Culture Study Podcast - Women's Sports and Gender Panic

00:00:00.000 melody the first thing you said to me is that you've been getting a lot of tiktoks for tubal

00:00:06.000 legation yeah and also uh moving to ireland in addition to just like all of the other

00:00:14.860 processing uh welcome to the first culture study podcast post-election i'm very glad that we didn't

00:00:23.320 have anything come out last week nothing would have felt appropriate no but we are happy to be

00:00:28.960 here. And actually, this is a perfect episode that I think this is the sort of nuance that I

00:00:34.980 always crave when talking about something as complicated as gender in sports. And this is

00:00:40.900 the sort of nuance that I think a lot of people really reject. And I just I love this episode.

00:00:46.980 It's fantastic. And I'm really grateful for all of our listeners who are also willing to

00:00:53.300 lean into the complication. So we're really happy you're here.

00:00:58.960 OK, women's sports have never been more popular. And there's also like endless, seemingly endless public hand-wringing and outright panic about who should be able to participate in women's sports. So, Rose, are these two things connected?

00:01:14.700 yes yeah yeah absolutely absolutely i think that you know if you can ignore women's sports because

00:01:22.980 there's no money in it there's no fame in it there's no cultural power in it then it doesn't

00:01:27.360 matter who competes but as soon as that stops being the case and as soon as you have women

00:01:32.680 athletes female athletes being incredibly culturally powerful and relevant and rich

00:01:37.400 and have all these brand deals and moving the culture forward all of a sudden it really matters

00:01:43.620 who gets to compete and who doesn't. Right. Well, and this actually, I was thinking about

00:01:48.680 the Olympics and how very few people outside of when it's Olympics time care about people who

00:01:55.800 participate in so many different types of sports. And then suddenly, when the Olympics come into

00:02:04.080 the foreground, and it's an opportunity for celebrity, like it's just this time when you can

00:02:10.720 actually be someone in the public eye and wield some power, then suddenly we care about who's

00:02:16.960 competing in, say, women's boxing. It is amazing how many people are experts in women's boxing.

00:02:23.000 I just had no idea. There were so many women's boxing experts out there. It's just truly 0.73

00:02:30.320 incredible to me. This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.

00:02:40.320 I'm Rose Eveleth, the host of Tested, the podcast.

00:02:43.860 Different podcast, not this podcast, different one.

00:02:46.320 This is a great tee-up for us to talk about Tested, which came out in July alongside the Olympics.

00:02:53.480 So how were you thinking in terms of, like, I want to create this podcast?

00:02:58.480 When are we going to release it?

00:03:00.140 What's the perfect time?

00:03:01.520 Like, how were you thinking there?

00:03:03.220 I would love to say that this was, like, totally planned out and extremely strategic.

00:03:07.040 um what is the truth is that I have been working on this series for 10 years I pitched it for eight

00:03:14.400 years wow I pitched it 26 places until the CBC Canadian Broadcast Company said yes and then NPR

00:03:22.640 eventually came on and that didn't happen until October of last year and then it was like oh

00:03:29.580 well I guess we're doing this for the Olympics like it's it is good timing right it is the right

00:03:34.580 perfect time to do it but it was sort of all of a sudden it went from me spending years you know

00:03:39.920 funding this on my own spending all of my savings to make like try and make this to oh my god we

00:03:46.160 have six months basically to make a huge documentary podcast series that would normally take 12 months

00:03:52.180 to make um but it just like there was no universe in which we were putting this out after it had to

00:03:57.340 be like you know right when the olympics were happening and so um i think you know it is it

00:04:02.260 It was good timing and also stressful timing for me personally.

00:04:07.080 So just for listeners who aren't familiar, because I know we have a lot of listeners who have listened to the show and love it.

00:04:13.500 Can you sketch out what the show is and also what made you think that this could be a show and would be a show that would be important 10 years ago?

00:04:24.480 Yeah, so Tested is about the sort of past, present and future of so-called gender verification policies in elite sports.

00:04:30.540 And those are policies that basically say that there is some test that we have to do

00:04:34.980 to make sure that the women competing in women's sports are really female or really women.

00:04:39.840 And there's been this very long history of trying to find this test.

00:04:43.240 It goes all the way back to the very beginning of women's competition in the Olympics.

00:04:46.920 And for me, I think being able to trace that long history really puts today's conversation

00:04:52.660 in a totally new context.

00:04:54.320 Because once you realize that this is not a new conversation, that we have been doing

00:04:58.140 this for almost a hundred years, it really takes on a different tone. I got really obsessed with

00:05:04.340 this story when I was an intern in 2012 at Scientific American. And we know when you're

00:05:11.180 an intern, you do literally whatever anyone asks you to do. And I was reporting on prosthetic

00:05:17.120 devices, actually, like really high end, like cheetah blades and the bionic arms and all of

00:05:21.100 that. And I wrote this one of my first ever feature stories, which is very exciting about

00:05:26.480 this debate about a different athlete, an athlete named Oscar Pistorius, who at the time was very

00:05:32.660 famous for being the sort of blade runner. He runs on two cheetah prosthetic blades. Unfortunately,

00:05:37.420 now he is probably better known for being in prison for murdering his girlfriend.

00:05:41.900 But at the time, that had not happened. And he was sort of the center of this debate because

00:05:45.940 there was this argument he wanted to race in the Olympics. He didn't want to race in the

00:05:49.260 Paralympics. He wanted to race in the Olympics. And there was this debate happening among officials

00:05:54.840 and scientists about whether or not he had an unfair advantage because he had these two

00:05:59.060 cheetah blades and I remember just thinking that was really fascinating right how what does it mean

00:06:03.520 to have an unfair advantage in sports I'm a huge sports guy I used to run uh you know I love I love

00:06:08.940 watching sports I follow sports and I mean like all athletes have unfair advantages right like

00:06:14.120 elite athletes are and I say this with great fondness like freaks of nature right that's just

00:06:17.540 like what is happening when we watch the Olympics yeah um and so this idea of like you know what's

00:06:22.020 going on there and as I was researching that I came across Caster Semenya who I had heard about

00:06:26.840 when she broke out into the world stage in 2009 and I had sort of heard about this whole story but

00:06:31.920 honestly was very confused by it and so I just sort of was like I don't know what's going on

00:06:35.360 there and then when I re-encountered it this woman who raced in 2009 sort of had this incredible race

00:06:41.300 on the world stage won the world championships in Berlin that year and immediately was sort of

00:06:46.600 thrust into this nightmare of people saying that's not really a woman we need to test her

00:06:53.260 they did test her her you know medical results are leaked and just from there this big conversation

00:06:58.660 about who really is a woman and when I re started reading these archival news articles and studies

00:07:04.540 about this I just it just struck me as like one of those moments you know when you encounter

00:07:08.660 something and you're just like what are we talking what does that mean like how like what does that

00:07:14.540 actually mean when you say oh yeah she is a woman but maybe not 100 like what are we talking about

00:07:21.440 like what does that actually mean and so I just got obsessed since then and have spent many years

00:07:26.520 now um deep deep in on on this and uh I feel like you approach things similarly where once you get

00:07:32.960 hooked on something you just like cannot stop and you just end up when you look at and then you go

00:07:39.700 and deep into history and you're like oh a hundred years ago like I wonder why people had anxiety

00:07:45.580 about women in sports in that moment right right and then suddenly you're like in Lausanne at the

00:07:50.620 IOC archives like trying to find like a hundred year old letter right like you just can't I just

00:07:55.060 could not stop myself uh and so here we are and now tested exists which is very exciting

00:08:00.260 can you spell out for listeners a little bit why there would have been so much anxiety about women

00:08:05.000 in the public sphere a hundred years ago and specifically in sports?

00:08:08.480 Yeah, so the Olympics were made by men for men, right? 0.90

00:08:11.940 The idea of women competing in the Olympics was just,

00:08:15.140 it wasn't even something they were against.

00:08:16.760 It was something they did not even consider, right?

00:08:19.020 Like it was not even on their, they weren't like opposed to it.

00:08:21.700 It was truly not a thought they ever had one time.

00:08:25.140 And so, but of course, from the very beginning, 0.88

00:08:27.620 women are saying, hey, I want to compete. 0.96

00:08:29.040 Like I want to run, I want to swim, I want to play tennis, 1.00

00:08:31.220 I want to do all this stuff.

00:08:32.020 and the founder of the modern olympics pierre de couvertin was appalled by this this idea that

00:08:38.060 women would want to do this thing in part because the olympics were founded largely as a way to

00:08:43.480 encourage a certain kind of manliness right a certain kind of masculine athleticism and those 0.99

00:08:49.980 two words are sort of synonyms right like this idea of athleticism was not something that women 0.60

00:08:53.940 were supposed to aspire to you know in any way and so of course as as is always the case immediately

00:09:01.620 women are saying hey I actually want to do that too and in fact I'm kind of good at it and I would

00:09:06.120 like to compete and there's a long sort of and really fascinating back and forth that happens

00:09:11.420 about how to include women in the Olympics whether to include women in the Olympics there are two

00:09:15.820 books that I highly recommend one is by Michael Waters called The Other Olympians and the other

00:09:20.420 is Maggie Merton's book Better Faster Stronger which sort of both sort of trace in some ways the

00:09:25.040 early history of women's inclusion in sports and eventually they do win the ability to compete

00:09:31.220 first they get you know the ladylike sports tennis which is very funny to me to consider

00:09:35.160 that ladylike because at the time they were wearing corsets and they were literally taking

00:09:38.240 off their corsets after these matches and bleed like they're bloody because they're playing tennis 0.93

00:09:42.820 in a corset so like they do it that's like this feminine like delicate thing that people are doing 0.92

00:09:48.140 is wild but eventually 1928 they get to compete on the track and this is just absolutely horrifying 0.79

00:09:56.860 to the men who are watching because when you run really hard your face makes weird shapes you look

00:10:03.040 like you're exerting yourself you're doing all these physical things that to the men of the time

00:10:06.940 many of them were just disgusting and they were fairly vocal about how disgusting they found it

00:10:12.520 um and so that just felt so like it was so antithetical to what they believed real woman-ness

00:10:19.140 and like femininity was that they sort of freaked out a little bit yeah yeah no and I think even

00:10:25.320 just like articulating that very like basic coding that athleticism is masculine. And if you are

00:10:34.580 athletic in some capacity, and if your body is good at being athletic, if your body is built in

00:10:40.440 a way that codes it as athletic, then you are also masculine. And of course, this intersects

00:10:45.160 with all these understandings about whiteness and race and all sorts of things. But that basic

00:10:51.460 understanding guides so much of our thinking and it's so like it's just it's so wild to me that

00:10:59.020 you're like oh like of course like all of this panic is rooted in this thing that like is not

00:11:04.620 it it's all cultural like it's all understandings that we have mapped onto bodies there's nothing

00:11:12.100 fixed about it totally totally and it is I mean it's also so interesting to to go back and read

00:11:18.660 this and and you you know these men are not subtle right they're not trying to be you know

00:11:23.920 like oh well of course we support with them they're like this is gross like this is disgusting to me 0.94

00:11:28.240 like they just they talk they think it's ugly they they like talk about it right in this way that is

00:11:32.620 very you know unabashed right because of that was the dominant thought right in in the sort of

00:11:38.620 powers that be and the other thing that's probably worth noting is that these men who are in charge

00:11:42.260 of the olympics um for many years particularly the beginning these are the ultimate aristocrats

00:11:46.940 These are, like, kings and princes and barons and, like, titled nobility people who have, even for their own time, a fairly regressive idea about what gender roles might look like.

00:11:58.160 And those are the people that are creating the Olympics.

00:12:04.920 There's just so many directions I could take this.

00:12:06.800 But I think that we're going to cover a lot of the different ways that we could go with this.

00:12:10.920 We're going to cover this as we answer listener questions.

00:12:14.060 So let's get into our first question.

00:12:15.960 This comes from Jennifer, and Melody's going to read it for us.

00:12:19.680 Regarding gender issues in sports, what's up with the transphobia and panic?

00:12:24.420 At the end of the day, it regards a very small population.

00:12:27.920 When people are trying to ban an assigned male at birth kid who has transitioned to being a girl from running cross country in South Dakota,

00:12:34.880 a whole state of people are focused on keeping one up to a handful of children from competing.

00:12:40.820 It's a witch hunt.

00:12:42.200 Okay, so I watched this happen in Idaho, too.

00:12:45.120 I watch it happen like and you actually really grapple with this in the podcast this obsession

00:12:49.760 with a hypothetical even right because even if there is one actual case the thing that people

00:12:56.420 are mad about is this hypothetical army of people who will enter into a sport whether it's women's

00:13:06.140 sports or men's sports but usually women's sport and somehow screw everything up like I love women's

00:13:13.000 sports. And this is the problem, right? And I don't think these people actually love women's 0.98

00:13:16.740 sports. It's also the problem. So when you hear this question, what direction does this lead you 1.00

00:13:21.440 in? Yeah, I think, you know, it's such a good question. And I think there are so many things

00:13:27.160 that are happening all at once that kind of really are converging on sports, right? You have just the

00:13:33.100 rise of transphobia generally in the world right now, which I think there are many reasons for, 0.99

00:13:38.700 which you know probably a whole other podcast on that but I think that sports really allows for a

00:13:44.380 kind of centralization and in some ways a a bit of plausible deniability around transphobia because

00:13:51.280 totally you a it's one of the very few places still in our world that is pretty rigidly sex

00:13:56.680 separated right you have sports you have bathrooms and prisons right and when you look at where

00:14:02.900 people are freaking out about trans women and it's always trans women it's sports bathrooms

00:14:07.460 and prisons, right? Because these are the places that are still very rigidly sex separated.

00:14:11.540 I think, though, at the same time, if it was just that, I don't know that we'd be seeing it. But I 0.70

00:14:16.180 think that what you see in sports is that you see this really convenient cover for transphobia in a

00:14:22.660 lot of ways. Because you can say, you know, people say like, well, you know, of course I'm not

00:14:25.800 transphobic. Of course, like trans people, that's fine if you want to live your life that way or

00:14:29.580 whatever thing they say. But sports is about fairness, right? And sports is about this other

00:14:35.680 thing and you can kind of couch a lot of what is at its core transphobia in things like this sort

00:14:42.240 of very nebulous idea of fairness whatever that means and you know fair to who is I think a good

00:14:47.780 follow-up question to that but also you can couch it in these alleged ideas around biology and around

00:14:53.740 science and around sort of like oh but we know that testosterone does x y and z and boys are

00:14:58.720 bigger and this that and the other and you get to kind of have a veneer of sort of logic and or

00:15:06.680 sort of philosophy around what again at its core is really just trying to exclude people and as you

00:15:12.100 say often children right these are children who are trying to just like run on their high school

00:15:16.360 cross-country team or whatever it is and I think also sports offers this place where it's not just

00:15:24.160 oh we're letting trans people do what they want it's that now there's a competition and there's 1.00

00:15:29.380 a winner and now all of a sudden you know I think most people aside from the most like virulent

00:15:34.000 transphobes can't really stomach saying out loud like that they don't think trans people should

00:15:38.400 exist in the world they should just like not exist at all and there are certainly people who

00:15:41.840 believe that but I think in general most people if they were forced to articulate that out loud 0.61

00:15:45.920 would be like oh that feels not great but as soon as someone and as soon as that trans person is

00:15:51.780 potentially winning and taking something away from a cis person then you get that kind of like well

00:15:58.620 wait a minute hold on and you see the same thing around like these complaints around DEI or

00:16:02.800 affirmative action right like of course you know like people of color can blah blah blah but as

00:16:06.800 soon as they seem to be unfairly somehow getting something that a white person should get or that

00:16:12.100 cis person should get now there's a problem right and I think you see all of those things coalescing

00:16:16.780 in sports and also right the fact that women's sports are big business now that like it used to 0.89

00:16:21.160 be that whatever women's high school sports like who cares but now if you do well in high school

00:16:26.540 you do well in college you know there's money to be made there's power to be had there and I think 0.89

00:16:31.520 all of those things are kind of colliding and create this really dark place where as you say

00:16:37.380 in South Dakota you have a whole state trying to keep one girl from competing which is just like

00:16:41.980 part of me is like can y'all just like take a step back and like think about what you're doing here

00:16:47.060 but as you say it is all really based on this this hypothetical this idea and you see this

00:16:51.640 throughout the history for years and years in the letters from the archives that there is this real

00:16:57.500 concern that for on the case of you know athletes with sex variation so you see people saying things

00:17:02.560 and this is in the 70s and 80s even you see people saying things like oh coaches are going to go

00:17:07.260 around the world they're going to go find all these dsd athletes and they're going to train

00:17:10.440 them up and there's going to be this army of dsd athletes who are taking over the sport and no real

00:17:16.240 woman quote unquote will ever win again and like that's literally never happened if it was gonna 0.55

00:17:22.600 I mean these people are worried about this in the 70s we've had enough time for that potentially if

00:17:26.880 that were a thing that was gonna happen maybe happen it has not there's just a lot of I mean

00:17:32.500 boogeymen and hypotheticals and theoreticals that like you know trans women are gonna win everything

00:17:37.560 and like part of me is like okay well how would that be the worst thing in the world but also 1.00

00:17:42.120 there's no evidence that that's even true. And so just this, like, invention of this hypothetical

00:17:48.080 potential future in which certain women no longer get the accolades that they deserve,

00:17:55.420 it really spins people up into all sorts of very strange places.

00:17:59.680 Can you define quickly what a DSD athlete is?

00:18:02.760 Oh, yes. So DSD is an acronym for differences of sex development. There's a lot of opinions

00:18:08.320 out there around the best language to use here for athletes with sex variations.

00:18:13.560 DSD is a medical term.

00:18:14.800 There are some people who really dislike it because it medicalizes something that for

00:18:17.680 many people is normal and fine and, you know, is not a problem.

00:18:22.660 DSD athlete is what World Athletics and what most sports federations call these athletes.

00:18:27.180 They call them DSD athletes.

00:18:28.980 Some of these athletes, although most don't, some of these athletes identify as intersex,

00:18:33.080 which is sort of more a community term, a little bit more like queer where you kind

00:18:36.880 of opt into that.

00:18:38.320 I tend to either use DSD athletes because that's what they often call themselves and

00:18:42.920 also what the sports federations call them, or just athletes with sex variations.

00:18:47.300 And so these are athletes who have some combination of variations in their sex biology.

00:18:51.100 They might have XY chromosomes.

00:18:52.800 They might have high testosterone.

00:18:54.660 They might have XY chromosomes, but not high testosterone, right?

00:18:57.540 There's all sorts of variations that happen in the body, but they can kind of be lumped

00:19:02.020 into this general category of DSD.

00:19:05.200 I'll also direct listeners to your website.

00:19:07.960 We'll put it in the show notes. You have a great glossary of terms, why you're using the terms,

00:19:13.820 things that ended up on the cutting room floor, all sorts of links to research and further reading.

00:19:18.480 Like it is excellent. Thank you. I'm going to take us on a little bit of a detour and Melody

00:19:23.500 may or may not cut this, but I have this memory, vivid memory that has stuck with me from the

00:19:28.880 Michael Jordan documentary, like the five-part documentary. And they're talking about Scottie

00:19:34.180 Pippin. And they're saying how when he showed up at college, he grew within the span of like

00:19:45.000 four months, five months, six months, he grew like a foot. And as I was watching this, you know,

00:19:53.080 they don't say it explicitly on the show. They talk about how he grew up really poor. There were

00:19:58.860 a lot of people in his family. His parents tried as hard as they could to provide as much as they

00:20:03.860 could, but they're just, there wasn't enough food. And what happened when he got to college

00:20:09.400 was essentially, he had nutrition for the first time in his life. And the reason I'm telling this

00:20:14.500 story is just because when I think about fairness, right? Like if we're trying to create

00:20:21.880 conditions for fairness, or even talk about fairness, as soon as you start poking that

00:20:28.660 concept, it falls apart. Because if we want to talk about fairness, we have to talk about like

00:20:34.000 all these other different components of equity that are not present. And what I think most

00:20:40.000 people, especially in the case of like a high school kid trying to run track in South Dakota

00:20:45.000 are mad about is that if you can pay for something, then that's not inequitable, right? It's just like

00:20:52.300 you tried harder. So of course, your kid can have private coaching. That's not unfair. It's

00:20:58.300 meritocracy right like it's totally like class and ability stuff intersecting um yeah where does 0.74

00:21:05.080 that take you I think about this all the time because the women that I'm interviewing not all

00:21:09.760 of them but most of them come from really rural areas and much like Scottie Pippen did not have

00:21:16.200 anything and in some ways far worse right so Christine Bulma right who's one of the main

00:21:20.800 characters of the podcast she grew up in a tiny village on the border of Angola in Namibia

00:21:25.660 and I went with her to her village and it is a these are still stick huts right these are people

00:21:32.520 who do not have enough they do not have enough and in some ways you know Christine's success

00:21:37.920 is has has been hugely influential she's building a grocery store in her village she's building

00:21:44.640 houses for her family she's she single-handedly now is the breadwinner for their her entire family

00:21:49.900 which is many people and you go there and you watch or you know Max and Molly grew up running

00:21:55.920 barefoot in Kenya right and you you watch this you know I get videos sometimes from coaches who

00:22:01.480 have athletes who are impacted by this and they send me these videos of their athletes training

00:22:05.580 no shoes dirt just the middle of nowhere right and for me watching these videos and then to be 0.55

00:22:12.560 told that this woman has an unfair advantage and she needs to be regulated meanwhile you look at 1.00

00:22:18.440 the usa track and field facility and like it just doesn't compute right like this idea of you know 0.67

00:22:23.960 fairness is is always going to be an impossible thing to achieve right we we can't there nothing

00:22:29.260 can ever be totally fair but to prioritize a certain kind of fairness this biological

00:22:34.820 like hormonal fairness over some of these other much more impactful and obvious things in my

00:22:41.700 opinion it just feels like it sort of gives away the game right it gives away that you're not really

00:22:46.620 concerned about true fairness what you're concerned about is this other thing that you've decided is

00:22:51.580 actually you know the thing that you can control there's a there's an interesting um letter I can't

00:22:57.260 remember if it's meeting minutes or a letter from world athletics uh archives where they talk about

00:23:01.620 how they want to have you know a complete biological parody and unless you're like having a clone army

00:23:08.080 compete that's just not happening right that's not happening um and I think it is right like it's

00:23:12.700 very telling that there's been so much, frankly, money spent on lawyers and lobbyists and lawsuits

00:23:19.060 to try and defend these policies that could have been spent giving people shoes, providing like

00:23:25.700 food for people, giving people, you know, medical resources, right? These are people I talked to who,

00:23:30.780 you know, before they became even moderately successful in track and field, couldn't tell

00:23:35.040 me the last time they went to a doctor, don't have any of their vaccines, right? Don't have like

00:23:38.300 all of these basic medical care that you know we talk about that is sort of taken for granted in a

00:23:43.440 lot of places for a lot of people isn't happening there and so this idea that this is all in the

00:23:47.760 name of fairness really does start to fall apart when you look at conditions and and the ways in

00:23:53.020 which some of these people are living who are allegedly you know unfairly advantaged in some

00:23:58.500 cases and in other cases you know Max Amali who you hear on the show she told me she's one meal

00:24:04.080 a day and she's trying to train for the olympics i mean like that's not a sustainable you can't

00:24:09.120 you're not going to be as successful because you know you have to eat like that's a core part of

00:24:14.300 training right like what if they penalized people who had three meals a day they're like sorry

00:24:18.840 right yeah that's not fair yeah we're actually going to take away your fancy track we're going

00:24:23.940 to take away you know yeah like you would never you would never do that right um and it's just so

00:24:30.580 it's just I don't know I feel like to me it just really makes it so clear that this is a very

00:24:35.180 selective kind of fairness that they care about this is a great tee up for our next question

00:24:40.220 which is about a different well different balance on fairness this comes from Shelby

00:24:43.740 why is it that female athletes are tested for testosterone levels while male athletes are not

00:24:50.260 given an equivalent test having high levels of estrogen isn't considered a competitive advantage 0.97

00:24:56.940 Once tested, women are then open to finding out identity-altering information, which then 0.79

00:25:02.360 becomes public.

00:25:03.700 Male to female is a spectrum, with many variations between XY and XX, but only women are subject

00:25:10.860 to this kind of testing.

00:25:12.160 Is that fair?

00:25:13.840 It's a great question.

00:25:16.400 I get asked this a lot, which is like, why are men not tested, right?

00:25:18.980 Why is it only women?

00:25:20.120 And the answer that you get when you ask this question of the folks who are in favor of

00:25:25.280 these rules is that the female category is protected, is the word that they use.

00:25:31.240 The male category is not.

00:25:32.520 The male category is considered an open, universal category, and the female category is protected.

00:25:37.460 And the entire premise of women's sports, the reason that we have women's sports, a

00:25:42.420 women's category, is because, obviously, men are inherently biologically better at

00:25:49.300 sports, right? 0.96

00:25:49.940 That if we did not have a women's category, women would never be able to compete, would 1.00

00:25:54.040 never be able to win. 0.57

00:25:55.280 And so if you're going to draw a line and you're going to say, okay, we have a women's category because otherwise y'all will just never win and never be able to be competitive, then you have to enforce that boundary, right? 0.92

00:26:05.500 And you have to police that boundary. 0.67

00:26:07.560 And that is sort of the underlying argument here that they make around why it is that there's no point.

00:26:13.500 It doesn't matter.

00:26:14.300 Men can have as much testosterone as they like, right?

00:26:16.740 Men can have unlimited, as long as they're not doping, if you just naturally have super high testosterone and you're a man, good for you.

00:26:24.560 congrats like you get to go do your thing the assumption is that estrogen would never in any

00:26:30.200 situation be a competitive advantage right there's all of these assumptions about what it means to

00:26:36.460 be athletically talented what it means to be competitive um sports were built and designed

00:26:42.000 by men and so they favor things that men are good at right and so in some ways they're not wrong

00:26:46.380 that if you just let everybody compete in one category in most sports women wouldn't be 0.98

00:26:50.620 competitive right if you look at the track like women are not running i mean even these women which 0.99

00:26:54.260 i think is important to point out these women who are allegedly super unfairly advantaged none of

00:26:59.940 them have a world record in the women's category um castor simenia is the fourth fastest 800 meter 0.52

00:27:05.440 runner in women's history these women are not blowing their competitors out of the water they

00:27:10.260 are not running anywhere close to male times castor at her fastest would have been beaten by a middle

00:27:15.300 school boy right and so like i mean a very fast middle school boy the fastest middle school boy

00:27:20.660 in the United States. But still, you know, we're not like there is a gap, right? And I think that

00:27:24.860 that's a thing that, you know, you have to grapple with. And some of that is access. Some of that is

00:27:29.060 encouragement of women's sports. That gap is closing in many situations. But I think there is

00:27:32.880 some argument to be made that there should be categories. There should be some sort of separation

00:27:36.740 here. So if you're going to separate, you need to have an enforcement. You need to have a line that

00:27:41.400 you're enforcing. And I think that's what makes this so complicated and so hard for a lot of

00:27:45.720 people because right like if you have committed to two categories then you have to figure out a way 0.99

00:27:52.180 to draw a line there um now i would argue that these women that we're talking about

00:27:57.400 and also trans women are both satisfied you know the requirements of competing in the female

00:28:03.020 category but you know other people would argue they haven't and so that is why people that is

00:28:08.000 the argument that is made for why men are never tested is because that is an open category now

00:28:13.640 Now, I think there are many flaws in this argument, right, obviously, but that is the

00:28:17.600 core foundational reason why we don't test men for anything.

00:28:23.360 So you could have men out there who have XX chromosomes who are competing in men's sports,

00:28:27.420 and it wouldn't matter because the assumption is that, well, of course that wouldn't make 0.99

00:28:30.660 them better, right, because being a female is inherently worse. 1.00

00:28:34.020 You're inherently worse at sports. 1.00

00:28:36.720 If you're interested in the sort of testosterone angle of the ways in which like the ideas of

00:28:40.540 testosterone as is like magical sporting, you know, enhancement thing. There's a great book

00:28:46.660 by Katrina Karkasis called Testosterone, an unauthorized biography, I think it is. And it

00:28:52.080 is like mind blowing because you just hear a some like incredibly hilarious history of like how

00:28:56.540 people thought about the hormones. But also, it just really goes through so many of the assumptions

00:29:01.420 that we make about why men are allegedly better at sports than women and where that comes from

00:29:06.340 and all of that it also reminds me of a friend of yours who you quote in a piece of writing that

00:29:12.360 we'll get to in just a little bit but this friend basically suggests like all of this thinking tells

00:29:17.920 us that they think of being a woman as a disability yeah so yeah and there's there's a lot of really

00:29:26.080 incredible sort of like feminist scholars who've written about disability and feminism and the ways

00:29:30.300 in which sort of like both the systems of oppression right systems of assuming that 0.59

00:29:34.780 one thing is the default right like whiteness or able-bodiedness or you know maleness is the

00:29:40.160 default and everything else is sort of a degradation from that norm or from that center

00:29:44.280 a lack yeah um very much shows up here right this it's very and also I think there's the

00:29:49.260 paternalism right of like oh but women need to be protected right we need to make sure that we're

00:29:52.960 protecting women and you know when you talk to athletes right I interviewed a ton of athletes

00:29:57.160 for this some of them you know didn't want to go on the record but many of them said like I don't

00:30:01.660 need, that's not what I need protection from. I want protection from predatory coaches, right?

00:30:06.180 I want protection from other things, but this is not a thing I need protecting from. And also,

00:30:12.120 right, who are we protecting? We're certainly not protecting the women who are being impacted by

00:30:15.280 these policies, right? And so it just sort of, again, goes back to like fairness for who? Protection

00:30:20.180 for who? Yeah. One thing that we got a question, we're not addressing it specifically, but we got

00:30:25.360 a question from a trans person who identifies as non-binary and they were just trying to figure

00:30:31.140 out like I am at such a loss at how to sign up for events and I've seen I've seen a lot of running

00:30:37.980 events which now have a category for people who are non-binary or like want to not identify as

00:30:45.800 either male or female right and but I don't see it in a lot of other stuff too and this person is

00:30:52.200 trying to be really really thoughtful they're like whose preference do I take into account here

00:30:58.060 yeah the other people mine right like what do I do yeah it's it's I mean I'm non-binary also and

00:31:04.540 it's such a hard question right because you know on the one hand you know you can you can really

00:31:09.480 tie yourself up in knots which I'm sure this person is doing and I very much empathize with

00:31:13.040 because you're like oh but if I sign up for the women's event am I like reinforcing ideas that 1.00

00:31:17.040 like actually I'm right you know like you can really just like turn yourself into like a total 0.64

00:31:21.720 Gordian knot right yeah I think that I often look to Quinn who is a non-binary soccer player on the

00:31:28.000 Canadian national team who has talked a little bit about this. And I think that so much of this,

00:31:35.640 I mean, we're living in this imperfect system. And at some point, you know, you have to sort of

00:31:40.140 figure out how you feel about it. And I can't tell anyone what to do. But I think so much of

00:31:44.320 what I hope for this in terms of figuring out how to navigate that is that leagues and teams and

00:31:51.540 sports groups, intramural, whatever it is, club, whatever, you know, instead of getting really

00:31:57.540 tied into knots about like how they're going to define who plays on what side really just trying

00:32:02.820 to make both spaces as open and welcoming as possible and so that you allow for the

00:32:09.060 athlete to choose and doesn't ever feel like there's a like a horrible wrong choice um and

00:32:14.960 I think that has been and the NWSL has done a really good job of that um the WNBA has done a

00:32:19.180 really good job of that where you know there are there are some trans players in the WNBA who are

00:32:23.280 non-binary or who you know don't identify as women and the league has worked really hard to make that

00:32:28.720 a space where they can be their full selves and their teams and practice and all that and i think

00:32:33.060 that like that to me feels like the more important work than the like semantic wording of the policy

00:32:41.840 if that makes any sense um but it's tough i empathize i've been there this actually this

00:32:47.540 is a great way to talk about our last question which comes from moira why are people up in arms

00:32:52.620 about gender in the Olympics, but not the Paralympics. There are sports that are gender

00:32:57.220 segregated in the Olympics, but not the Paralympics, and some Paralympic athletes who I was expecting

00:33:02.580 to spark similar debates to Olympic athletes like Amon Khalif, but it didn't happen. Is it just that

00:33:08.980 fewer people are paying attention to the Paralympics? Does it have to do with Paralympic

00:33:13.240 divisions by ability? So you wrote a newsletter or a blog post. I don't know. I saw it today.

00:33:21.160 it came out today and we we had this question yesterday like we're already it was such perfect

00:33:27.360 timing so you the title of the post is what can we learn from the Paralympics about the future

00:33:32.400 of sports so let's table set for this question what are some of the things it's such a good

00:33:37.040 post I'm so excited to share oh thanks yeah this is a great I love this question it's a great

00:33:40.860 question um and I think like the first part of it which is like yes in some ways there isn't as

00:33:46.340 much panic because people still see the Paralympics as kind of a secondary lesser event right I which

00:33:52.820 is I mean if you're a sports fan and you're not watching the Paralympics like I don't know what

00:33:56.080 to tell you like it is the greatest sporting event every four years I am obsessed with it I think

00:34:00.740 it's incredible there are sports that you would never see there's goalball there's blind sock

00:34:04.500 it's like absolutely incredible I'm a powerlifter and watching people who have no leg drive bench

00:34:10.660 like 400 pounds is just like unreal right you know you just like it's so cool um and it's just

00:34:16.880 like it's great sports right like it's just good sports I don't know like I just don't know why

00:34:21.400 yeah I feel like you're missing out um and so but I do think that there is still this feeling of

00:34:26.100 like oh that's like more of a consolation prize oh that's more of a like oh it's so nice for you

00:34:32.180 or like whatever else and this year actually there was a really great campaign that a lot

00:34:36.060 of athletes were doing on social media where they were talking about how um I'm they were saying I'm

00:34:40.480 not participating in the Paralympics I'm competing in the Paralympics right this idea that it's not

00:34:44.620 this is not just like a fun participation project right this is a competition and these are elite

00:34:49.620 athletes right um and I think that you know I do think it's great that we're seeing a shift I do

00:34:54.320 think this year people took the Paralympics a lot more seriously than they have in the past

00:34:58.220 and I really hope that that continues because I think it's an incredible awesome sporting event

00:35:02.240 um so I do think some of it is just people saying like well whatever who cares um there was a little

00:35:08.040 bit of trans panic around there's an italian sprinter valentina patrio who i believe is the

00:35:13.180 first out trans athlete to compete in the paralympics um and like jk rowling as she is

00:35:18.140 want to do had her thoughts about it um but there was not nearly as much of the uproar as there was

00:35:24.640 around like you know the boxers or anybody else um the other interesting thing is that

00:35:29.660 there are not eligibility policies at least in track and field and i did not look up all the

00:35:35.780 other sports but i did look up track and field um they don't have a dsd policy for the paralympics

00:35:40.720 their policy says that if you are legally female you compete in the female category

00:35:46.040 so they don't have this kind of testing i think there's probably a couple reasons for that one is

00:35:50.460 again like there is the sort of less of a concern or a consideration it doesn't feel as valuable

00:35:56.820 to win a paralympic medal to people um we sort of talked earlier about the ways in which you know

00:36:03.100 once women's sports become really culturally powerful all of a sudden now there's all this

00:36:07.820 panic and I think that we may see if the Paralympics kind of is on that same trajectory

00:36:11.440 we may see a new kind of push for that I also think that there has not been as far as I know

00:36:18.340 and this doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist but there has not been a very successful

00:36:23.280 DSD athlete in the Paralympics the way that like casters win in 2009 it's hard to overstate how

00:36:29.380 much that just ignited this and totally like it sex testing had gone away at that point there was

00:36:34.360 no policy and casters win just started this whole thing over again right um and so i think that if

00:36:40.520 we see a super successful dsd athlete or you know athlete with sex variation in the paralympics

00:36:47.180 we may see hopefully not i hope not but we may see a push to sort of standardize the rules across

00:36:54.760 If I'm world athletics, it's not a great look to have different rules because it does

00:36:59.500 sort of signal that you don't care as much about winning in the Paralympics.

00:37:03.780 Right.

00:37:04.220 Not that I want them to extend their rules any further than they already do.

00:37:07.780 But so there's a lot of, I think, that going on as well.

00:37:10.740 But also, I think that the Paralympics does provide some super interesting ways of thinking

00:37:16.320 about advantage, right?

00:37:17.680 And thinking about categories and classifications.

00:37:19.960 if you've watched the Paralympics you know that there's a lot of classifications right you might

00:37:24.720 see the same race raced 10 times for different reasons right you have three different visual

00:37:30.320 impairment categories you have all sorts of you know prosthetics wheelchair you have you know are

00:37:36.320 you um sort of hemi which means that like you have half of your body sort of is uh doesn't

00:37:42.600 sort of function properly or is it just one one arm right you know you see all sorts of different

00:37:47.900 kinds of coding around what the level and type and severity of the impairment is and there's all

00:37:55.300 sorts of drama about who gets classified and what classification and how you can change

00:37:59.780 classifications and if you get if you like are too good for your classification they move you

00:38:05.620 to another classification exactly and this is I think the best sort of parallel here right which

00:38:11.020 is that you know you see people sometimes who are um there was a track and field a sprinter

00:38:17.460 um who was in one classification and he broke the world record in Tokyo and basically got

00:38:23.760 reclassified because he said no you're actually too fast to be in that category we're gonna bump

00:38:27.820 you to the next one which is for like people who are less sort of impaired than you you we think

00:38:32.320 you are and he talks about this he makes he made an Instagram video where he talks about what that

00:38:36.380 meeting was like what they said to him basically he you know he says that they told him that they

00:38:41.120 would rather disadvantage him than disadvantage the whole rest of the category because he's too

00:38:46.100 good and i think that is exactly what we're talking about right this idea of like well

00:38:50.120 who is being disadvantaged what does this advantage mean well like does like michael

00:38:54.760 jordan have to play in his own league now because he's too good right you know what i mean like

00:38:59.580 that's like it's totally totally and it is right like it's all about you know what you expect

00:39:05.060 someone to be able to do right which is what we're talking about with you know the female category 1.00

00:39:08.900 too you don't you say these women oh they're too fast we don't expect you to be able to run that 1.00

00:39:13.760 fast and so there must be something going on here and so we're gonna change the rules now for you 0.79

00:39:19.000 individually because we we are trying to kind of quote-unquote level the playing field and right

00:39:24.060 I think that that is sort of you see in the Paralympics you see people um sometimes complaining

00:39:30.280 that certain athletes are classified incorrectly, you also sometimes see athletes choosing to

00:39:35.380 compete up a category, basically, because they don't have enough competition in their

00:39:39.960 classification.

00:39:41.240 And if you've ever competed in sports, you know that, like, if you don't have anybody

00:39:44.720 who's pushing you, right, if you don't have anybody who's around your same level or hopefully

00:39:48.400 a little bit better, it's really hard to get better.

00:39:50.920 It's hard to improve, right?

00:39:51.860 This is why all elite athletes have training partners who are, like, ideally slightly better

00:39:56.460 than them, right?

00:39:57.160 Because then they can really get pushed.

00:39:59.360 And so there are some swimmers, for example, who compete up a category because there's

00:40:03.260 just nobody in their classification who is pushing them.

00:40:06.280 And I just find that all so fascinating.

00:40:08.100 And it allows us to really slice and dice what we mean by advantage and what advantage

00:40:13.280 actually means and how we care about fairness in this very granular kind of way.

00:40:20.180 I also thought it was really interesting that there are so many athletes who are advocating

00:40:25.420 for a more open classification, less style, at least in some of the events, and that the

00:40:32.760 athletes themselves, and we're not talking about just like the people who are dominating,

00:40:36.940 right?

00:40:37.140 They're not, it's not like, like people want that competition and it's taking what the

00:40:42.520 athletes themselves want alongside what people who aren't participating in the Paralympics

00:40:49.500 who may or may not be disabled themselves what they decide like what they think would create a

00:40:56.560 a more equitable playing field right like it's just this really interesting contrast yeah well

00:41:02.740 right and so i i started hearing murmurings about this years ago when i was doing that reporting on

00:41:06.620 these like fancy prosthetic legs as people were sort of saying like well you know like scout

00:41:10.640 bassett and and other you know paralympians were saying well what if we rethink this classification

00:41:17.000 system um and this year uh hunter woodhall who is the one of this sort of duo is his wife tara

00:41:24.580 they're very good on instagram they're very fun if you don't if you like sort of following fun

00:41:28.320 people who couples who love to support each other they are like very much in that realm um and they

00:41:33.100 seem very sweet she won gold at the olympics in the long jump and he won gold in the 400 meter

00:41:39.780 at the paralympics in his classification and they're very sweet they seem very they're in love

00:41:44.480 it's great um but uh he said um they actually at the usa track and field trials they they did one

00:41:50.680 of the a couple of these um sort of what they call universal races which is basically that

00:41:54.740 it's just based on time if you run between this time and this time you can race in this race

00:41:58.800 and so you had two visually impaired athletes you had athletes with cerebral palsy you had

00:42:03.220 um amputees or people who run on prosthetics right and you had all of them racing together

00:42:07.480 and they all finished within a second of each other in many of the wow hunter afterwards gave

00:42:12.120 an interview where he talked about like this is what we need we we should be thinking about

00:42:16.080 classifying people and grouping people by performance and not by whatever impairment

00:42:21.400 it is because when you really think about it there are some things where it's very obvious

00:42:25.480 like okay like someone in a wheelchair should not be competing against someone who's trying to run

00:42:29.320 on some legs or blades or whatever it is right like wheels are a different situation right we're

00:42:34.360 not talking about that wheel yes wheels work differently but like do what is the actual

00:42:40.380 performance advantage when you think about someone who is blind versus somebody who is

00:42:45.220 running on prosthetics does one person have a true advantage over another person like and what

00:42:50.620 would it be and how would we know for me it makes me think about you know we talked earlier about

00:42:54.960 this like hypothetical right we talked about like oh this hypothetical army of like athletes who

00:42:58.980 are going to come and dominate or whatever and in some ways the Paralympics are sort of similarly

00:43:03.480 thinking about what is are we starting from the end point are we starting from the what is the

00:43:09.520 time and how fast can you actually run or are we starting from the assumption of how fast you

00:43:14.180 should be able to run and that's what we're doing the way it works now is the for is the latter

00:43:19.180 the assumption that if you are in t64 you should be able to run about this fast and if you are in

00:43:25.100 t63 you should be able to run this fast and if you run too fast in t63 you should be moved to

00:43:30.020 see t64 right and or should we be thinking about it from how fast are you and should you just run

00:43:35.660 in a group with people who are about as fast as you. And I think that's a really interesting

00:43:40.040 reframing of the way we think about categories, because it doesn't start from the biological.

00:43:44.480 It doesn't start from the individual person and what they may or may not be able to do,

00:43:48.100 what their body may or may not be configured for. It starts from how fast can you run? How

00:43:52.400 fast can you swim? And I think that's really interesting. It brings to mind a word that we

00:43:56.900 don't use anymore, which is handicapped, right? And how we used to think of a disability as

00:44:02.380 a way that you like you had a handicap which in golf right is like the number of points

00:44:08.840 that you are given like quantifying yeah what you are not able to do and it strikes me again

00:44:16.560 too that like so much of this conversation is panic in a world where we are trying to quantify

00:44:23.300 and know everything that there are things that are unknowable that are that's the joy of sports

00:44:30.460 I know end of life right it's true I just that's the thing like I don't know I I know that there

00:44:36.600 are some people and people who I know who I you know are friends with who love like the quant

00:44:40.840 stuff they love the stats they love all that but like the the thing that is magical about sports

00:44:46.420 and as you say life is the moments where someone does something that you don't expect that you

00:44:50.520 that shouldn't work right like that shouldn't happen Usain Bolt when he first comes onto the

00:44:55.720 scene everyone's like no way he's too tall he's too big like he doesn't have whatever and he's

00:45:00.720 the greatest sprinter to have ever sprinted male sprinter I just feel like there's that's the thing

00:45:05.180 that's so magical is when someone like turns and makes a shot that they should not have any right

00:45:10.120 to make right like that's the stuff that like you watch people who do things but you're like

00:45:14.820 how did you do that like Marta iconic soccer player you watch her and you're like how did

00:45:20.120 how did you do that how did you do that there's no that should not be possible you shouldn't be

00:45:24.360 able to do that and that's the thing that is so amazing about watching sports and I feel like so

00:45:29.320 much of this conversation just loses that magic of that excitement and that joy of watching people

00:45:36.080 break records or do things that are just I don't know unreal and that's why we watch sports I don't

00:45:42.000 watch sports because I care about like the vaginal configuration of the athletes like that's not why

00:45:46.560 I'm watching right like I mean there may be some men for which that's why they're watching and 0.70

00:45:49.780 most people should think about their lives but um but you know what I mean I just feel like it just

00:45:55.460 you you get so people get so lost in these conversations that they forget like what the

00:46:00.360 joy of sports are all about I don't know that's my like rant about this yeah no and that answers

00:46:05.520 what I was gonna have to be my my last question which is what do you want the listeners have

00:46:09.360 tested to like think about as they walk away from the show and like that's part of it but if there's

00:46:14.460 other things that you want to talk about too yeah I mean I do think right like so so much of this I

00:46:19.720 mean there are some people who are like I don't care about sports like I don't like sports and

00:46:22.260 that's fine right like there are things I don't care about right like uh whatever but I do think

00:46:26.840 that sometimes especially when we get into conversations around like you know the inclusion

00:46:30.200 of trans women in sports and again it's only ever women people don't care if trans men compete right

00:46:34.940 because the assumption is that they couldn't possibly be good because they're actually

00:46:37.300 secretly women and women are bad at sports um it just feels like this moment of like are you

00:46:43.220 watching sports because you love sports or are you watching sports because you are secretly a cop

00:46:48.400 in your mind and you want to like you love rules and you want to like police people because if

00:46:53.720 that's the case then like I don't know like I feel like you're not enjoying sports that much right

00:46:58.300 um and I just I want to watch people do what they love and do it well and I don't really care right

00:47:05.500 if what their body is or isn't like and so I think that that's one thing but the other thing for

00:47:11.580 tested in particular I think my biggest goal for the show just because I knew that the show was

00:47:17.340 never going to force you know world athletics to change their policies right they have committed

00:47:22.440 so many resources they've gone to international court they've been you know they they have they've

00:47:27.400 committed to this but so my real goal was to really try and help people a have hard conversations

00:47:32.660 about this when things come up and I think it is often confusing and if you're new to it you're

00:47:36.060 just like I don't know like do they have an advantage I you know it's hard there's a lot

00:47:40.100 of muddied water intentionally so um but also to sort of remember that it's so easy sometimes in

00:47:47.380 these conversations to get really hypothetical and really philosophical about sort of the nature

00:47:51.440 of sports and the future but just to kind of remember that these are real human beings whose

00:47:57.440 lives are being impacted and I wanted people to just meet these women and get to know them a

00:48:01.800 little bit and so that next time there is a sort of debate that can get sort of abstract to remember

00:48:08.140 like Christine or Max or Annette or these women who you know are very much not abstract right

00:48:13.900 they're very real and they're just trying to do what they love they're just trying to do what

00:48:17.460 every other woman gets to do which is show up at the track and compete and they're not allowed to

00:48:20.860 do that and I think that you know I don't want to say humanized because they're already humans

00:48:25.280 they don't need me to humanize them but to kind of introduce people to these women so that when

00:48:29.920 there are these conversations you're thinking of someone in particular which I think actually

00:48:33.320 really does help have a more sort of thoughtful place it helps land in a more thoughtful place

00:48:39.720 as opposed to just kind of like fairness or like you know these sort of really big picture

00:48:43.880 conversations rose this has been such a delight absolutely exceeded my greatest expectations

00:48:50.620 where else can people find you on the internet if they want to find more from you

00:48:56.820 so tested has a website tested-podcast.com um which has a ton of resources a bunch of like

00:49:02.840 blog posts and essays some additional stuff and will continue to be updated we also have a

00:49:08.500 newsletter which will also continue to be updated there are if you listen to the show it sort of

00:49:12.800 ends on like a little bit of a cliffhanger around a court case and there will be updates on that case

00:49:18.020 coming soon we also have next week our newsletter is about a really interesting new legal challenge

00:49:23.720 that is happening um that i think is really fascinating so sort of continuing to cover

00:49:27.460 this story and sort of what's going on. I am mostly off the social media right now because

00:49:33.420 I'm learning to weld and doing other things. But I'm basically just Rose Evelyn. I'm the only

00:49:40.260 Rose Evelyn that exists in the world. So if you Google me for better or for worse, it's going to

00:49:44.900 be me. I can't hide anything. And also, like, it's very easy to find. But yes, mostly I'm off

00:49:52.060 off of the internet so um I deleted Instagram from my phone which is very exciting for me

00:49:58.600 personally and so I'm just trying to kind of like you know do my weird art projects and

00:50:03.620 take a little break after tested but the tested newsletter is the place to learn more about what's

00:50:08.360 going on on this particular topic awesome thank you so much thank you for having me I'm such a

00:50:13.980 fan so I'm so excited to have been able to talk to you thanks for listening to the culture study

00:50:19.740 podcast for today's episode paid subscribers get a bonus discussion on feminism and motherhood and

00:50:25.640 work totally simple stuff to grapple with but melody and i are going to talk about it and that's

00:50:32.680 all thanks to a great question submitted for ask and anything if you want to hear it head to

00:50:38.000 culturestudypod.substack.com and become a paid subscriber today and whether or not you chip in

00:50:44.320 be sure to actually subscribe to this show, like in your podcast app, wherever and however you get

00:50:50.200 your podcasts. We have so many great episodes in the works, and I promise you don't want to miss

00:50:54.940 any of them. And if you want to suggest a topic or ask a question about the culture that surrounds

00:50:59.940 you or submit a question for our subscriber only advice time segment, go to our Google form at

00:51:05.880 tinyurl.com slash culture study pod, or check the show notes for a link. We are going to start

00:51:13.520 planning our new year very soon. And we need new episode ideas. So that's where you can submit

00:51:19.920 them. We want to hear everything. The Culture Study podcast is produced by me, Anne Helen

00:51:24.560 Peterson, and Melody Rowell. Our music is by Poddington Bear. You can find me on Instagram

00:51:29.300 at Anne Helen Peterson, Melody at Melodias47, and the show at Culture Study Pod.

Culture Study Podcast - November 13, 2024

Women's Sports and Gender Panic

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