Prominent members of Women’s Sport Foundation and Athlete Ally – including Bille Jean King – have signed an open letter to the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) calling for it to rescind its “discriminatory” regulations aimed at female athletes with naturally-elevated levels of testosterone.

In April the IAAF announced that a separate female classification for an athlete with “differences of sexual development (or DSDs)” would be introduced, requiring those such as Caster Semenya to reduce and then maintain their testosterone levels to no greater than five nanomoles per litre (nmol/L) by 1 November if they want to compete in track events longer than 400m.

Semenya has launched a legal challenge to those regulations, contending that they are “discriminatory, irrational [and] unjustifiable”. In so doing, she says she is committed to “ensuring, safeguarding, and protecting the rights of all women”.



On Tuesday, more than 60 athletes signed the open letter, including tennis legend and Women’s Sport Foundation founder Billie Jean King, Olympic gold medallist footballers Abby Wambach and Megan Rapinoe, WNBA star Layshia Clarendon and more.

Also among the signatories is Dutee Chand, a three-times Asian Championships bronze medallist in track and field, whose case was instrumental in the court of arbitration for sport’s decision in 2015 to allow intersex athletes to participate in sport without taking testosterone suppressing medication.

The letter argues that “no woman should be required to change her body to compete in women’s sport.



“These regulations continue the invasive surveillance and judgment of women’s bodies that have long tainted women’s sport,” the letter reads.

“They intensify the unfair scrutiny that female athletes already experience and exacerbate discrimination against women in sport who are perceived as not prescribing to normative ideas about femininity, which can include their appearance, their gender expression, and their sexuality.

“What is at stake here is far more than the right to participate in a sport. Women’s bodies, their wellbeing, their ability to earn a livelihood, their very identity, their privacy and sense of safety and belonging in the world, are at imminent risk.”



The letter maintains that the IAAF decision violates the fourth fundamental principle of the Olympic Charter: that the practice of sport “is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind.”

