regulation restricts Semenya's right.
Building on the previous points, Chapter 3 evaluates the CAS decision regarding the effects of testosterone-suppressing medical treatment from three perspectives, pointing out flaws in each area.
