Track authorities move to again bar women with naturally high testosterone from competing

This week track and field athletes from all over the world are gathering to compete in the World Championships, an event second only to the Olympics in its level of prestige. Two of the competitors, South African Caster Semenya and Indian Dutee Chand, will represent their countries while on a quest for gold and glory that started last summer in Rio. But their future careers, and those of other women like them, are again in question as the sport’s governing body attempts to reinstate a limit on female athletes’ testosterone levels.

The limit dates back to 2011, when the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF), which oversees track and field events, first created the rule. Naturally produced high testosterone, the group ruled, provided female athletes with an unfair advantage akin to doping — and so, to compete, a woman over the limit would have to lower her testosterone, through medication or surgery, or prove that she was not sensitive to its effects.

That rule was put on pause after a challenge was brought in 2015. The arbitrators gave the IAAF a two-year window to provide evidence as to why the rule should persist, or else it would be permanently struck down.

Now, just as the races begin in London, the track authorities have taken their starting positions for a renewed legal fight, filing new evidence with the court that they say supports a testosterone limit — and setting up a complicated battle about sex, physiology, and ethics destined to play out on the largest stage in sports.

A running controversy 

The case in consideration by the