Subjective Science: A Vessel for Racism in Athletics

Hi everyone.

I know it’s been a while but I wanted to tell you guys a short story – stick with me please because it’s a rollercoaster of events.

In 2011, the IAAF (now World Athletics) introduced a new Hyperandrogenism regulation, which meant female athletes who naturally produced high levels of testosterone were not eligible to compete in the Women’s category for any track & field event. IAAF claimed higher natural levels of testosterone gave some women an unfair competitive advantage over women with lower testosterone and therefore needed to take androgen suppressants to level the playing field and “preserve the integrity of female athletes”.

In 2015, Dutee Chand, an Indian 100m & 200m sprinter, appealed against these new rules to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on the grounds that they unfairly discriminated against Women. CAS suspended the regulation because IAAF did not present sufficient scientific evidence to demonstrate any correlation between high levels of testosterone and a competitive advantage. This ruling is important.

CAS gave the IAAF two years to provide this evidence, so what did IAAF do? They sponsored two in-house scientists, Stéphane Bermon and Pierre-Yves Garnier, to conjure something up.

In 2017, Bermon & Garnier published a study on the British Journals of Sport Medicine, firmly reporting an unfair advantage existed for female athletes with higher testosterone levels in the following events:

• 400m

• 400mH

• 800m

• 1500m

In 2018, IAAF used this study to rewrite their regulations specifically for the events listed above. They are the same regulations in place today that have blocked several Black African Women from competing in the Tokyo Olympics. But why were Dutee Chand’s events (100m & 200m) conveniently omitted? WHY? Because CAS let IAAF know that if they replaced their regulations, it would automatically terminate the appeals process Chand had started because the events in question no longer concerned her. So no more court stress for IAAF because Chand was never the intended target anyway, Caster Semenya was.

That’s the end of my story.

So what’s the problem, you ask? Well, LAST WEEK, the British Journals of Sport Medicine issued a CORRECTION to Bermon & Garnier’s 2017 study as it OVERSTATED the relationship between high testosterone levels and enhanced athletic performance amongst elite female athletes. Bermon & Garnier have admitted that statements within the study “could have been misleading” and since it was based on a “lower level of evidence”, it should be viewed as “exploratory, and nothing else”.

I…. I just...….. What kind of u-turn is this, sorry? After happily ruining the lives of how many athletes? More importantly, if Bermon & Garnier’s study cannot be used as scientific evidence (their own words, not mine), does that not mean IAAF’s 2018 regulations should be suspended immediately? They no longer have a basis for their claims, and without evidence of a significant performance enhancement for women with elevated testosterone levels, the harm to women with lower testosterone levels is perceived and not actual.

The above raises important questions that those tasked with the responsibility of protecting the integrity of the sport must answer.

Timing

Why was the correction silently announced TEN DAYS after the Tokyo Olympics?

The study was originally published in 2017. Cool. Since then, numerous scientists have spoken up about the crap within it and made personal calls to the British Journals of Sport Medicine for the study to be revoked. So if this isn’t a recent discovery, what stopped them from correcting the article before the Olympics? Why now? Is everyone in their right senses please?

Conflict Of Interest

Bermon & Garnier work for IAAF – why was their study not independently reviewed before being used to ruin the careers of Black African Women?

They were paid by IAAF to produce this study so a personal benefit existed. In any other profession, this would be highlighted as a clear conflict of interest and would require an independent review before usage. But no, not in Athletics. I’ll explain why this is important.

Before I wrote “Who Can You Be When You're Banned From Being Yourself?”, I read journals from scientists who critiqued Bermon & Garnier’s work. An important one was “Scientific Integrity and The IAAF Testosterone Regulations” as it analysed the samples used in the study. They found that not only did Bermon & Garnier include Russian athletes that had been disqualified by IAAF for doping in their testing sample, but they had duplicated athletes (by attaching more than one race time to an individual athlete) and created phantom race times for athletes that did not exist.

These crooks belong in prison.

Now, if science is meant to be the baseline for what is just and unjust in Athletics, why have we continued to place reliance on a study where the data has been purposely manipulated? I can understand doing this for your university dissertation but the careers and livelihoods of actual human beings are being impacted here.

Testing Criteria

How does IAAF/World Athletics identify which female athletes must undergo sex testing? Genuine question.

World Athletics have unchecked authority to investigate any woman they deem "suspicious" but what does suspicious even mean? What is it based on? Appearance? We already know the standard of femininity is White. Performance? So have the likes of Laura Muir and Keely Hodgkinson been tested then? What it honestly looks like to me is, Black African athletes who outperform sub-par fields and whose outer appearance do not satisfy the traditional aesthetics of femininity will be subjected to sex testing.

Examples? Oh I have them:

• Caster Semenya – tested after winning the 800m at the world championships in Berlin

• Aminatou Seyni – tested after running a national record in the 400m for Niger

• Christine Mboma – tested after setting a new African record in the 400m this year

• Annet Negesa – tested after running a national record in the 1500m for Uganda

If this isn’t a targeted attack and if the testing criteria was truly free from bias, why are there no examples of White athletes being vilified for something their bodies naturally produced? Right.

When Will The Attacks Stop?

At what point will Black Women be left alone?

When Black athletes are blocked from competing in their preferred events, they normally try their hand at events closest to it. So for example, Christine Mboma was blocked from competing in the 400m just days before Tokyo and was forced to enter into the 200m since this event fell outside the scope of the DSD regulations. But wicked spirits like Steve Cram did not allow her rest. Literally every single time Mboma came on screen during the 200m in Tokyo, Steve Cram made sure to tell us she wasn't allowed to do the 400m because she was a suspected DSD athlete. It was intentional.

He wanted to ignite a hate campaign. Like, is she allowed to compete in the 200m or not? All she’s doing is following the rules so let her run in peace! Do these old White Men & useless internet trolls not realise that they are discussing and debating the private parts of 18 year-old kids? How in the hot heck is this being normalised please? Where is the privacy IAAF promised our athletes? What’s worse is, when Mboma ended up winning a silver medal, instead of congratulating her, Steve Cram suggested that IAAF needed to investigate the unfair advantage DSD athletes might have in the 200m. So the torment will be never-ending.

I just wish this much effort was put in to ensuring the sport was free from actual dopers.

This wasn’t an honest mistake, it was all intentional. Science was misused to target and ruin the lives of Black African Women without any care for their livelihood, mental health or well-being. But now it’s time for everyone to call a spade a spade because this is one of the most refined forms of racism we will ever see in Sport.