Question Period Note: Hyperandrogenism in Female Athletes

There is an ongoing debate as to whether athletes with Differences of Sexual Development (DSD) who have unusually high levels of testosterone should be able to compete in female athletics without hormone suppressants.

• The Government of Canada believes in providing opportunities for all athletes to compete in sport based on principles of inclusion, equity, respect, and health.
• We encourage World Athletics to reconsider their regulations so that Ms. Caster Semenya of South Africa and others like her are free to compete without having to suppress their naturally occurring testosterone levels.
• As such, we look forward to the final outcome of Ms. Semenya’s appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal to have these regulations overturned.

• On April 26, 2018, World Athletics issued a proposed new regulation for female classification for athletes with Differences of Sexual Development (DSD).
• With this new regulation, DSD is established when the athlete’s levels of circulating testosterone are five (5) nanomoles per liter (nmol/L). Prior to the updated World Athletics regulation, 10 nmol/L of testosterone was accepted.
• The average level of testosterone for most women, including female athletes, range from 0.12 to 1.79 nmol/L.
• Under these regulations, female athletes with this condition will have to follow a specific regime in order to become eligible to compete: she must be recognized at law either as female or as intersex (or equivalent);
o she must reduce her blood testosterone level to below five (5) nmol/L for a continuous period of at least six months; and,
o thereafter she must maintain her blood testosterone level below five (5) nmol/l continuously for so long as she wishes to remain eligible.
• The proposed treatment to reduce the testosterone levels is done via hormonal supplement similar to the contraceptive pill.
• Ms. Semenya has a chromosomal condition called a 46, XY a specific Disorder or Differences of Sexual Development (DSD). This condition results in a woman having one X chromosome and one Y chromosome in each cell, the pattern normally found in males. This results in her having undescended male testes that produce testosterone at levels comparable to those found in males (10 to 35 nmol/L).
• Athletes like Ms. Semenya have unusually high levels of testosterone in their blood (a condition known as hyperandrogenism). This allows them to develop greater lean body mass, higher cardiac output, higher VO2 max (a measure of a person’s ability to take in and use oxygen), and higher anaerobic capacity (the total amount of energy from energy systems that do not require oxygen). Put together, these naturally occurring ‘benefits’ provide specific advantages over other female competitors.
• Ms. Semenya has dominated the 800 metre competition at the World Championships and has won two gold medals in the distance at the Olympic Games. This has resulted in debate over whether she or other athletes with DSD should be allowed to compete. The new regulation was to take effect on November 1, 2018 but was delayed, pending the outcome of the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) procedures between World Athletics and Ms. Caster Semenya’s launch of an appeal against the new Regulations at the CAS.
• On May 1, 2019, CAS turned down this appeal, thus supporting the new World athletics regulation. CAS said that the proposed rules from the IAAF, are discriminatory, but "such discrimination is a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of preserving the integrity of female athletics”. The regulations come into effect on May 8, 2019.
• On May 29, 2019, Ms. Semenya filed a subsequent appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal based on fundamental human rights.
• World Athletics maintains its position that there are some contexts, sport being one of them, where biology has to trump gender identity, which is why World Athletics believes (and the CAS agreed) that the DSD Regulations are a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of protecting fair and meaningful competition in elite female athletics.
• Both the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women in Sport (CAAWS) and the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport are opposed to the new regulations. CAAWS has stated that World Athletics’ preoccupation with establishing a standard of “femaleness” is offensive and inappropriate. The former Minister of Science and Sport has publicly endorsed this position.

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