The Vietnam Athletics Federation has officially announced regulations requiring compulsory gender testing and verification for athletes competing in women's events in national system tournaments.
With this regulation, female athletes participating in tournaments such as the National Championship, National Youth Championship, National Age Group Championship, National Marathon Championship... must have gender test results submitted to the Organizing Committee.
The content in the announcement of the Vietnam Athletics Federation stated: "The Vietnam Athletics Federation stipulates the SRY gene testing for female athletes to ensure fairness in high-performance sports competitions, specifically as follows:
SRY gene testing is only applied to female athletes and only needs to be performed once at a reputable and competent testing facility, the test results are always respected, kept secret, preserved and recognized by the Federation throughout the athlete's training and competition process; SRY gene testing is applied generally to athletics tournaments within the competition system issued by the Vietnam National Sports Administration and the Vietnam Athletics Federation, effective from February 1, 2026...".
The SRY gene testing method is testing to detect the key SRY gene (located on the Y chromosome, this gene regulates male sexuality development) used to accurately diagnose and determine biological sex in people with unclear clinical sex (this is done by taking samples from inside the cheek or blood tests, depending on which method is more convenient).
From September 1, 2025, the World Athletics Federation (WA) officially applied the regulation that female athletes are required to have gender checks if participating in official competitions. Vietnamese athletics complies with WA regulations.
