Double Olympic champion Caster Semenya said she offered to show her vagina to athletics officials when she was just 18 years old to prove she was a female.
In an interview with HBO Real Sports, she accused track and field’s world governing body of making her take medication that “tortured” her and left her fearing she would have a heart attack.
In the interview, Semenya reflected on the 2009 world championships in Berlin, where she won the 800-meter title in dominant fashion as an 18-year-old newcomer at her first major international meet.
Photo: AP
However, her performance and muscular physique led the sport’s governing body to insist that the teenager undergo sex tests.
Semenya said track officials from the governing body “probably” thought she had a penis.
“I told them: ‘It’s fine. I’m a female. I don’t care. If you want to see I’m a woman, I will show you my vagina. Alright?’” she added.
The 2009 world championships was the start of Semenya’s 13-year battle against track authorities.
Updated testosterone regulations ban Semenya, now 31, from competing in distances from 400m to the mile at top-level track meets unless she agrees to again take medication to lower her testosterone — she has refused.
Details of the sometimes bitter battle came to light in 2019 when court documents from Semenya’s first legal challenge revealed that the track body categorized her as “biologically male.”
Semenya said she was outraged at a sports body “telling me that I am not a woman.”
Semenya was identified as female at birth and has identified as female her whole life, but some experts say her elevated natural testosterone gives her a clear advantage against other women.
Before she was banned from running in the 800m in 2019, Semenya went unbeaten in more than 30 races.
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