Indian sprinter Dutee Chand, who was suspended in 2014 due to her hyperandrogenism, revealed her homosexuality this Sunday, making her the first athlete from this conservative country to ‘come out of the closet’. «I am in a homosexual relationship and I don’t think there is anything wrong with it,» the 23-year-old woman told AFP.

In September, the Indian Supreme Court decriminalized homosexuality. The judges ruled illegal Article 377 of the Penal Code, which dated back to British colonial times and condemned sexual relations between people of the same sex.

«For now I am focused on my career, the next World Cup and the next Olympic Games. In the future, after my sports career, if my heart tells me to continue with it, I will,» he added about his relationship.

It is a historic decision for the second most populous country in the world and something that motivated Dutee Chand, who was born in a poor town in the State of Odisha. «Recently, my sister said something to my mother that led her to oppose this relationship. She recriminated me and threatened to slander me in public,» he says.

Dutee Chand, silver in the 100 and 200 meters of the Asian Games held last year in Indonesia, is especially known internationally for her long legal battle after her suspension in 2014 for hyperandrogenism. She came to go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS) in 2015 and earned the right to compete again.

Chand supported the South African Caster Semenya, who went to the TAS against the new regulation of the International Athletics Federation (IAAF) on hyperandrogynous athletes, which forces them to lower their testosterone levels with drugs. The CAS rejected that appeal on May 1.

In principle, and given that such a rule only affects distances between 400 meters and one mile, Chand would not have to undergo this medication, since it competes in the hectometer and the double hectometer.