What's the context? Olympian Margaret Wambui hopes a Kenyan bill on intersex rights will lead to change on the international stage
- Olympian Wambui welcomes Kenyan bill on intersex rights
- Athlete says bill should inspire change elsewhere
- She hopes to compete again if rules change
NAIROBI - Kenyan athlete Margaret Wambui, whose testosterone levels bar her from competing at Olympic level, says Kenya is setting an example for the world with a new bill that seeks to guarantee intersex people the right to participate in sport.
Wambui won a bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics in the 800m but was subsequently excluded from the Games after new rules were introduced barring intersex athletes whose testosterone levels exceeded a certain limit.
Now, the 28-year-old hopes a Kenyan bill on intersex rights, which would ensure women like her and those who identify as intersex can participate in sport without having to alter their hormones, could set an example for other countries.
The Intersex Persons Bill, due to be debated in parliament in the coming months, says that intersex athletes should be allowed to participate in sport without having "to alter their biological hormonal composition".
Wambui called on Kenya's athletics governing body to support the bill and lobby parliament to pass it.
"The bill ... is timely and will shield many intersex athletes from all sporting activities against the kind of discrimination that befell some of us," Wambui told Context in a phone interview from Nairobi.
She wants to see more inclusion for athletes like her as well as transgender and intersex athletes at the highest level of international competition, like the 2024 Olympic Games that kick off in Paris in July.
"This is not a Kenyan issue -- we need world governments to borrow from what Kenya is doing and become part of this conversation," said Wambui, who does not call herself intersex but prefers to say she has higher-than-normal testosterone levels.
Intersex people are born with atypical chromosomes or sex characteristics, meaning they cannot be easily categorised as either male or female.
Higher testosterone levels can be one expression of being intersex, which can be seen as a competitive advantage in women's sport.
In 2019, World Athletics, the international governing body for track events, barred women with testosterone levels higher than 5nmol/L (nanomoles per litre) from competing in events over 400 metres and under 1 km unless they took testosterone-suppressing drugs.
World Athletics rules are supported by Athletics Kenya, with the country's governing body for track stating in its constitution that if an athlete is deemed ineligible by World Athletics, they also cannot compete in Kenya.
However if the bill, which is due to be debated in parliament in August, is passed and signed into law by the Kenyan president, Athletics Kenya would have to abide by its terms.
According to its latest draft, the bill says that the minister responsible for sports "shall take measures to ensure fairness for intersex persons' participation in sporting activities" and adds that these measures "shall not require a person to alter their biological hormonal composition as a condition to participate".
Jackson Tuwei, president of Athletics Kenya, declined to comment immediately, saying his organisation would respond comprehensively when and if the bill was passed.
For Wambui, the idea of forcing female athletes to suppress high testosterone levels is wrong.
"This discrimination must stop because we are not seeing men who naturally have high testosterone levels being banned from competing."
'Protection at the global stage'
Born in Kenya's Central Highlands and raised by a single mother, Wambui started running in high school. She won gold in the 800m at the World Junior Championships in 2014 before getting a bronze medal at the World Indoor Championships in 2016.
She also took bronze in the 2016 Olympics and the 2019 rule change on testosterone levels also affected the two athletes she shared the podium with in Rio de Janeiro - South Africa's Caster Semenya, who won gold, and silver medallist Francine Niyonsaba from Burundi.
In 2023, World Athletics expanded its hormone suppression rule to all international events.
"The new regulations will require any relevant athletes to reduce their testosterone levels below a limit of 2.5 nmol/L for a minimum of 24 months to compete internationally in the female category in any event, not just the events that were restricted (400m to one mile) under the previous regulations," it said.
Wambui said she never wanted to take hormone suppressants.
"To the best of my knowledge, I was never sick and there was no way I would agree to undergo any treatment against my will."
Despite encouragement from coaches, she has held her ground.
"Being told to undergo treatment before participating in competitions broke my heart and affected me both physically and mentally," she said.
"I stopped training for some time and after soul-searching, I decided not to abide by that requirement."
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Kenya has been working towards greater protection of intersex rights since 2007, when a series of court cases affirmed the rights of intersex people.
In 2019, Kenya became the first African country to recognise its intersex population in a census.
Wambui sees this new bill as another step towards greater rights.
"If passed, the law will protect us from discrimination locally but what we need most is protection at the global stage," she said.
She is also worried about how being unable to run internationally will affect her earning ability. She had signed a sponsorship deal with Nike in 2014 but it lapsed in 2020 as she was no longer competing internationally.
"This was a deal of a lifetime. It was the silver bullet that would have pulled my family out of poverty but it can only stand if and when I continue competing on the international stage," she said.
"I pray that one day, my colleagues and I will be back on the world stage."
This story is part of a series supported by Hivos's Free To Be Me programme
(Reporting by Jackson Okata; Editing by Sadiya Ansari and Clar Ni Chonghaile.)
