My fight a decade ago now feels wasted: Dutee Chand

For Dutee Chand, the last few days have been triggering. The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) blanket ban on transwomen athletes, intersex or athletes with Disorders of Sex Development (DSD) and mandatory gene sex testing has brought back the painful memories of her own fight against the regulations from over a decade ago.

Just a teenager then, Dutee had to shell out a hefty amount to set up a legal and medical team to fight her ban for failing a gender test in 2014. The ban was first applied by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) in accordance with the then International Association of Athletics Federation’s (IAAF) guidelines. She was dropped from the Indian contingent for the 2014 Asian and Commonwealth Games.

Dutee’s push back and the willingness to fight for her rights led to a landmark judgement in 2015 by the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS), which not only cleared her to compete but also questioned the validity of the regulations and the lack of evidence proving advantage to hyperandrogenic athletes.

However, all of it came crumbling down last week with IOC’s latest policy, which mandates a one-time SRY gene test for all women harboring the dreams of competing at the Olympics level.

“I am against these new regulations,” asserted the 30-year-old Dutee, right at the start of her conversation with The Bridge.

“When I fought ten years ago, it was on the behalf of all women across the globe. It helped many young girls from having to undergo the same ordeals. But now, it seems a waste,” a dejected Dutee added.

The issue shot to prominence at the 2024 Paris Olympics during Algeria’s Imane Khelif’s run to the women’s welterweight gold medal. The murmurs of intersex athletes having a competitive advantage gained steam as people from across the globe – from nobodies to the United States’ President – chiming in with how men shouldn’t be allowed to compete in women’s sports.

The successful election of Kirsty Coventry as the first IOC woman president and the voice of countless women athletes in alignment to the aforementioned views only pushed the narrative further.

“Women being born with heightened testosterone levels is natural. How does it make sense to stop them from competing,” questioned Dutee. “You are looking to suppress something natural.

“On one side, they say don’t inject anything into your body. If we do, we are caught via doping. Then on the other side, you ask us to undergo surgery and take medicine to reduce our testosterone levels. How does it happen,” she further added.

Coventry, in her statement, said that their decision is based on science and led by medical experts. But neither any complete research paper on the same has been published nor has the IOC revealed what has changed scientifically for the regulations to change.

“IOC considers that the presence of the SRY gene is fixed throughout life and represents highly accurate evidence that an athlete has experienced male sex development,” a statement from IOC read.

But critics argue that the SRY test does not reliably determine anyone’s sex. In fact, Andrew Sinclair – the geneticist who identified the SRY gene in 1900 – has spoken against using it as a definitive marker for sex.

Sinclair argued that the development of testis involves a lot of interacting genes rather than a single factor. Top geneticists from across the globe agree with this assessment even today with no published research available relating the presence of the SRY gene to athletic ability.

In the late 1900s, the IOC employed several methods of genetic sex testing to determine the eligibility to compete in women’s competitions. It was mandatory for women, but no such policy ever existed for men.

Dutee, the Indian women’s 100m national record holder is also quick to point out the inherent gender bias which has played a role in the recently announced policy.

“Women are targeted everywhere,” said Dutee. “Why is this same rule not applied in men’s events?

“Be it the Olympics, Asian Games, or Commonwealth Games, men are never subjected to such tests. There are many men who naturally have XX syndrome, yet they never have to undergo any tests,” she added.

The IOC had abandoned the gene sex test process in 2000 after the Sydney Olympics. It was because of the consensus that determining sex was far more complex than just gene testing. Besides, the testing methods weren’t always accurate. Even today, the SRY gene is not 100% accurate.

Despite this, under the new IOC policy a positive SRY test results in immediate exclusion from women’s events for athletes. They will only be allowed to compete if they are found to have Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS) or a similar genetic variation after further evaluation.

Moreover, a mandatory test for all athletes means that even adolescents will be affected. The youngest women competitor at the 2024 Paris Olympics was just 11-year-old. Further, the implementation will fall to the National Sports Federations (NSFs).

The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) had made the SRY gene test mandatory for all women, who wish to compete in competition under its banner, just last month. This was after World Athletics made it mandatory ahead of the World Championships last year.

AFI’s insistence of mandatory screening means that athletes even at the grassroots level will be subjected to the testing. In a country where even elite athletes like Dutee and Santhi Soundarajan were subjected to brutal criticism and scrutiny, an error in the result could throw a budding athlete in jeopardy.

“Athletes with DSD have no future,” rued Dutee. “Most of us come from underprivileged backgrounds, where there’s no money for food.

“Asking them to undergo a test to prove their sex or to undergo a surgery to control their hormone level will only further discourage them and reduce participation. I was able to fight back because I had the government backing. But who has the required support and courage to raise their voice now?” she added.

The IOC policy also brings in the basic question of human rights violation. The Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine prohibits gene sex testing unless it is for medical purposes. The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) also, in a February 2026 statement, noted that mandatory genetic sex testing in women’s sports violates the rights of athletes for equality, privacy, bodily and psychological integrity.

“Sports is about unity,” said Dutee. “You can compete regardless of age, caste, or religion.

“Yet, they want to exclude us by stating we have an advantage. What advantage do we have? No athlete can win at the Olympics without training hard. Not certainly with just naturally occurring hormones.

“I hope human rights activists speak about this,” she added.