'It's you ticking the box': Olympic champion disappointed with IOC's transgender decision

Two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya expressed her disappointment with IOC President Kirsty Coventry on Monday (AEDT) over the decision to ban transgender women athletes from competing in women's events at the Olympics.

Semenya, who is South African, admitted she expected more from a woman leader like Coventry, who is from Zimbabwe and a fellow African.

“Personally, for her as a leader, she’s an African, I’m sure she understands how, you know, we as Africans, we are coming from, as a global South, you know, you cannot control genetics,” Semenya said at a press conference after a women’s race in Cape Town that promoted female strength, unity and community support.

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“For me personally, for her being a woman coming from Africa, knowing how, you know, African women or women in the global South are affected by that.”

Semenya spoke three days after the International Olympic Committee excluded transgender women athletes from competing in women's events at the Olympics or any IOC event.

The decision published in a 10-page policy document also restricts female athletes such as Semenya with medical conditions known as differences in sex development, or DSD.

"Obviously if you say the science, because we talk about science here, if the science is clear, show us who decided and don’t dress that as a lie,” Semenya said.

"Because it’s a lie and we know because we’ve seen it so, if we were to answer or confront Kirsty that’s how we gonna respond and we’ll respond strong as we are because it affects women."

"… Here we're talking about, you know, human rights. We're talking about diversity. And if you are an organisation like the IOC, (and) you're talking about diversity, act like one."

Semenya, who was assigned female at birth in South Africa and has testosterone levels higher than the typical female range, is a two-time Olympic gold medallist in the 800 metres.

She has been banned from running in her favourite race at major international meets like the Olympics and world championships since 2019 because she refused to follow the rules and take medication to artificially reduce her hormone levels.

“For me personally, I’ll say the voice is not heard because you taking it as a tick box, you ticking a box so you can go clarify or say yes we’ve consulted," she said.

"For me, it’s you ticking the box."

Semenya and other track athletes, such as Dutee Chand of India, challenged previous versions of their sport’s eligibility rules in court.

Before the 2024 Paris Olympics, three top-tier sports - track and field, swimming and cycling - excluded transgender women who had been through male puberty.

Semenya won a European Court of Human Rights judgment in her years-long legal challenge to track and field’s rules that did not overturn them.

Last year, though, she claimed to have ended her seven-year legal challenge against sex eligibility rules despite that legal victory.

The eligibility policy that will apply from the Los Angeles Olympics in July 2028 “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category,” the IOC said Friday (AEDT).

It is unclear how many, if any, transgender women are competing at an Olympic level.

No woman who transitioned from being born male competed at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, though New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard did at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 without winning a medal.

The IOC said last week's decision was not retroactive and did not apply to any grassroots or recreational sports programs.

The IOC's Olympic Charter states that access to play sport is a human right.