August 7, 2024 • 45 mins
Rose Eveleth, host of the Tested podcast, joins Sarah to gender verification testing in track and field, how efforts to achieve fairness exclude some women from competing, the boxing controversy in these Olympics and how sports are wrestling with human sex not being binary. Plus, a reminder to turn in your homework and a USWNT moment that has the show reimagining international soccer’s Golden Boot award.
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Subscribe and listen to Rose Eveleth’s podcast series, Tested Here!
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Read the Scientific American Story that Sarah mentions Here!
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A few Olympic events to watch today (Wednesday, August 7)
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12:15pm ET: Pole Vault final
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1:28pm ET: Cycling Track Team Pursuit final
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2:45pm ET: Track & Field 400m semifinal
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3:19pm ET: Taekwondo 49kg final
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3:30pm ET: Basketball quarterfinals: USA vs. Nigeria
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3:30pm ET: Boxing Featherweight semifinals
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Follow Sarah on social! X: @SarahSpain Instagram: @Spain2323
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Follow producer Misha Jones! X: @mishthejrnalist Instagram: @mishthejrnalist TikTok: @mishthejrnalist
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Follow producer Alex Azzi! X: @ByAlexAzzi
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, the show that's
considering changing its name to Goodfoot with Alyssa there. On
today's show, we talked to Tested podcast host Rose Evelis
about the history of gender verification testing and how it's
affected competition at the Paris Olympics. Plus good It's coming
(00:21):
up right after this Welcome back slices. Here's what you
need to know today. The US women's national soccer team
is moving on to the gold medal game for the
first time since twenty twelve after they beat Germany one
(00:42):
nil in only the second Olympic women's semi final match
ever to be scoreless after ninety minutes of play. It
was a nail bier, but finally in the ninety minute
Sophia Smith puts one in the back of the net.
SOFA has been directly involved in a goal in four
of the USA essays five matches at the Games, as
(01:03):
the US Women's national Team social said Summer of SOF
Summer of SOF. Indeed, the US will base Brazil in
the gold medal match at eleven am Eastern on Saturday,
and it'll be Spain versus Germany for the bronze on
Friday in Paris in track and field, in the four
hundred meter hurdle semi final, all three US runners, Sidney McLaughlin, Lavarroni,
(01:23):
Anna Cockrell and Jasmine Jones advanced to the final.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Lightning fast.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
McLauchlin Lavroni had the best time in the semi and
enters Thursday's medal race as the world record holder and
favorite plus Friend of the show. Nicki Hilts finished third
in their preliminary heat of the fifteen hundred meters on Tuesday,
advancing to Thursday's semi final.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Go, Nicki Go.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Also in the two hundred meter final, American Gabby Thomas.
You remember the one with the insane resume. I'm telling you.
If you haven't looked it up, look it up. While
she ran away with the gold medal, taking control early
in the race and never giving it up, her USA
teammate Brittany Brown secured the bronze.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We're pumped for you, Gabby. That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Ninety eight hundred miles from Paris, American Caroline marx One
surfing gold in Tahiti on Monday, defeating Tatiana Western Web
of Brazil in the gold medal final. It's the second
straight gold for the US, as Marx follows in the
footsteps of Native Hawaiian CHRISA. Moore, who claimed the inaugural
gold medal in surfing in Tokyo. In indoor volleyball, the
US continued it's strong showing with the quarterfinal victory over Poland.
(02:25):
Next up is longtime fau Brazil in the semifinals on Thursday.
The Americans move on to the semis for a remarkable
fifth straight time at the Olympics. Also impressive, the US
team won a medal in each of the last four Olympics.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Talk about consistency in the pool.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
In water polo, the US defeated Hungary five to four
in the quarterfinals Yesterday. The US advances to the semifinal
round as they continued their pursuit of a record fourth
consecutive gold medal. Maggie Stephens, if you're listening, and I'm
sure you are, go get another medal. Let's crash another wedding.
We're all rooting for you over here. Okay, time to
(03:03):
pay the bills. Stick around though, because Rose Evelyth joins
US next while on vacation to help us sort through
the controversy and disinformation around gender verification and the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
You won't want to miss it. Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
In case you didn't notice, we kept today's episode really
trim so that we could spend most of our time
on a super powerful interview with Rose Evelyth, host of
the new podcast series Tested. Before we run the interview,
I want to give you a couple things to think
about as you're listening. First, let's just start with the basics,
the difference between sex and gender. Gender refers to the
socially constructed roles, behaviors, expressions, and identities of girls, women, boys, men,
(03:44):
and gender diverse people. Sex refers to a set of
biological attributes primarily associated with physical and physiological features like chromosomes,
gene expression, hormone levels and function, and reproductive and sexual anatomy.
So back in twenty five, I read this article by
Claire Ainsworth in Nature magazine that really helped me better
understand the complexities of sex and gender and how science
(04:07):
on the subject is evolving. It sort of m go
to when I'm trying to talk to people about these issues.
The article titled Sex Redefined The idea of two sexes
is overly simplistic, has been reposted online at Scientificamerican dot
com with no paywall if you want to read it
and will put the.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Link in the show notes.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
In it, Claire Ainsworth writes, quote, sex can be much
more complicated than it at first seems. According to the
simple scenario, the presence or absence of a Y chromosome
is what counts. With it, you are male, and without it,
you are female. But doctors have long known that some
people straddle the boundary. Their sex chromosomes say one thing,
but their gonads, ovaries, or testes, or sexual anatomy say another.
(04:50):
Parents of children with these kinds of conditions, known as
intersex conditions or differences or disorders of sex development DSDs,
often face difficult decisions about whether to bring up their
child as a boy or a girl.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Unquote.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Some people, like one of the athletes you'll hear about
in our interview with Rose, have female external genitals and
testicles inside their body. The Nature article tells the story
of a forty six year old pregnant with her third
child who learned for the first time during a screening
for the baby that her body was built of cells
from two individuals, probably from twin embryos that had merged
(05:24):
in her mother's womb. One set of cells carried two
X chromosomes, the compliment that typically makes a person female.
The other had an X and a Y. At forty
six years old, she learned that a large part of
her body was chromosomally male. From that same story, in
twenty fourteen, surgeons reported that they'd been operating on a
hernia in a man when they discovered that he had
(05:46):
a womb. The man was seventy and had fathered four
children already, which brings us to the big question. If
science now tells us that sex and gender are a
spectrum and not a binary, how do we catch.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
People in society?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
From that Nature article again quote, my feeling is that
since there is not one biological parameter that takes over
every other parameter, at the end of the day, gender
identity seems to be the most reasonable parameter, says Velaine.
In other words, if you want to know whether someone
is male or female, it may be best just to
ask unquote Vlaine. By the way, is Eric Vlaine then
(06:25):
the director of the Center for Gender Based Biology at UCLA.
Despite what some politicians or fearmongers might tell you in
everyday life, letting someone define their own identity is actually
pretty simple. In sports, it's a little more complicated. For example,
in these games. You might remember the boxing controversy that
I mentioned on a previous show. Two female boxers in
(06:47):
these Olympics were disqualified from last year's World Championships after
allegedly failing gender eligibility tests. At that twenty twenty three event,
Iman Khalif of Algeria and Chinese type's Lin Uting both
won medals in the women's competition before boxing's then federation,
the Russian backed IBA, announced that they'd failed the test
(07:07):
and then stripped them of their medals. In a statement
last week, in response to the controversy around the boxers
appearing in this Olympics, the IOC said that the two
athletes had been quote victims of a sudden and arbitrary
decision by the IBA end quote, disqualified without any due process.
The IBA has long been plagued by corruption scandals, was
suspended by the IOC from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty three,
(07:30):
and then fully banished in twenty twenty three. Khalif box
for years, including in the Tokyo Olympics, without incident, until
the IBA performed that unspecified gender eligibility test shortly after
she defeated a Russian boxer who was previously undefeated. Regardless
of all these facts, in the last week or so,
(07:51):
these athletes have been misgendered, incorrectly labeled as trans, and
used by politicians, media and celebrities alike to fight culture wars.
And of course there are the athletes you won't even
see in Paris whose careers have been sidelined by changing regulations.
And that brings us to Rose Eveleth. So let's get
to the interview. We're joined now by Rose Eveleth, who
(08:15):
uses they them pronouns as a writer and producer who
explores how humans tangle with science and technology. They're the
creator podcast network flash Forward Presents and the host of Tested,
a new podcast series from CBC and NPRS embedded about
the past, present, and future of so called gender verification
tests in elite athletics aka track and field. Fun fact,
(08:35):
Rose is an artist who works with glass, ceramic, wood, plastic,
fabric and more, and they're in Paris for vacation, but
a major boxing story has them doing more interviews than
boat cruises down the Sein.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
The one bonus is no eco lie hopefully Rose. Thanks
for joining us.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Thank you. Yes, I am very pleased to at least
as far as I know, currently not have ECOLI.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I want to just start with how long you spent
on this podcast, because first of all, it's incredible. I
listened to all of it. I cannot recommend it enough.
Why was this topic so compelling to you? And why
did you fight so hard for people to hear it?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
This story feels to me like it's about so much
more than just you know, who gets to compete at
the Olympics, right, I think this story is about these
big questions, not just about fairness, but also about how
we organize the world. And you know what you do
when you learn that something that you thought was true
(09:31):
isn't true like it, you know, in this case human
sex biology, and none of us like to be wrong.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
We don't like it.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
It's not fun. And also, especially in this case, you know,
you're learning that the way you thought about the world
is incorrect. And not only that, but also maybe the
way you thought about the world actually was incorrect in
such a way that it hurt people. And I think
that that's a really uncomfortable thing for anybody to have
to grapple with And so I think what in this story,
what you're seeing over and over again is humans reacting
(09:59):
to to that and then taking different paths and making
different choices about what to then do with that information.
And that, to me is a really compelling story and
I just I don't know, I just couldn't give it up.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, well, I'm glad you didn't, because it's so so
worthwhile to listen to. I want to before we even
get into the details of the series, just make sure
the listeners understand the focus and the issue, and specifically
that the focus is on DSD athletes and how that
differs from trans athletes, and also how that differs from
intersect which it was a relatively common term before and
(10:33):
now they're all their own separate things.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So can you help us at least start by understanding that.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, right, it is I think confusing and complicated. So,
and we had a lot of internal discussions about the
language to use on this show, because, as you say,
you know, intersex is a term that is a sort
of more broad umbrella term for people who sort of
fall in between perhaps male and female. But it used
to be a medical term. It has now sort of
been reclaimed as more of an identity term, like you know, queer,
(11:01):
it's something you use sort of claim for yourself, and
you can't really tell someone that they are intersex, and
that is a really powerful word for some people, and
other people don't connect with it. Then there's this DSD
Differences of Sex development, which is a medical term that
doctors use and some intersex folks hate because it medicalizes
something that they say, you know, there's nothing medically wrong
(11:21):
with me, this is how I was born. I'm totally healthy,
which is very valid. And then you have you know,
hyper androgenic, which just means high testosterone. And then obviously
there's trans athletes, which are athletes who have transition to gender.
And so there's a lot of confusion, I think, on
this topic around these different definitions and even internally, you know,
we talked a lot about how to refer to so
(11:42):
one of the athletes, all the athletes in my podcast
don't use the word intersex for themselves, and so we
don't call them intersex because it's not a word they
use for themselves. But also they don't really call themselves
DSD athletes. That's the term that like world athletics or
sort of sport organizations like the ioc USE, and they
actually don't, I mean, they don't have a term for
themselves that they use because they don't really they don't
(12:05):
think of themselves as different, right, They've never you know,
all the women I spoke with for the series didn't
know there was anything different about them until they had
to be tested because of this athletics policy, and suddenly
are being told by people that they don't really know
or often don't really understand that actually there's something different
about you have this thing, and it's all very baffling
and bewildering to them. And so I think it's really
(12:28):
important to note that, you know, intersex DSD differences of
sexual sex development or sometimes people will say athletes with
sex variations, variations and sex biology those are that is
a different category of people than trans athletes. You can
be trans and intersex. You know, both things can be true.
But in general, when we talk about athletics, there's two groups,
(12:48):
and the rules around them are different, and some of
the considerations around them are also different.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
So when we're talking about DSD, athletes who grew up
as girls identify as girls are competing against girls and
then all of a sudden have a quote unquote gender
verification test. This has happened for a long time in a.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Variety of ways.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
But when and why did this practice start of believing
that girls and women needed to be tested in order
to be sure that they were competing in the right category.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
This is one of the I think most I don't know,
surprising things that I learned, and maybe one of the
reasons I couldn't stop thinking about the story, which is that,
you know, I think a lot of us think of
this as very modern. It's a scientific test. It actually
goes all the way back to basically the beginning of
women's competition in the Olympics. So in the modern Olympics,
women are allowed to compete in track and field in
(13:41):
nineteen twenty eight. That's the first time that you really
get them on the track. They're allowed to compete in
more quote unquote feminine sports like tennis and swimming before that,
but track and field is when they start really you know,
getting into the sports that were perceived at the time
as being very masculine, very manly. And as soon as
that happens, literally night teen twenty eight, that first games,
(14:01):
you immediately see commentators and spectators and coaches saying that's
not a woman, that's not a woman. That woman looks
too strong, she looks too muscular. The woman who came
in second in the eight hundred meters was a Japanese
woman named Tomy Keenway, and people in the newspaper wrote
about her saying things like she has all the power
of a halfback. She should play for the Chicago Bears.
(14:23):
Is what you're hearing. And so very quickly you hear
calls for testing, some kind of examination we need to do,
you know, an exam to see that these are really women.
And in nineteen thirty six, that's when the first official
sex testing policy comes on the books, and it's very vague. It's,
you know, if there are questions of a physical nature,
(14:45):
and they never really say what questions those are, what
you would do to answer them. It's all very vague.
But that's when we start, and you see, if you're
interested in this early history, I highly recommend Michael Waters's
book The Other Olympians. It kind of goes into a
lot of this in a lot more detail, and it's
a great book. So it really starts in nineteen thirty six,
and then you see these waves and this era. We
joked when producing the podcast that it really feels like
(15:06):
whack a mole or like this weird groundhog day where
you're just seeing the same conversations popping up over and
over again with slightly different trappings.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, and that manifests in some of the most fascinating stories.
You talked to athletes who had these quote unquote or
so called nude parades, where literally before competition they would
have to strip down naked and have strangers look at
their genitals to ensure that they were women. They would,
for a very long stretch, have to carry cards that
(15:34):
said that they were women and bring it along with
them to every competition. So this goes on for many years.
And this is not surprising to anyone who understands how
much women's bodies and the roles and places they're allowed
in society have been policed for eternity. But at one
point there was a stretch where women were allowed to
compete mostly unfettered, and then the arrival of castor Samanya
(15:55):
stirs up this new era of regulation.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
So can you tell us about that important pivot point.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Yeah, So scientists fight for like you say, thirty years,
they're writing all these letters, they're begging the IOC and
World Athletics to drop it, and they do. In nineteen
eighty nine is like, you know, the icy finally gives
up and then yeah, there is this ten year period
where there's actually it's sort of similar to that nineteen
thirty six moment where there is a kind of very
vague policy that basically says, you know, if you really
(16:22):
think there is a man pretending to be a woman
to win medals on the track, you can do some
kind of examination. They don't say it quite that way,
but they kind of say that same thing. If there
is a suspicion, you can do an examination. And there
were athletes before Castor who were excluded from sports because
of this, but Castor is really the moment where it
breaks into this sort of international discussion. So Castor goes
(16:43):
to the World Championships in two thousand and nine in Berlin,
she wins the eight hundred meters, She runs this incredible race,
and instead of being able to celebrate being the world champion,
she gets thrust into this very intense media cycle quite
similar to what we're seeing today with these boxers. Where
(17:03):
people are asking questions about her gender, her body, her sex,
Is she really a woman? You hear the head of
the Athletics Federation say something like, you know, yes she
is a woman, but maybe not one hundred percent, which
is almost identical to what people said about toomy Keanway
nineteen twenty eight and similar to what you're hearing today,
(17:24):
and that sort of sparks this new era of regulation
that we go from chromosomes in from like the sixties
through the two thousand basically to now we're sort of
in this era of testosterone, at least in track and field,
and this idea that we need to test and regulate
these women's testosterone levels because that is giving them a
(17:45):
quote unquote unfair advantage. And we can talk about whether
that's true or not, but that sort of Castor's case
sort of launches us into this new era where we
now again are suddenly deciding that, oh no, we do
need to have tests, we do need to have regulations,
and we're kind of doing that whole cycle again.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
And worth noting that Castor Samena, for those who don't know,
is the South African middle distance runner, and in particular,
there are certain events and there are certain people who
tend to be most targeted by these rules and regulations.
They are not uniform across the board, or at least
for a long time, they weren't until more recently when
it started to be more widespread. Correct me if I'm
wrong here, But at one point it was very kind
(18:24):
of random, even in the sports where they would kind
of look and say, we think testosterone is most beneficial
in say pole vault, but a predominantly white event like
pole vault was not regulated. And then in other events
that were predominantly won by black athletes who were win
of color, we.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Are seeing a lot more crackdowns.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
So you know, you look at the athletes that you
spoke to who have been sidelined by these tests and regulations,
they are African women. For the most part, that tends
to be who gets gets most targeted. And I'm wondering
how they were personally affected by this beyond just the track,
because you spend a lot of the podcast talking about
their fight to become eligible again, or their fight against
(19:03):
the regulations, their fight to get their careers back. But
what about as human beings, because as you said, most
of these women do.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Not know they have DSDs.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Most do not have the resources or the medical teams
to help them through surgeries or hormone therapy. Most are
dependent on their careers for money and finances. Like what
did you see these women go through? As you were
researching and reporting on them?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
It was so challenging because you know, there are two
women who I largely focus on on the show, and
I've talked to a lot of women for the series,
but we really focus on Christine Bauma from Theamibia and
Maximali from Kenya, and I think that the impact on
them is is it touches almost everything right, So you know,
I think often when you talk about this story, people
really focus on the medicalization, right, the fact that they're
(19:46):
being asked. You know, Christine is taking these drugs, they
have these side effects. You know, some women you know
opted to go for irreversible surgeries. I spoke with, you know,
Annett the Geisa from Uganda who had a surgery that
no one made sure she understood what was going on,
and so you know, there was really terrible medical trauma there.
And that's all very important and very real, but also
(20:09):
there's this emotional toll that I think is almost hard
to explain and describe, because these women, you know, like
we said, they've never thought there was anything different about them.
All of a sudden, they're told, actually, you're too fast,
you've raised suspicions, or you look a certain way, you've
raised suspicions. We need to do these tests. And then
(20:30):
you're told by someone who often these women have never
met before. Right. You get a call from some person
that you don't know who is telling you, Okay, I
know that you've thought that you're a woman your whole life,
but like, actually you kind of fall into this other
category and you're getting all of this frankly quite technical,
quite confusing information. These are women who you know, don't
(20:51):
have access to, like, you know, education in the way
that you know you might might help you understand some
of this biological lingo, right DSD, you know, like five
alpha reductates. Like I'm a science reporter and sometimes I
read these things and I go cross side, right, and
so to see even the doctor.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
That you spoke to, Yeah, Christine's coach's wife is a doctor,
and she said I could not make my way through
the paperwork that they sent to try to understand exactly
how to affect her hormones in a safe way, and
I'm a doctor, right, and the exactly athletes to do
it without any help totally.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
And then also you have the like cultural piece of this,
which is that you know, many of these athletes are
from places that don't you know, not that there's really
anywhere in the world that's like incredibly enlightened on a
lot of this, but you know, there are some athletes
that I spoke with who come from places where it's
actually quite dangerous to suddenly be outed as somehow part
of you know, the LGBTQ community or QIA community. And
(21:48):
this is actually a big point of discussion and part
of the reason why we were really clear in the
series that these are not trans athletes, because you know,
when I was talking to these athletes to try and
get them to talk to me for the series and
earn their trust and explain with the show is about,
one of their first questions always was are you gonna
lump me in with trans athletes? Because that is unsafe
for me? And I think sometimes you know, when you
(22:10):
come from like you know, I'm from the United States,
like there's this very well meaning, you know, upper class
liberal like solidarity, and we should have like intersectionality, and
that is so true in theory, but on the ground,
you know, you can't. You can't do that until it's
safe for people. And so you know, we that part
of why we don't talk call them intersects, right, we don't,
you know, we don't use some of these words. And
(22:30):
so you I heard all these stories from these women
where you know, they go home to their home countries
and people come up to them and they say, I
heard you're a man. You know, there are now suddenly,
you know, an endless number of people on the Internet
who feel emboldened to make comments about these women's bodies
under every picture on Instagram or every video, and also
(22:51):
to say, you know that thing that you've been working through,
like for your whole life. You know, in Christine Bouma's case,
your you go to the Olympics, you win a silver medal,
and people are saying you don't really deserve that, you're
not really a woman, making absolutely in my opinion, unhinged
comments about like what your genitals might look like. I mean,
this is like what you're surrounded with all the time,
(23:13):
and it just takes a toll on people because they
just are under this constant scrutiny.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Well, and I think you know, it's worth noting that
sometimes in an effort to defend DSD athletes, people will say, oh,
but they're not trans, and unfortunately what that does is
further demonize the trans community. That distinction is important not
only for the safety of these athletes in some places,
but I do think the journey is different than one
of someone who believes their identity does not match the
(23:42):
sex with which they were born. I think one of
the things that was so sad to listen to was
these surgeries are hormone therapies. To me, it did not
sound like there was a lot of research or care
put into understanding how they would affect the athletes side
effects bodily changes, fatigue, ability to perform long term effects
on their body, and then the lack of support they
were getting from federations as they work to become eligible
(24:04):
and try to qualify and compete.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
With their new bodies.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
You mentioned the one athlete who she didn't know that
she was going to be cut when she agreed to
surgery for internal gonads. She thought that there was some
sort of shot or something that was going to affect her.
She didn't realize when she woke up she was going
to have stitches and a scar.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
To me that if.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
You're talking about the average person being forced through all
of this, I think sometimes we lease the humanity in
pursuit of using the right terms or understanding the science.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
But these are human.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Beings, absolutely, absolutely, and you know it's We talked to C. C. Telfer,
who is a trans athlete who wrote a great book
about sort of her quest to become an Olympian, and
she made the point, you know too, that like you know,
in terms of the distinction between these two groups, like
these women don't this there's something being told, This is
being projected onto them, like you are different now, whereas
(24:58):
if you're a trans woman like or a transient person,
you know that about yourself, right, Like that is the
thing that you have thought like a lot about, you
know what I mean, It's a thing that you're taking
a lot of space in your mind and it's not
something that someone projects onto your hands to you or
says like you know, surprise, you know, you're you're actually this.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Autronomy in it.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
And to your point about the medications, it was really
shocking to me because you know, I would ask people,
you know, I'd ask these doctors, you know, what do
we know in terms of the side effects of these
drugs on specifically you know, women with sex variations, right,
women with this specific DSD right like five oft four
reduct taste, Like, do we know?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Because their bodies are constructing slightly differently, that's what we're
talking about. Do we know the side effects that there?
I be and over and over again I heard no,
we don't because we don't give these drugs these women
like in this way, like, this is not a thing
that we're doing medically, right. The World Medical Association has
come out against this, The American Medical Association has come
out against this, in part because there is no medical
(25:55):
necessity here. There is no reason to be doing this
except for quote unquote fairness in sports.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah, And that brings me back to the main issue
that I've had with trying to discuss issues around both transparticipation, DSD,
everything else, is that it seems that science is still
trying to figure out so much of it. It seems
like we don't have a definitive answer on how much
of an advantage testosterone gives.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Does it feel to you right now?
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Like the rules and regulations are based on the most
up to date and complete science and are being done
with that, you know, generosity, earnestness, and genuine intent to
match the science.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
This is the ten thousand dollars question, right, Like everyone's like,
just follow the science, Just follow the science, you know,
which is I think a great thought. There has been
some science. So this is also one of the points
I think that gets confusing on the story when you
first encounter it, because what you see is that both
sides say the science supports our side. And so when
you're looking at that as a layperson or even as
a science journalist, you're like, well, wait a minute, Like
(26:55):
that can't be true, Like both of you can't be
you know, that doesn't make sense. And I think, but
you know, there, I think that there is, you know,
a way in which you can craft the question you
are asking to get the answer that you want via science, right.
And this is the thing, you know, I love science.
I'm a science reporter. I'm a huge science nerd. But like,
(27:16):
there are lots of ways to do things to make
the science seem like it supports you. So what we're
seeing right now is that World Athletics will say, we
absolutely are following the most up to date science. What
our logic is is that these athletes are quote unquote
biological males, and so all of the data that we
have on CIS men and their performance in sport applies
to these women. And you have you know, intersects, health experts, doctors,
(27:41):
you know, people on that side saying, no, these are
not equivalent populations. You can't these are apples and oranges.
You can't just take this data. You can't decide these
are actually biological men and then take this data and
apply it to them. That just is not good science.
And so then when you think, okay, well, what would
the ideal study be, right like, and this is what
the IOC argues that you should be doing, is that
if you're going to have a policy, you know, they
(28:01):
put out their Framework for Inclusion in twenty twenty one,
and they say, if you're going to have a policy,
and you know, you can have a policy, if you
want to have a policy, you know, you get to
make the rules of your sport. But if you're going
to have a policy, it does need to be based
on robust science that is based on the population that
we're actually talking about. And the sport that we're actually
talking about at the performance level that we're talking about.
(28:23):
And so what that means is that what you really
want to do, if you really want to say what
percent advantage does having one of these DSD conditions give
you if you are one of these women, what you'd
want to do is you want to look at those women,
look at their performance, and look at their testosterone level
and compare them to non DSD athletes. That study has
not been done. The only people who could do that
(28:45):
study is World Athletics because World Athletics is the only
one that really has that kind of robust data. Even then,
it wouldn't be complete because there are probably people competing
who have these DSDs who are just not that good
and so haven't been flagged for two But at the
very least you would do that. They have not done that.
I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
What's the most generous answer as to why? What's the
most generous The.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Most generous answer is that it is not easy to
do in the sense that you don't it's your sample
size is going to be small, right, And in science
we talk about this all the time. Rate like, if
you have a small sample size, the conclusions that you
can draw from that are limited, and you know, World
Athletics likes to say these women are vastly overrepresented in sport.
(29:31):
They kind of try and insinuate that they're everywhere, that
they're taking over, that they're, you know, winning everything, and
I think that actually we're not talking about that many
people in the grand scheme of things. And so if
I think the most generous interpretation here is that even
if you were to do that study and you could
do it, I think you at they say it's partially
(29:51):
a privacy concern. I think there's absolutely a way to
do the study with anonymised data. We see this in
health research all the time. Drug companies have figured out
how to do like this is a thing you can do,
but you can you know, I think that even if
you could do it in a way that was anonymized
and private and you know, respected athletes privacy, I think
that you run into just like a power problem in
(30:13):
terms of like how much data you actually have. That's
the most generous interpretation. The least generous is that they
don't like the answer. And so that's what I've heard
other people say is that don't ask the question if
you don't want.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
The answer, I don't want to open Pandora's boxer. I
just want to mention how fascinating the idea is that
you would have a chromosomal difference that then would mean
that you are a biological male, even if you had
a vagina and breast and all the other like the
idea that anywhere else in the world we would be like, well,
you're a guy because of that understanding. The way that
(30:48):
society reacts to everything else is just like, It's why
this is so difficult, because there is this desire to
create a binary where there isn't one with human bodies.
And that's why when we try to create fairwareness in
women's sports, we start regulating natural advantage, while we will
never do that for men because we heroise men with
natural advantages. You talk in the podcast about these roughly
(31:10):
twenty genetic mutations that help make athletes elite. We've long
talked about, you know, Michael Phelp's ability to process lactic
acid and a variety of other things. And when men
get really good, we just expand the record books for
how great they are. And it feels like this artificial
cap on female greatness or our expectation for what women
(31:31):
can do is ultimately what drives this, because you would
never ask a man whose genetic advantages help him be
better in sport to take.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Drugs to stop them, but we do that here.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
I guess that's a long winded way of saying that
it feels like some advantages we do not regulate. And
the explanation for why we do regulate these sex related
advantages is because sports are binary and separated by sex.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
What's your response to that.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yeah, I mean sports can be binary and separated by
sex and not require sex testing. The thing that people,
the thing that makes sports require sex testing is this
idea that women's sports need to be protected, right, and
so there is this idea that the women's category is
a protected category, the men's category is not right, and
(32:17):
so this idea and I think this really gets out
some of these bigger issues of like who is doing
the protecting and why and from what? And there's this
I think deep paternalism that is built into a lot
of this, which is that women need to be protected
from And this is where it gets I think often
(32:38):
a little bit confusing when you ask people to articulate
which is what are we protecting women from here, and
the answer is, I guess we're protecting women from other
women who might have male like advantages, which is sort
of it doesn't totally add up because you know, again,
(33:00):
these women are not men, and there's in fact no
real evidence that they have quote unquote male like advantages.
Caster Semenia does not even have the world record in
the women's eight hundred meters. She's the fourth fastest woman
in history. You know, Christine Boma didn't win the gold medal,
she won the silver, right, these women are not out
here running or performing at quote unquote male levels, and
(33:24):
so that I think that sort of there's this idea
of we have to protect the female category and this
is in the name of protection.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
And also who's not being protected by the choices that
they're making, which would include the women that you spoke to.
Also what if you go back, and of course during
the podcast we get all this context of the idea
that even early on in competition, the fear was that
women would become men if they ran too.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Fast and worked out too hard.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
And that's part of the problem is that we've associated
quote unquote manly characteristics with things that are just good
for you in sports. So when men who look the
most stereotypically manly and presumably have the highest testosterone as
a result, are heralded for their strength and toughness and
their natural gifts for sport, and women when they become
(34:11):
too strong, fast, tall, whatever, they get called freaks of nature,
or they get called unfeminine, or it feels like so
much of this is really just about misogyny and control
over female achievement, especially when you look even at this Olympics,
someone like Katie Ladecci. The comments under her victories are
that's a dude, right, and we're looking at one of
(34:32):
the greatest women athletes of all time. There is absolutely
no question, there never has been one, and where that's
not even the conversation being had. And yet because of
her greatness and her height and strength, we're still having
this conversation and that feels like everything is rooted in
that well.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
I think also to the Katie Ladeci like, it's been
really interesting in a bad way to watch the ways
in which this conversation has shifted the last just five years,
like due to transphobia. So I think I used to
be able to say in conversations like this, Oh, Katie
(35:08):
Ladeci incredibly dominant. Right, No one ever says like Katy
Lecky's probably a man, except now they do. Right now,
we're living in this weird era where as you say, underneath,
you know, And I don't want to over index on
like Instagram commenters, because like you know, I think most
people are far more better adjusted than that. But you know,
you'll see people saying, that's a dude, right, that's a
(35:29):
man accusing Katie Leadecki of being a trans person. And
that is new, right, that is not something that you
saw even like three or four years ago. And that
is really, I think all down to this sort of
moral panic and you know, really big boom in transphobia,
transphobic laws, transphobic rhetoric. That is also I think really
(35:49):
muddying the waters here around both sides of the conversation,
because now you're seeing, you know, like in the reporting
around in Monticheleef and you know, Linuting, you're seeing people
claiming that they're trans people, we're transmitt in which they're
not right. And there's this.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
All of them, the boxers, yeah, right, the boxers, And
you're just seeing so much and there's always been confusion
I think between for people, and I think mostly historically
that has been sort of honest confusion, and now I
think it's really a big.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Sort of disinformation campaign to try and collapse down.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
That nuance politicized.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah, and when you look at how DSD has been
conflated with trans athletes, and when you look at how
trans athletes have been politicized and demonized in an unfair way,
especially when the science is not there for that, what
might the future for girls and women in sport look
like to you if we continue on this path?
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yeah, I mean it's such a great question. And you
know it's interesting that now we're seeing parents at these
games say that's a trans person, right, whereas it used
to be. So these stories have gone have been around
for forever. Right in nineteen ninety and there's a local
newspaper story of a girl soccer game in Texas, a
ten year old the goal was like the sort of
(37:01):
star goalie had short hair, which was like, oh, like
maybe she's a boy. And the two fathers on the
opposing team demanded proof of her gender and they wanted
someone to go take her into the lady's room and
like take her clothes off basically and like check that
she is a girl.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
And remember, we're protecting.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Women exactly exactly, Like don't you feel protected? I feel
so protected and so so yeah, so like it's both
the same and different, right, you know, in these modern conversations.
But you know, when I think about the future, it's
it's interesting. I think. On the one hand, I do
think that for every person who is viewing just really
(37:39):
horrific stuff on the internet, there is a person who,
you know, I get in my inboxer and you know,
on the stuff that I'm seeing, who is saying, wait,
hold on a minute, what, like what are we talking about?
What are we doing? I do think that for many
people hearing about this, it's really baffling that this is
a thing that we're doing. And I take a lot
of I take a lot of encouragement right from that,
(38:02):
which is that you see people saying, oh, what what
are we talking about at exactly? And so you know,
and I also think that there it has been a
lot more, at least in my reporting, there seems to
be have been a real shift in the last five
to ten years, specifically around the ways in which women
competitors on the track think about competing against athletes with
(38:25):
sex variations. So it used to be that you'd hear,
like in Castor's era, you'd hear people say, I don't
want to compete against her all of that. You still
that's definitely I think people are still saying. But I
think in general, now what you hear is this better
understanding that these women were born this way. They're not
doing anything, they're not cheating, they're not taking anything, you know,
(38:45):
they're not changing their bodies in any way. And that's fine,
and I'm okay with that now. Of course, that often
is coupled with the sort of foil, which is that
I don't want to compete against trans athletes, right, So
like there's sort of a sort of double edged sword there.
But I think and I think the credit for that
goes to cast Semenia and how vocal she has been
and how like public she has been about this really
(39:06):
harrowing and horrible experience that she's had. And so on
the one hand, I sometimes take some I don't know,
I guess saw us in the fact that there are
so many people asking questions and saying, hold on, wait
a minute. And I do think that once you learn
that this is not new, that this is not something
that just popped up, That this is not even you know,
in the last ten years. This is a one hundred
(39:26):
year history. It really kind of opens people's eyes up
to all the things you've been saying, which is that
this is not These are not scientific, really conversations, These
are not really These are questions rooted in something else.
They're rooted in these really old ideas about women, what
women are capable of, women should be doing, what women
should look like. And I think once you have that
(39:48):
that key kind of unlocks a lot of things for
this conversation. And I'm seeing a lot of people kind
of have those realizations. I think is great.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Did you end up at the end of this podcast
believing in a solution because you suggested some at the end,
but you don't make a pick.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
I think it's hard and it's real cop out right
where I'm like, who can say, you know what the
future old? I think this is a thing that I think,
as you say, I am really interested in having actual
conversations about what the future of sport can look like
with people who are, you know, coming at this with
in good faith and in the sort of you know,
(40:24):
the spirit of inclusion, right, Like, well, how do we
make sure that everybody gets to compete in a way
that makes sense? And I think that that might be
different sport to sport, right there may be sports where
certain kinds of regulations make sense and others don't. I
think that there, you know, there may be situations where
we think about dropping the gender binary and or doing
(40:45):
something else. And I really think that what I'd like
to see, frankly, is just less of this kind of like,
you know, hateful, really awful rhetoric and constantly I think
that challenges a lot of people who are really interested,
who actually care about women's sports, which I think many
people who are very vocal in this moment do not.
(41:06):
But women who actually are people who actually care about
the future of women's sports to be able to like
not have to spend all of their energy correcting people
and correcting misinformation and fighting for the human rights of
these athletes so that then they can actually have interesting
conversations about what could happen next. But right now, so
much of the energy is being spent just trying to
like keep the head above water in terms of just
all of these attacks. And so I've heard a lot
(41:29):
of really interesting, you know, potential ideas, and I would
love I'm sure there are stuff that I haven't thought
of that other people can think of that would be
more inclusive. And I think for now, because we don't
have those solutions in place, we need to find a
way to let everybody compete, right, and that's not what's
happening right now. And that feels like a just baseline.
You know, it's in the Olympic Charter, it's in the
(41:51):
United Nations, you know, Declaration of Human Rights, and that
feels like the low hanging fruit first, and then we
get to have much more cool and interesting conversations about
the future of sports once we get all this nonsense
out of the way.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I could not agree more.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
I feel like I'm constantly in a state of defense
and explanation and even hesitant to ask honest, in good
faith questions because of how cruel the other side is,
and not wanting to be thrown over there, but wanting
to ask and understand best I can, how we organize,
(42:28):
if we could organize differently, how we're fair while also
being included all those things. And I think this podcast
is a really big step toward more people being educated
enough to have those conversations in a way that will
move us forward instead of constantly feeling like we're going backwards.
So thank you so much for giving us your time,
Thanks for staying up late in Paris, Thanks for doing
(42:48):
this podcast and for fighting to get it made and
heard because it's really spectacular.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Oh thank you so much for having me. I really
appreciate it. I will stay up late for you anytime.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
We tried to crayon a ton into a relatively short
amount of time, So please go listen to the full
podcast tested. Plus, my former colleague Sarah Johnson produced a
great short feature with Rose for the show Good Follow.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
You can watch it on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
It's about twenty six minutes into the August second episode. Also,
we've got an update on those boxers that we discussed.
Imman Khalif won her welterweight semifinal bout yesterday and will
fight for a gold medal. Also, lynnu Ting fights in
the featherweight semifinals today at three thirty pm Eastern. All right,
we got to take another break. When we come back.
(43:34):
Olympic fits and feet heat.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
You're back. We're back. The US women's national soccer team
is so back.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
We love that you're listening, but we want you to
get in the game every day too, So here's our
good game play of the day. First, did you do
your homework from yesterday? Okay, get on it, Subscribe to
the Tested podcast and listen. Also, we've seen a lot
of picks and videos of athletes showing off their personal
style and we want to know your pick for most
stylish athlete at the Olympics. Which off court, off track,
(44:08):
off field fits are must see?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Let us know.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
And if you see any feet heat tag producer Mesh,
they're trying to get their sneaker game back up at
meish the journalist, no oh, were you in?
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Journalist on everything?
Speaker 1 (44:21):
You can also hit us up on email good game
at Wonderbedia network dot com or leave us a voicemail
at eight seven two two oh four fifty seventy and don't.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
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Speaker 1 (44:31):
Rate and review It's super easy watch having a brick
wall for a goalkeeper. Rating infinity out of five stars.
Review a feeling of safety that can't be put into words.
Good with the hands, good with the feet, even willing
to stretch out an opponent during a cramp attack midgame
with a gold medal match on.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
The line A listen, there will never lose.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Faith when we know you've got our back. God, bless
that foot. You're the real golden bootless. See it's just
that easy. Now it's your turn, subscribe, rate and review.
Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. Slices, Good Game, Rows,
Good Game, Nayor's Foot, few trans phobes. Good Game with
(45:11):
Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership
with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
You can find us on.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzi
and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz,
Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Jenny Kaplan,
Emily Rudder, Brittany Martinez and Grace Lynch. Production assistants from
Lucy Jones and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, the show that's
considering changing its name to Goodfoot with Alyssa there. On
today's show, we talked to Tested podcast host Rose Evelis
about the history of gender verification testing and how it's
affected competition at the Paris Olympics. Plus good It's coming
(00:21):
up right after this Welcome back slices. Here's what you
need to know today. The US women's national soccer team
is moving on to the gold medal game for the
first time since twenty twelve after they beat Germany one
(00:42):
nil in only the second Olympic women's semi final match
ever to be scoreless after ninety minutes of play. It
was a nail bier, but finally in the ninety minute
Sophia Smith puts one in the back of the net.
SOFA has been directly involved in a goal in four
of the USA essays five matches at the Games, as
(01:03):
the US Women's national Team social said Summer of SOF
Summer of SOF. Indeed, the US will base Brazil in
the gold medal match at eleven am Eastern on Saturday,
and it'll be Spain versus Germany for the bronze on
Friday in Paris in track and field, in the four
hundred meter hurdle semi final, all three US runners, Sidney McLaughlin, Lavarroni,
(01:23):
Anna Cockrell and Jasmine Jones advanced to the final.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Lightning fast.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
McLauchlin Lavroni had the best time in the semi and
enters Thursday's medal race as the world record holder and
favorite plus Friend of the show. Nicki Hilts finished third
in their preliminary heat of the fifteen hundred meters on Tuesday,
advancing to Thursday's semi final.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Go, Nicki Go.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Also in the two hundred meter final, American Gabby Thomas.
You remember the one with the insane resume. I'm telling you.
If you haven't looked it up, look it up. While
she ran away with the gold medal, taking control early
in the race and never giving it up, her USA
teammate Brittany Brown secured the bronze.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We're pumped for you, Gabby. That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Ninety eight hundred miles from Paris, American Caroline marx One
surfing gold in Tahiti on Monday, defeating Tatiana Western Web
of Brazil in the gold medal final. It's the second
straight gold for the US, as Marx follows in the
footsteps of Native Hawaiian CHRISA. Moore, who claimed the inaugural
gold medal in surfing in Tokyo. In indoor volleyball, the
US continued it's strong showing with the quarterfinal victory over Poland.
(02:25):
Next up is longtime fau Brazil in the semifinals on Thursday.
The Americans move on to the semis for a remarkable
fifth straight time at the Olympics. Also impressive, the US
team won a medal in each of the last four Olympics.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Talk about consistency in the pool.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
In water polo, the US defeated Hungary five to four
in the quarterfinals Yesterday. The US advances to the semifinal
round as they continued their pursuit of a record fourth
consecutive gold medal. Maggie Stephens, if you're listening, and I'm
sure you are, go get another medal. Let's crash another wedding.
We're all rooting for you over here. Okay, time to
(03:03):
pay the bills. Stick around though, because Rose Evelyth joins
US next while on vacation to help us sort through
the controversy and disinformation around gender verification and the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
You won't want to miss it. Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
In case you didn't notice, we kept today's episode really
trim so that we could spend most of our time
on a super powerful interview with Rose Evelyth, host of
the new podcast series Tested. Before we run the interview,
I want to give you a couple things to think
about as you're listening. First, let's just start with the basics,
the difference between sex and gender. Gender refers to the
socially constructed roles, behaviors, expressions, and identities of girls, women, boys, men,
(03:44):
and gender diverse people. Sex refers to a set of
biological attributes primarily associated with physical and physiological features like chromosomes,
gene expression, hormone levels and function, and reproductive and sexual anatomy.
So back in twenty five, I read this article by
Claire Ainsworth in Nature magazine that really helped me better
understand the complexities of sex and gender and how science
(04:07):
on the subject is evolving. It sort of m go
to when I'm trying to talk to people about these issues.
The article titled Sex Redefined The idea of two sexes
is overly simplistic, has been reposted online at Scientificamerican dot
com with no paywall if you want to read it
and will put the.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Link in the show notes.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
In it, Claire Ainsworth writes, quote, sex can be much
more complicated than it at first seems. According to the
simple scenario, the presence or absence of a Y chromosome
is what counts. With it, you are male, and without it,
you are female. But doctors have long known that some
people straddle the boundary. Their sex chromosomes say one thing,
but their gonads, ovaries, or testes, or sexual anatomy say another.
(04:50):
Parents of children with these kinds of conditions, known as
intersex conditions or differences or disorders of sex development DSDs,
often face difficult decisions about whether to bring up their
child as a boy or a girl.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Unquote.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Some people, like one of the athletes you'll hear about
in our interview with Rose, have female external genitals and
testicles inside their body. The Nature article tells the story
of a forty six year old pregnant with her third
child who learned for the first time during a screening
for the baby that her body was built of cells
from two individuals, probably from twin embryos that had merged
(05:24):
in her mother's womb. One set of cells carried two
X chromosomes, the compliment that typically makes a person female.
The other had an X and a Y. At forty
six years old, she learned that a large part of
her body was chromosomally male. From that same story, in
twenty fourteen, surgeons reported that they'd been operating on a
hernia in a man when they discovered that he had
(05:46):
a womb. The man was seventy and had fathered four
children already, which brings us to the big question. If
science now tells us that sex and gender are a
spectrum and not a binary, how do we catch.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
People in society?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
From that Nature article again quote, my feeling is that
since there is not one biological parameter that takes over
every other parameter, at the end of the day, gender
identity seems to be the most reasonable parameter, says Velaine.
In other words, if you want to know whether someone
is male or female, it may be best just to
ask unquote Vlaine. By the way, is Eric Vlaine then
(06:25):
the director of the Center for Gender Based Biology at UCLA.
Despite what some politicians or fearmongers might tell you in
everyday life, letting someone define their own identity is actually
pretty simple. In sports, it's a little more complicated. For example,
in these games. You might remember the boxing controversy that
I mentioned on a previous show. Two female boxers in
(06:47):
these Olympics were disqualified from last year's World Championships after
allegedly failing gender eligibility tests. At that twenty twenty three event,
Iman Khalif of Algeria and Chinese type's Lin Uting both
won medals in the women's competition before boxing's then federation,
the Russian backed IBA, announced that they'd failed the test
(07:07):
and then stripped them of their medals. In a statement
last week, in response to the controversy around the boxers
appearing in this Olympics, the IOC said that the two
athletes had been quote victims of a sudden and arbitrary
decision by the IBA end quote, disqualified without any due process.
The IBA has long been plagued by corruption scandals, was
suspended by the IOC from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty three,
(07:30):
and then fully banished in twenty twenty three. Khalif box
for years, including in the Tokyo Olympics, without incident, until
the IBA performed that unspecified gender eligibility test shortly after
she defeated a Russian boxer who was previously undefeated. Regardless
of all these facts, in the last week or so,
(07:51):
these athletes have been misgendered, incorrectly labeled as trans, and
used by politicians, media and celebrities alike to fight culture wars.
And of course there are the athletes you won't even
see in Paris whose careers have been sidelined by changing regulations.
And that brings us to Rose Eveleth. So let's get
to the interview. We're joined now by Rose Eveleth, who
(08:15):
uses they them pronouns as a writer and producer who
explores how humans tangle with science and technology. They're the
creator podcast network flash Forward Presents and the host of Tested,
a new podcast series from CBC and NPRS embedded about
the past, present, and future of so called gender verification
tests in elite athletics aka track and field. Fun fact,
(08:35):
Rose is an artist who works with glass, ceramic, wood, plastic,
fabric and more, and they're in Paris for vacation, but
a major boxing story has them doing more interviews than
boat cruises down the Sein.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
The one bonus is no eco lie hopefully Rose. Thanks
for joining us.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Thank you. Yes, I am very pleased to at least
as far as I know, currently not have ECOLI.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I want to just start with how long you spent
on this podcast, because first of all, it's incredible. I
listened to all of it. I cannot recommend it enough.
Why was this topic so compelling to you? And why
did you fight so hard for people to hear it?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
This story feels to me like it's about so much
more than just you know, who gets to compete at
the Olympics, right, I think this story is about these
big questions, not just about fairness, but also about how
we organize the world. And you know what you do
when you learn that something that you thought was true
(09:31):
isn't true like it, you know, in this case human
sex biology, and none of us like to be wrong.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
We don't like it.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
It's not fun. And also, especially in this case, you know,
you're learning that the way you thought about the world
is incorrect. And not only that, but also maybe the
way you thought about the world actually was incorrect in
such a way that it hurt people. And I think
that that's a really uncomfortable thing for anybody to have
to grapple with And so I think what in this story,
what you're seeing over and over again is humans reacting
(09:59):
to to that and then taking different paths and making
different choices about what to then do with that information.
And that, to me is a really compelling story and
I just I don't know, I just couldn't give it up.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, well, I'm glad you didn't, because it's so so
worthwhile to listen to. I want to before we even
get into the details of the series, just make sure
the listeners understand the focus and the issue, and specifically
that the focus is on DSD athletes and how that
differs from trans athletes, and also how that differs from
intersect which it was a relatively common term before and
(10:33):
now they're all their own separate things.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So can you help us at least start by understanding that.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, right, it is I think confusing and complicated. So,
and we had a lot of internal discussions about the
language to use on this show, because, as you say,
you know, intersex is a term that is a sort
of more broad umbrella term for people who sort of
fall in between perhaps male and female. But it used
to be a medical term. It has now sort of
been reclaimed as more of an identity term, like you know, queer,
(11:01):
it's something you use sort of claim for yourself, and
you can't really tell someone that they are intersex, and
that is a really powerful word for some people, and
other people don't connect with it. Then there's this DSD
Differences of Sex development, which is a medical term that
doctors use and some intersex folks hate because it medicalizes
something that they say, you know, there's nothing medically wrong
(11:21):
with me, this is how I was born. I'm totally healthy,
which is very valid. And then you have you know,
hyper androgenic, which just means high testosterone. And then obviously
there's trans athletes, which are athletes who have transition to gender.
And so there's a lot of confusion, I think, on
this topic around these different definitions and even internally, you know,
we talked a lot about how to refer to so
(11:42):
one of the athletes, all the athletes in my podcast
don't use the word intersex for themselves, and so we
don't call them intersex because it's not a word they
use for themselves. But also they don't really call themselves
DSD athletes. That's the term that like world athletics or
sort of sport organizations like the ioc USE, and they
actually don't, I mean, they don't have a term for
themselves that they use because they don't really they don't
(12:05):
think of themselves as different, right, They've never you know,
all the women I spoke with for the series didn't
know there was anything different about them until they had
to be tested because of this athletics policy, and suddenly
are being told by people that they don't really know
or often don't really understand that actually there's something different
about you have this thing, and it's all very baffling
and bewildering to them. And so I think it's really
(12:28):
important to note that, you know, intersex DSD differences of
sexual sex development or sometimes people will say athletes with
sex variations, variations and sex biology those are that is
a different category of people than trans athletes. You can
be trans and intersex. You know, both things can be true.
But in general, when we talk about athletics, there's two groups,
(12:48):
and the rules around them are different, and some of
the considerations around them are also different.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
So when we're talking about DSD, athletes who grew up
as girls identify as girls are competing against girls and
then all of a sudden have a quote unquote gender
verification test. This has happened for a long time in a.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Variety of ways.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
But when and why did this practice start of believing
that girls and women needed to be tested in order
to be sure that they were competing in the right category.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
This is one of the I think most I don't know,
surprising things that I learned, and maybe one of the
reasons I couldn't stop thinking about the story, which is that,
you know, I think a lot of us think of
this as very modern. It's a scientific test. It actually
goes all the way back to basically the beginning of
women's competition in the Olympics. So in the modern Olympics,
women are allowed to compete in track and field in
(13:41):
nineteen twenty eight. That's the first time that you really
get them on the track. They're allowed to compete in
more quote unquote feminine sports like tennis and swimming before that,
but track and field is when they start really you know,
getting into the sports that were perceived at the time
as being very masculine, very manly. And as soon as
that happens, literally night teen twenty eight, that first games,
(14:01):
you immediately see commentators and spectators and coaches saying that's
not a woman, that's not a woman. That woman looks
too strong, she looks too muscular. The woman who came
in second in the eight hundred meters was a Japanese
woman named Tomy Keenway, and people in the newspaper wrote
about her saying things like she has all the power
of a halfback. She should play for the Chicago Bears.
(14:23):
Is what you're hearing. And so very quickly you hear
calls for testing, some kind of examination we need to do,
you know, an exam to see that these are really women.
And in nineteen thirty six, that's when the first official
sex testing policy comes on the books, and it's very vague. It's,
you know, if there are questions of a physical nature,
(14:45):
and they never really say what questions those are, what
you would do to answer them. It's all very vague.
But that's when we start, and you see, if you're
interested in this early history, I highly recommend Michael Waters's
book The Other Olympians. It kind of goes into a
lot of this in a lot more detail, and it's
a great book. So it really starts in nineteen thirty six,
and then you see these waves and this era. We
joked when producing the podcast that it really feels like
(15:06):
whack a mole or like this weird groundhog day where
you're just seeing the same conversations popping up over and
over again with slightly different trappings.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, and that manifests in some of the most fascinating stories.
You talked to athletes who had these quote unquote or
so called nude parades, where literally before competition they would
have to strip down naked and have strangers look at
their genitals to ensure that they were women. They would,
for a very long stretch, have to carry cards that
(15:34):
said that they were women and bring it along with
them to every competition. So this goes on for many years.
And this is not surprising to anyone who understands how
much women's bodies and the roles and places they're allowed
in society have been policed for eternity. But at one
point there was a stretch where women were allowed to
compete mostly unfettered, and then the arrival of castor Samanya
(15:55):
stirs up this new era of regulation.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
So can you tell us about that important pivot point.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Yeah, So scientists fight for like you say, thirty years,
they're writing all these letters, they're begging the IOC and
World Athletics to drop it, and they do. In nineteen
eighty nine is like, you know, the icy finally gives
up and then yeah, there is this ten year period
where there's actually it's sort of similar to that nineteen
thirty six moment where there is a kind of very
vague policy that basically says, you know, if you really
(16:22):
think there is a man pretending to be a woman
to win medals on the track, you can do some
kind of examination. They don't say it quite that way,
but they kind of say that same thing. If there
is a suspicion, you can do an examination. And there
were athletes before Castor who were excluded from sports because
of this, but Castor is really the moment where it
breaks into this sort of international discussion. So Castor goes
(16:43):
to the World Championships in two thousand and nine in Berlin,
she wins the eight hundred meters, She runs this incredible race,
and instead of being able to celebrate being the world champion,
she gets thrust into this very intense media cycle quite
similar to what we're seeing today with these boxers. Where
(17:03):
people are asking questions about her gender, her body, her sex,
Is she really a woman? You hear the head of
the Athletics Federation say something like, you know, yes she
is a woman, but maybe not one hundred percent, which
is almost identical to what people said about toomy Keanway
nineteen twenty eight and similar to what you're hearing today,
(17:24):
and that sort of sparks this new era of regulation
that we go from chromosomes in from like the sixties
through the two thousand basically to now we're sort of
in this era of testosterone, at least in track and field,
and this idea that we need to test and regulate
these women's testosterone levels because that is giving them a
(17:45):
quote unquote unfair advantage. And we can talk about whether
that's true or not, but that sort of Castor's case
sort of launches us into this new era where we
now again are suddenly deciding that, oh no, we do
need to have tests, we do need to have regulations,
and we're kind of doing that whole cycle again.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
And worth noting that Castor Samena, for those who don't know,
is the South African middle distance runner, and in particular,
there are certain events and there are certain people who
tend to be most targeted by these rules and regulations.
They are not uniform across the board, or at least
for a long time, they weren't until more recently when
it started to be more widespread. Correct me if I'm
wrong here, But at one point it was very kind
(18:24):
of random, even in the sports where they would kind
of look and say, we think testosterone is most beneficial
in say pole vault, but a predominantly white event like
pole vault was not regulated. And then in other events
that were predominantly won by black athletes who were win
of color, we.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Are seeing a lot more crackdowns.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
So you know, you look at the athletes that you
spoke to who have been sidelined by these tests and regulations,
they are African women. For the most part, that tends
to be who gets gets most targeted. And I'm wondering
how they were personally affected by this beyond just the track,
because you spend a lot of the podcast talking about
their fight to become eligible again, or their fight against
(19:03):
the regulations, their fight to get their careers back. But
what about as human beings, because as you said, most
of these women do.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Not know they have DSDs.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Most do not have the resources or the medical teams
to help them through surgeries or hormone therapy. Most are
dependent on their careers for money and finances. Like what
did you see these women go through? As you were
researching and reporting on them?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
It was so challenging because you know, there are two
women who I largely focus on on the show, and
I've talked to a lot of women for the series,
but we really focus on Christine Bauma from Theamibia and
Maximali from Kenya, and I think that the impact on
them is is it touches almost everything right, So you know,
I think often when you talk about this story, people
really focus on the medicalization, right, the fact that they're
(19:46):
being asked. You know, Christine is taking these drugs, they
have these side effects. You know, some women you know
opted to go for irreversible surgeries. I spoke with, you know,
Annett the Geisa from Uganda who had a surgery that
no one made sure she understood what was going on,
and so you know, there was really terrible medical trauma there.
And that's all very important and very real, but also
(20:09):
there's this emotional toll that I think is almost hard
to explain and describe, because these women, you know, like
we said, they've never thought there was anything different about them.
All of a sudden, they're told, actually, you're too fast,
you've raised suspicions, or you look a certain way, you've
raised suspicions. We need to do these tests. And then
(20:30):
you're told by someone who often these women have never
met before. Right. You get a call from some person
that you don't know who is telling you, Okay, I
know that you've thought that you're a woman your whole life,
but like, actually you kind of fall into this other
category and you're getting all of this frankly quite technical,
quite confusing information. These are women who you know, don't
(20:51):
have access to, like, you know, education in the way
that you know you might might help you understand some
of this biological lingo, right DSD, you know, like five
alpha reductates. Like I'm a science reporter and sometimes I
read these things and I go cross side, right, and
so to see even the doctor.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
That you spoke to, Yeah, Christine's coach's wife is a doctor,
and she said I could not make my way through
the paperwork that they sent to try to understand exactly
how to affect her hormones in a safe way, and
I'm a doctor, right, and the exactly athletes to do
it without any help totally.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
And then also you have the like cultural piece of this,
which is that you know, many of these athletes are
from places that don't you know, not that there's really
anywhere in the world that's like incredibly enlightened on a
lot of this, but you know, there are some athletes
that I spoke with who come from places where it's
actually quite dangerous to suddenly be outed as somehow part
of you know, the LGBTQ community or QIA community. And
(21:48):
this is actually a big point of discussion and part
of the reason why we were really clear in the
series that these are not trans athletes, because you know,
when I was talking to these athletes to try and
get them to talk to me for the series and
earn their trust and explain with the show is about,
one of their first questions always was are you gonna
lump me in with trans athletes? Because that is unsafe
for me? And I think sometimes you know, when you
(22:10):
come from like you know, I'm from the United States,
like there's this very well meaning, you know, upper class
liberal like solidarity, and we should have like intersectionality, and
that is so true in theory, but on the ground,
you know, you can't. You can't do that until it's
safe for people. And so you know, we that part
of why we don't talk call them intersects, right, we don't,
you know, we don't use some of these words. And
(22:30):
so you I heard all these stories from these women
where you know, they go home to their home countries
and people come up to them and they say, I
heard you're a man. You know, there are now suddenly,
you know, an endless number of people on the Internet
who feel emboldened to make comments about these women's bodies
under every picture on Instagram or every video, and also
(22:51):
to say, you know that thing that you've been working through,
like for your whole life. You know, in Christine Bouma's case,
your you go to the Olympics, you win a silver medal,
and people are saying you don't really deserve that, you're
not really a woman, making absolutely in my opinion, unhinged
comments about like what your genitals might look like. I mean,
this is like what you're surrounded with all the time,
(23:13):
and it just takes a toll on people because they
just are under this constant scrutiny.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Well, and I think you know, it's worth noting that
sometimes in an effort to defend DSD athletes, people will say, oh,
but they're not trans, and unfortunately what that does is
further demonize the trans community. That distinction is important not
only for the safety of these athletes in some places,
but I do think the journey is different than one
of someone who believes their identity does not match the
(23:42):
sex with which they were born. I think one of
the things that was so sad to listen to was
these surgeries are hormone therapies. To me, it did not
sound like there was a lot of research or care
put into understanding how they would affect the athletes side
effects bodily changes, fatigue, ability to perform long term effects
on their body, and then the lack of support they
were getting from federations as they work to become eligible
(24:04):
and try to qualify and compete.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
With their new bodies.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
You mentioned the one athlete who she didn't know that
she was going to be cut when she agreed to
surgery for internal gonads. She thought that there was some
sort of shot or something that was going to affect her.
She didn't realize when she woke up she was going
to have stitches and a scar.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
To me that if.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
You're talking about the average person being forced through all
of this, I think sometimes we lease the humanity in
pursuit of using the right terms or understanding the science.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
But these are human.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Beings, absolutely, absolutely, and you know it's We talked to C. C. Telfer,
who is a trans athlete who wrote a great book
about sort of her quest to become an Olympian, and
she made the point, you know too, that like you know,
in terms of the distinction between these two groups, like
these women don't this there's something being told, This is
being projected onto them, like you are different now, whereas
(24:58):
if you're a trans woman like or a transient person,
you know that about yourself, right, Like that is the
thing that you have thought like a lot about, you
know what I mean, It's a thing that you're taking
a lot of space in your mind and it's not
something that someone projects onto your hands to you or
says like you know, surprise, you know, you're you're actually this.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Autronomy in it.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
And to your point about the medications, it was really
shocking to me because you know, I would ask people,
you know, I'd ask these doctors, you know, what do
we know in terms of the side effects of these
drugs on specifically you know, women with sex variations, right,
women with this specific DSD right like five oft four
reduct taste, Like, do we know?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Because their bodies are constructing slightly differently, that's what we're
talking about. Do we know the side effects that there?
I be and over and over again I heard no,
we don't because we don't give these drugs these women
like in this way, like, this is not a thing
that we're doing medically, right. The World Medical Association has
come out against this, The American Medical Association has come
out against this, in part because there is no medical
(25:55):
necessity here. There is no reason to be doing this
except for quote unquote fairness in sports.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah, And that brings me back to the main issue
that I've had with trying to discuss issues around both transparticipation, DSD,
everything else, is that it seems that science is still
trying to figure out so much of it. It seems
like we don't have a definitive answer on how much
of an advantage testosterone gives.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Does it feel to you right now?
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Like the rules and regulations are based on the most
up to date and complete science and are being done
with that, you know, generosity, earnestness, and genuine intent to
match the science.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
This is the ten thousand dollars question, right, Like everyone's like,
just follow the science, Just follow the science, you know,
which is I think a great thought. There has been
some science. So this is also one of the points
I think that gets confusing on the story when you
first encounter it, because what you see is that both
sides say the science supports our side. And so when
you're looking at that as a layperson or even as
a science journalist, you're like, well, wait a minute, Like
(26:55):
that can't be true, Like both of you can't be
you know, that doesn't make sense. And I think, but
you know, there, I think that there is, you know,
a way in which you can craft the question you
are asking to get the answer that you want via science, right.
And this is the thing, you know, I love science.
I'm a science reporter. I'm a huge science nerd. But like,
(27:16):
there are lots of ways to do things to make
the science seem like it supports you. So what we're
seeing right now is that World Athletics will say, we
absolutely are following the most up to date science. What
our logic is is that these athletes are quote unquote
biological males, and so all of the data that we
have on CIS men and their performance in sport applies
to these women. And you have you know, intersects, health experts, doctors,
(27:41):
you know, people on that side saying, no, these are
not equivalent populations. You can't these are apples and oranges.
You can't just take this data. You can't decide these
are actually biological men and then take this data and
apply it to them. That just is not good science.
And so then when you think, okay, well, what would
the ideal study be, right like, and this is what
the IOC argues that you should be doing, is that
if you're going to have a policy, you know, they
(28:01):
put out their Framework for Inclusion in twenty twenty one,
and they say, if you're going to have a policy,
and you know, you can have a policy, if you
want to have a policy, you know, you get to
make the rules of your sport. But if you're going
to have a policy, it does need to be based
on robust science that is based on the population that
we're actually talking about. And the sport that we're actually
talking about at the performance level that we're talking about.
(28:23):
And so what that means is that what you really
want to do, if you really want to say what
percent advantage does having one of these DSD conditions give
you if you are one of these women, what you'd
want to do is you want to look at those women,
look at their performance, and look at their testosterone level
and compare them to non DSD athletes. That study has
not been done. The only people who could do that
(28:45):
study is World Athletics because World Athletics is the only
one that really has that kind of robust data. Even then,
it wouldn't be complete because there are probably people competing
who have these DSDs who are just not that good
and so haven't been flagged for two But at the
very least you would do that. They have not done that.
I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
What's the most generous answer as to why? What's the
most generous The.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Most generous answer is that it is not easy to
do in the sense that you don't it's your sample
size is going to be small, right, And in science
we talk about this all the time. Rate like, if
you have a small sample size, the conclusions that you
can draw from that are limited, and you know, World
Athletics likes to say these women are vastly overrepresented in sport.
(29:31):
They kind of try and insinuate that they're everywhere, that
they're taking over, that they're, you know, winning everything, and
I think that actually we're not talking about that many
people in the grand scheme of things. And so if
I think the most generous interpretation here is that even
if you were to do that study and you could
do it, I think you at they say it's partially
(29:51):
a privacy concern. I think there's absolutely a way to
do the study with anonymised data. We see this in
health research all the time. Drug companies have figured out
how to do like this is a thing you can do,
but you can you know, I think that even if
you could do it in a way that was anonymized
and private and you know, respected athletes privacy, I think
that you run into just like a power problem in
(30:13):
terms of like how much data you actually have. That's
the most generous interpretation. The least generous is that they
don't like the answer. And so that's what I've heard
other people say is that don't ask the question if
you don't want.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
The answer, I don't want to open Pandora's boxer. I
just want to mention how fascinating the idea is that
you would have a chromosomal difference that then would mean
that you are a biological male, even if you had
a vagina and breast and all the other like the
idea that anywhere else in the world we would be like, well,
you're a guy because of that understanding. The way that
(30:48):
society reacts to everything else is just like, It's why
this is so difficult, because there is this desire to
create a binary where there isn't one with human bodies.
And that's why when we try to create fairwareness in
women's sports, we start regulating natural advantage, while we will
never do that for men because we heroise men with
natural advantages. You talk in the podcast about these roughly
(31:10):
twenty genetic mutations that help make athletes elite. We've long
talked about, you know, Michael Phelp's ability to process lactic
acid and a variety of other things. And when men
get really good, we just expand the record books for
how great they are. And it feels like this artificial
cap on female greatness or our expectation for what women
(31:31):
can do is ultimately what drives this, because you would
never ask a man whose genetic advantages help him be
better in sport to take.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Drugs to stop them, but we do that here.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
I guess that's a long winded way of saying that
it feels like some advantages we do not regulate. And
the explanation for why we do regulate these sex related
advantages is because sports are binary and separated by sex.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
What's your response to that.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yeah, I mean sports can be binary and separated by
sex and not require sex testing. The thing that people,
the thing that makes sports require sex testing is this
idea that women's sports need to be protected, right, and
so there is this idea that the women's category is
a protected category, the men's category is not right, and
(32:17):
so this idea and I think this really gets out
some of these bigger issues of like who is doing
the protecting and why and from what? And there's this
I think deep paternalism that is built into a lot
of this, which is that women need to be protected
from And this is where it gets I think often
(32:38):
a little bit confusing when you ask people to articulate
which is what are we protecting women from here, and
the answer is, I guess we're protecting women from other
women who might have male like advantages, which is sort
of it doesn't totally add up because you know, again,
(33:00):
these women are not men, and there's in fact no
real evidence that they have quote unquote male like advantages.
Caster Semenia does not even have the world record in
the women's eight hundred meters. She's the fourth fastest woman
in history. You know, Christine Boma didn't win the gold medal,
she won the silver, right, these women are not out
here running or performing at quote unquote male levels, and
(33:24):
so that I think that sort of there's this idea
of we have to protect the female category and this
is in the name of protection.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
And also who's not being protected by the choices that
they're making, which would include the women that you spoke to.
Also what if you go back, and of course during
the podcast we get all this context of the idea
that even early on in competition, the fear was that
women would become men if they ran too.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Fast and worked out too hard.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
And that's part of the problem is that we've associated
quote unquote manly characteristics with things that are just good
for you in sports. So when men who look the
most stereotypically manly and presumably have the highest testosterone as
a result, are heralded for their strength and toughness and
their natural gifts for sport, and women when they become
(34:11):
too strong, fast, tall, whatever, they get called freaks of nature,
or they get called unfeminine, or it feels like so
much of this is really just about misogyny and control
over female achievement, especially when you look even at this Olympics,
someone like Katie Ladecci. The comments under her victories are
that's a dude, right, and we're looking at one of
(34:32):
the greatest women athletes of all time. There is absolutely
no question, there never has been one, and where that's
not even the conversation being had. And yet because of
her greatness and her height and strength, we're still having
this conversation and that feels like everything is rooted in
that well.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
I think also to the Katie Ladeci like, it's been
really interesting in a bad way to watch the ways
in which this conversation has shifted the last just five years,
like due to transphobia. So I think I used to
be able to say in conversations like this, Oh, Katie
(35:08):
Ladeci incredibly dominant. Right, No one ever says like Katy
Lecky's probably a man, except now they do. Right now,
we're living in this weird era where as you say, underneath,
you know, And I don't want to over index on
like Instagram commenters, because like you know, I think most
people are far more better adjusted than that. But you know,
you'll see people saying, that's a dude, right, that's a
(35:29):
man accusing Katie Leadecki of being a trans person. And
that is new, right, that is not something that you
saw even like three or four years ago. And that
is really, I think all down to this sort of
moral panic and you know, really big boom in transphobia,
transphobic laws, transphobic rhetoric. That is also I think really
(35:49):
muddying the waters here around both sides of the conversation,
because now you're seeing, you know, like in the reporting
around in Monticheleef and you know, Linuting, you're seeing people
claiming that they're trans people, we're transmitt in which they're
not right. And there's this.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
All of them, the boxers, yeah, right, the boxers, And
you're just seeing so much and there's always been confusion
I think between for people, and I think mostly historically
that has been sort of honest confusion, and now I
think it's really a big.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Sort of disinformation campaign to try and collapse down.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
That nuance politicized.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah, and when you look at how DSD has been
conflated with trans athletes, and when you look at how
trans athletes have been politicized and demonized in an unfair way,
especially when the science is not there for that, what
might the future for girls and women in sport look
like to you if we continue on this path?
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yeah, I mean it's such a great question. And you
know it's interesting that now we're seeing parents at these
games say that's a trans person, right, whereas it used
to be. So these stories have gone have been around
for forever. Right in nineteen ninety and there's a local
newspaper story of a girl soccer game in Texas, a
ten year old the goal was like the sort of
(37:01):
star goalie had short hair, which was like, oh, like
maybe she's a boy. And the two fathers on the
opposing team demanded proof of her gender and they wanted
someone to go take her into the lady's room and
like take her clothes off basically and like check that
she is a girl.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
And remember, we're protecting.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Women exactly exactly, Like don't you feel protected? I feel
so protected and so so yeah, so like it's both
the same and different, right, you know, in these modern conversations.
But you know, when I think about the future, it's
it's interesting. I think. On the one hand, I do
think that for every person who is viewing just really
(37:39):
horrific stuff on the internet, there is a person who,
you know, I get in my inboxer and you know,
on the stuff that I'm seeing, who is saying, wait,
hold on a minute, what, like what are we talking about?
What are we doing? I do think that for many
people hearing about this, it's really baffling that this is
a thing that we're doing. And I take a lot
of I take a lot of encouragement right from that,
(38:02):
which is that you see people saying, oh, what what
are we talking about at exactly? And so you know,
and I also think that there it has been a
lot more, at least in my reporting, there seems to
be have been a real shift in the last five
to ten years, specifically around the ways in which women
competitors on the track think about competing against athletes with
(38:25):
sex variations. So it used to be that you'd hear,
like in Castor's era, you'd hear people say, I don't
want to compete against her all of that. You still
that's definitely I think people are still saying. But I
think in general, now what you hear is this better
understanding that these women were born this way. They're not
doing anything, they're not cheating, they're not taking anything, you know,
(38:45):
they're not changing their bodies in any way. And that's fine,
and I'm okay with that now. Of course, that often
is coupled with the sort of foil, which is that
I don't want to compete against trans athletes, right, So
like there's sort of a sort of double edged sword there.
But I think and I think the credit for that
goes to cast Semenia and how vocal she has been
and how like public she has been about this really
(39:06):
harrowing and horrible experience that she's had. And so on
the one hand, I sometimes take some I don't know,
I guess saw us in the fact that there are
so many people asking questions and saying, hold on, wait
a minute. And I do think that once you learn
that this is not new, that this is not something
that just popped up, That this is not even you know,
in the last ten years. This is a one hundred
(39:26):
year history. It really kind of opens people's eyes up
to all the things you've been saying, which is that
this is not These are not scientific, really conversations, These
are not really These are questions rooted in something else.
They're rooted in these really old ideas about women, what
women are capable of, women should be doing, what women
should look like. And I think once you have that
(39:48):
that key kind of unlocks a lot of things for
this conversation. And I'm seeing a lot of people kind
of have those realizations. I think is great.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Did you end up at the end of this podcast
believing in a solution because you suggested some at the end,
but you don't make a pick.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
I think it's hard and it's real cop out right
where I'm like, who can say, you know what the
future old? I think this is a thing that I think,
as you say, I am really interested in having actual
conversations about what the future of sport can look like
with people who are, you know, coming at this with
in good faith and in the sort of you know,
(40:24):
the spirit of inclusion, right, Like, well, how do we
make sure that everybody gets to compete in a way
that makes sense? And I think that that might be
different sport to sport, right there may be sports where
certain kinds of regulations make sense and others don't. I
think that there, you know, there may be situations where
we think about dropping the gender binary and or doing
(40:45):
something else. And I really think that what I'd like
to see, frankly, is just less of this kind of like,
you know, hateful, really awful rhetoric and constantly I think
that challenges a lot of people who are really interested,
who actually care about women's sports, which I think many
people who are very vocal in this moment do not.
(41:06):
But women who actually are people who actually care about
the future of women's sports to be able to like
not have to spend all of their energy correcting people
and correcting misinformation and fighting for the human rights of
these athletes so that then they can actually have interesting
conversations about what could happen next. But right now, so
much of the energy is being spent just trying to
like keep the head above water in terms of just
all of these attacks. And so I've heard a lot
(41:29):
of really interesting, you know, potential ideas, and I would
love I'm sure there are stuff that I haven't thought
of that other people can think of that would be
more inclusive. And I think for now, because we don't
have those solutions in place, we need to find a
way to let everybody compete, right, and that's not what's
happening right now. And that feels like a just baseline.
You know, it's in the Olympic Charter, it's in the
(41:51):
United Nations, you know, Declaration of Human Rights, and that
feels like the low hanging fruit first, and then we
get to have much more cool and interesting conversations about
the future of sports once we get all this nonsense
out of the way.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I could not agree more.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
I feel like I'm constantly in a state of defense
and explanation and even hesitant to ask honest, in good
faith questions because of how cruel the other side is,
and not wanting to be thrown over there, but wanting
to ask and understand best I can, how we organize,
(42:28):
if we could organize differently, how we're fair while also
being included all those things. And I think this podcast
is a really big step toward more people being educated
enough to have those conversations in a way that will
move us forward instead of constantly feeling like we're going backwards.
So thank you so much for giving us your time,
Thanks for staying up late in Paris, Thanks for doing
(42:48):
this podcast and for fighting to get it made and
heard because it's really spectacular.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Oh thank you so much for having me. I really
appreciate it. I will stay up late for you anytime.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
We tried to crayon a ton into a relatively short
amount of time, So please go listen to the full
podcast tested. Plus, my former colleague Sarah Johnson produced a
great short feature with Rose for the show Good Follow.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
You can watch it on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
It's about twenty six minutes into the August second episode. Also,
we've got an update on those boxers that we discussed.
Imman Khalif won her welterweight semifinal bout yesterday and will
fight for a gold medal. Also, lynnu Ting fights in
the featherweight semifinals today at three thirty pm Eastern. All right,
we got to take another break. When we come back.
(43:34):
Olympic fits and feet heat.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
You're back. We're back. The US women's national soccer team
is so back.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
We love that you're listening, but we want you to
get in the game every day too, So here's our
good game play of the day. First, did you do
your homework from yesterday? Okay, get on it, Subscribe to
the Tested podcast and listen. Also, we've seen a lot
of picks and videos of athletes showing off their personal
style and we want to know your pick for most
stylish athlete at the Olympics. Which off court, off track,
(44:08):
off field fits are must see?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Let us know.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
And if you see any feet heat tag producer Mesh,
they're trying to get their sneaker game back up at
meish the journalist, no oh, were you in?
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Journalist on everything?
Speaker 1 (44:21):
You can also hit us up on email good game
at Wonderbedia network dot com or leave us a voicemail
at eight seven two two oh four fifty seventy and don't.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Forget to subscribe.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Rate and review It's super easy watch having a brick
wall for a goalkeeper. Rating infinity out of five stars.
Review a feeling of safety that can't be put into words.
Good with the hands, good with the feet, even willing
to stretch out an opponent during a cramp attack midgame
with a gold medal match on.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
The line A listen, there will never lose.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Faith when we know you've got our back. God, bless
that foot. You're the real golden bootless. See it's just
that easy. Now it's your turn, subscribe, rate and review.
Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. Slices, Good Game, Rows,
Good Game, Nayor's Foot, few trans phobes. Good Game with
(45:11):
Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership
with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
You can find us on.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzi
and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz,
Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Jenny Kaplan,
Emily Rudder, Brittany Martinez and Grace Lynch. Production assistants from
Lucy Jones and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain
Host
Sarah Spain
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