Citation

Camporesi S. J. Med. Ethics 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, BMJ Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1136/medethics-2020-106508

PMID

32817411

Abstract

Caster Semenya is done with track and field. At 29, her hopes for a continued career as a professional middle-distance runner are dashed. After her case against International Association for Athletics Federation (IAAF)1 was dismissed by the Court for Arbitration of Sport (CAS) on 1 May 2019, she has switched to football later in the year.1

Semenya's case may have come to its legal conclusion, however it has generated an aporia regarding the binary classification in athletics, which has yet to be solved.2 It is time the implications of the fair equality of opportunity (FEO) principle as a normative basis for the construction of categories in sport are taken seriously to move forward the debate on unfair advantages in sport.

Loland conditionally justifies restricting the women's category to athletes with testosterone levels below a certain threshold, on the basis of the FEO principle, and of a distinction between stable (eg, biological sex, age, body size) and dynamic inequalities between athletes (eg, genetic predispositions). …

Language: en

Keywords

ethics; philosophy of medicine; sexuality/gender