Annet Negesa

Annet Negesa (born 24 April 1992) is a Ugandan former middle-distance runner who specialised in the 800 metres. She broke Ugandan national records in the 800 m and the 1500 metres as a teenager and was a three-time national champion at the Ugandan Athletics Championships. She represented her country at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics and was the 800 m gold medallist at the 2011 All-Africa Games. As a junior (under-20) athlete, she won a team bronze medal at the 2010 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, an 800 m bronze at the 2010 World Junior Championships in Athletics, and two gold medals at the 2011 African Junior Athletics Championships. She was named 2011 Athlete of the Year by Uganda Athletics Federation.^[1]

Annet Negesa

Personal information
Nationality	Uganda
Born	(1992-04-24) 24 April 1992 (age 32) Igamba, Uganda
Sport
Sport	Running
Event(s)	800 metres, 1500 metres
Achievements and titles
Personal bests	800 m: 1:59.08 NR (2012) 1500 m: 4:09.17 (2011)
Medal record Women's athletics Representing  Uganda World Junior Championships 2010 Moncton 800 m African Junior Championships 2011 Gaborone 800 m 2011 Gaborone 1500 m

Negesa has an XY disorder of sex development and a natural testosterone level in the male range. Under rules set by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), she had to reduce her testosterone levels in order to compete in the women's category. Facing pressure to continue her career, she underwent a gonadectomy, a procedure to remove internal testes in 2012. Negesa later said the purpose of the surgery had been misrepresented to her, having been compared to an "injection".^[2][3][4] The inadequate medical aftercare and physical and mental damage resulting from the surgery effectively ended her career. She returned to the track at the 2017 Ugandan Championships but completed the 1500 metres in 5:06.18 – nearly a minute below her best and a time which ranked her as a club level runner rather than an elite athlete.^[5][6]

While the IAAF denied recommending or paying for the surgery, Negesa's case fueled controversy over the treatment of athletes with differences in sex development.^[4][7] In 2019, the German government granted her asylum.^[8] She was one of the athletes whose cases were profiled in Phyllis Ellis's 2022 documentary film Category: Woman.^[9]

International competitions

Year	Competition	Venue	Position	Event	Notes
2010	World Cross Country Championships	Bydgoszcz, Poland	14th	Junior race	19:44
			3rd	Junior team	81 pts
	World Junior Championships	Moncton, Canada	3rd	800 m	2:02.51
			8th (h1)	1500 m	4:22.14
	Commonwealth Games	New Delhi, India	4th (h3)	800 m	2:03.69
			—	1500 m	DNS
			—	4 × 400 m relay	DQ
2011	IAAF World Cross Country Championships	Punta Umbría, Spain	66th	Senior race	27:56
			6th	Senior team	148 pts
	African Junior Championships	Gaborone, Botswana	1st	800 m	2:04.94
			1st	1500 m	4:09.17 NR
	World Championships	Daegu, South Korea	18th (sf)	800 m	2:01.51
	All-Africa Games	Maputo, Mozambique	1st	800 m	2:01.81
			7th	1500 m	4:24.32
2012	African Cross Country Championships	Cape Town, South Africa	9th	Senior race	27:58
			3rd	Senior team	1:53:17
	African Championships	Porto-Novo, Benin	6th	800 m	2:02.84

National titles

• Ugandan Athletics Championships
  • 800 m: 2011
  • 1500 m: 2009, 2011

See also

• Index of Uganda-related articles
• List of Young Achievers Award winners
• List of African Games medalists in athletics (women)

References

1. Uganda: Negesa Pips Kipsiro to 2011 Athlete of the Year Award
2. Knight, Kyle (4 December 2020). ""They're Chasing Us Away from Sport" Human Rights Violations in Sex Testing of Elite Women Athletes". Human Rights Watch.
3. "Schwere Vorwürfe gegen IAAF-Arzt - Hintergrund - sportschau.de". www.sportschau.de. Archived from the original on 29 September 2019.
4. Morgan, Tom (27 September 2019). "Female athletes claim careers ruined after being 'coerced' into surgery to curb testosterone levels". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 4 October 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
5. "What's going wrong for ex-Africa junior champ Negesa?". New Vision. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
6. Annet Negesa. IAAF. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
7. Abdul, Geneva (16 December 2019). "This Intersex Runner Had Surgery to Compete. It Has Not Gone Well". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 29 January 2020. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
8. "Running as equals. The elite athletes fighting for acceptance". CNN. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
9. Elisabetta Bianchini, "'Category: Woman' documentary calls out the human rights violation of defining a woman in sports". Yahoo! News, May 9, 2022.

External links

• Annet Negesa at World Athletics
• Trans World Sport feature on YouTube