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Santhi Soundarajan, the track-and-field athlete from Pudukkottai district who has won 11 international medals for India, has approached a Chennai court seeking further investigation into a 2018 case in which she had accused colleagues at the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu (SDAT) of harassing her over her caste and gender identity. Ms. Santhi, who belongs to a Scheduled Caste (SC) community, won a silver medal at the 2006 Asian Games, making her the first Tamilian to do so. However, her euphoria was short-lived, as she was subjected — without her knowledge — to a sex verification test, the results of which declared that she was “not woman enough.” She has a condition called hyperandrogenism, in which her body produces higher levels of testosterone, which can result in certain natural variations in sex characteristics. Ms. Santhi was subsequently stripped of her medal and denied the cash prize, while her body became the subject of intense scrutiny by sports officials, politicians, the public, and media. The sex verification test was later ruled unscientific and discriminatory by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in the case of Indian sprinter Dutee Chand. 2018 complaint Ms. Santhi, in the years that followed, was forced to live in poverty and humiliation, working at a brick kiln to make ends meet. It was only in 2016 that the then Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa offered her a position in the SDAT as a female athletics coach. However, in 2018, Ms. Santhi filed a complaint against her colleague and coach Rajan Abraham, accusing him and others of repeated harassment on the basis of her caste identity and sex characteristics. She alleged that Abraham (now deceased) had also given interviews against her, referring to her as “a man”, to a Tamil magazine. “He would often call me ‘Mr. Santhi’; I was, on multiple occasions, called a man. I would also be asked why I am using the women’s washroom. He has also used casteist slurs against me,” Ms. Santhi told The Hindu. She added: “Even as a child, I used to face a lot of hate over my body — the way I look and the way I sound. It would hurt me immensely, because I am a woman.” The National Council for Transgender Persons (NCTP) had taken suo motu cognisance of the complaint. Ms. Santhi had also submitted a complaint to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), after which a case was registered by the police under sections of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, read with the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act. During the investigation, an Assistant Commissioner of Police had drawn flak for asking Ms. Santhi to provide the results of her sex verification test, proving she was a woman. Protest petition Four years later, the police filed the final report, which sought to close the harassment case, stating that there was not enough material evidence to prove Ms. Santhi’s allegations. C.R. Gokul Viswas, a lawyer representing Ms. Santhi, said he had approached the Principal District Court in Chennai, challenging the police’s final report. The complaint was not just against Abraham, who died in 2023, but also against certain unspecified others at the SDAT. “However, they were not investigated. We are filing a protest petition in this regard,” Mr. Gokul said. The Principal District Judge has sought clarifications on the identities of the other unnamed officials at the SDAT accused of discriminating against Ms. Santhi. ‘Need for inclusive policy’ Ms. Santhi’s case highlights that the SDAT does not have an inclusive policy for persons, especially female athletes, living with diverse sex characteristics, said Gopi Shankar Madurai, an intersex activist who has been working closely with the athlete. The activist adds that Ms. Santhi’s case is intersectional. “On one hand, it stems from her caste identity; on the other, from her gender identity and sex characteristics. People often fail to understand the struggle of navigating both. She has faced caste-based discrimination since childhood, while the bias against her sex characteristics arises largely from people’s misunderstandings about sex and gender.” When contacted, a senior official from the SDAT said he was not aware of Ms. Santhi’s latest plea. “It pertains to an old case, and we cannot comment on this at the moment,” he added.
