Sex, Drugs and Athletics: Should female athletes like Caster Semenya be required to take drugs to lower their performance levels?

By Sebastian Jon Holmen, Thomas Søbirk Petersen and Jesper Ryberg The South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya, former winner of two Olympic gold medals, recently participated in the 2022 World Athletics Championships. Semenya was permitted to run in the women’s 5,000m competition, where she did not qualify for the final. However, she was not allowed […]

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Are the IAAF rules on women’s eligibility in middle distance running unethical?

By Sigmund Loland According to the Differences of Sex Development (DSD) Regulations of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), athletes with heightened testosterone levels are considered non-eligible in women’s middle distance running races. The case is contested by athletes, scientists, and bioethicists. In 2019, World and Olympic Champion South African middle distance runner Caster […]

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Transwomen in elite women’s sport – clarifying the nuances of our approach

By Taryn Knox, Lynley Anderson, and Alison Heather Our paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics entitled Transwomen in elite sport: scientific and ethical considerations, along with the related posts on the Journal of Medical Ethics and British Journal of Sports Medicine blogs, have generated widespread debate around New Zealand and the rest of the […]

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When ideology and physiology don’t align: transwomen in elite women’s sport

By Lynley C. Anderson, Alison Heather, Taryn Knox In recent years there has been a huge amount of media interest in the inclusion of elite transwomen athletes in the women’s division. Reasoned debate focuses on the delicate balance between the inclusion of transwomen based on “a fundamental human right for everyone to be recognized in […]

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