They say there are six tics that tell you when someone’s bluffing. When it comes to Caster Semenya and the IAAF, here’s a seventh. Be wary of anyone who says it’s all straightforward. The Semenya case isn’t just about sport, or sex, or gender, but ethics, politics, culture, race, and science. Expert opinion is split. Which is why the arguments have been going back and forth for the best part of a decade, and the case now seems bound to return to the court of arbitration for sport, where they will try to find the black and the white in all the shades of grey.
Semenya keeps her counsel, her only public comments her pointed tweets. There’s a wildfire burning around her. The IAAF has been accused of discrimination, of racism, of propagating heteronormative standards of femininity, of trying to dictate what is and isn’t normal. Their policy has been compared to those used in apartheid South Africa, and said, by a member of the IAAF’s own disciplinary tribunal, to be “based on the same kind of ideology that has led to some of the worst injustices and atrocities in the history of our planet”.
Related: UK Athletics chairman raises doubts over IAAF rule that targets Semenya
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