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Hi there, it's Rose. This

0:22

is the final episode of Tested. And at

0:24

the very end of this episode, there are

0:26

two bad words. Quicker,

0:31

quicker, quicker. Go, go, go, go. Don't be

0:34

that up, up. It's a quick movement, right?

0:37

Christine Bulma trains in a nondescript

0:40

gym in Windhoek, the capital of

0:42

Namibia. It's not fancy,

0:44

and it's certainly not private. She's

0:47

training next to middle-aged men who are

0:50

just trying to get their workout in

0:52

before they head into the office, while

0:54

her coach, Henk Bota, pushes her. Lift

0:57

it up, Christine. Your

0:59

mind is the strongest I've seen in an athlete,

1:01

so show me your mind, Christine. Come

1:04

on, Christine. Come on, Christine. At

1:07

one point, Christine is sitting against a

1:09

wall, her legs at a 90-degree angle,

1:11

holding a medicine ball out in front

1:13

of her. I know the

1:15

pain is there, but you're not going to give up. You're not

1:17

going to give up. We

1:21

don't give up. She has to keep the

1:24

position for a full minute. I

1:26

want more. Come

1:30

on. Yes, yes,

1:32

yes. Five, three.

1:35

Thank you. Thank

1:38

you. This

1:48

is the life of an elite

1:51

athlete. Before the spotlight,

1:53

the glory, the finish line at the

1:56

Olympics, there is this. Pain

1:59

and spirit. sweat and unglamorous days

2:01

at the gym. And

2:04

for Christine, she's had to go

2:06

through more than just hard workouts.

2:09

Her road to Paris included things that

2:11

almost no other athletes have to go

2:14

through, regular blood

2:16

tests and drugs. But

2:19

just like every other athlete, Christine

2:21

still had to run an Olympic

2:23

qualifying time by the deadline, June

2:26

30th. And after

2:28

failing to qualify at the Kip Cano

2:30

Classic back in April, time

2:32

was running out. Over

2:39

in Kenya, Maximila Imali was doing

2:41

her own kind of training, preparing

2:44

for her case at the Court of Arbitration

2:46

for Sport, or CAS. When

2:49

I called her in April, she told me

2:51

she was constantly in touch with the people

2:53

helping with her case. I

2:55

always talk to them because they need

2:57

to prepare me very well, we need to actually

3:00

prepare for their testimonies and everything.

3:03

Not being able to compete in elite

3:05

races has taken a toll on Max's

3:07

income. She told me that

3:09

she struggles to find the money to continue

3:11

in athletics. She has to

3:14

scramble and scrounge to pay her coach, get

3:16

to the track, and even to

3:18

feed herself. Sometimes,

3:21

like yesterday, you know, I

3:23

went the whole day until 20, 30

3:25

p.m. At

3:27

that time is the time that

3:30

I ate something. It's

3:32

not good. I need at least 12

3:34

good diets, and

3:36

all of these things need money. I

3:40

went bankrupt, totally bankrupt. I

3:43

have nothing to my account, so I'm fighting

3:45

this alone. And it

3:48

was very painful. Christine

3:54

and Max are just two of the

3:56

women impacted by these policies. They

3:59

chose different paths. Take

4:01

the medications, take world athletics

4:03

to court, but they're

4:05

both living with the effects of these

4:08

policies every single day. And

4:10

over the last few months, they've both been

4:12

preparing for one of the hardest things they've

4:15

ever done. And

4:17

on this final episode, you're going

4:19

to find out how it went for each of them.

4:22

And how their stories could affect

4:24

so many other athletes. From

4:28

CBC and NPR's Embedded, this

4:31

is Tested. I'm Rose Evelyn. Support

4:48

for this podcast and the following message come

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6:19

April, Max was just a week away from

6:22

flying to Switzerland to present her case

6:24

to the Court of Arbitration for Sport,

6:26

or CAS. Now

6:28

I'm so nervous because it's my first time

6:30

to go and contest the case. Sometimes you

6:32

feel that like, this case, are we

6:35

going to win this case or what are we going

6:37

to do? Are you allowed to talk to

6:39

people during the case? You will

6:41

not be there? No, I can't be there.

6:43

I was hoping, but I can't come. Okay,

6:45

I'll be talking to you. Actually, we'll

6:48

be talking. On

6:50

that call, Max and I made a plan that I would

6:52

call her every day at the end of the hearings so

6:54

we could talk about how it went. And

6:57

on the first day of the case, I

6:59

called. And instead of

7:02

answering, Max sent a cryptic note,

7:04

asking me to talk to her lawyers. Something

7:08

unexpected had happened, and I made a

7:10

lot of calls to try and figure

7:12

out what it was. At

7:15

this point, all I

7:17

can tell you is that things didn't

7:19

go the way anybody had planned. The

7:22

court has still not released anything about

7:25

the hearing, and no

7:27

one on either side is talking

7:29

about it publicly yet. And

7:32

since there's still been no public decision,

7:34

it means that Max has

7:37

no shot at Paris.

7:41

Without a ruling from the court striking

7:43

down the testosterone rules, she

7:45

can't race to qualify. So

7:48

she's missing the Olympics once

7:50

again. And

7:53

while I can't tell you what went on in

7:55

the courtroom, I can share something

7:57

with you that happened outside of it. Here's

8:00

Peyoshni Mitra, the athlete's rights advocate.

8:04

She was in Switzerland with Max, and

8:06

she said something that surprised me. I

8:08

would say that I have

8:11

witnessed the most

8:13

powerful moments of

8:15

my career in that week,

8:19

which made me feel

8:21

like, you know, life is worth

8:23

living. Max

8:26

wasn't the only athlete who went to Switzerland

8:28

for this case. There were

8:30

other women impacted by these rules who had flown

8:32

in from around the world to speak in front

8:35

of the court. And

8:37

when they came together, they had

8:39

time to basically hang out and

8:41

talk, which is

8:43

kind of unprecedented. Each of

8:45

these athletes have been made to feel in

8:48

the past. You have something

8:50

wrong about your body. You are

8:52

inadequate, and therefore you are

8:54

not supposed to talk about it in public. You

8:57

should be ashamed of your body. You

8:59

should hide it. You should fake

9:01

injury and not say what exactly

9:03

has happened. And

9:06

therefore, this has not allowed them to

9:08

feel any connection with anyone else, because

9:10

they always felt they are the only

9:12

one going through this. They

9:14

felt at this time, because

9:16

they are together, they are

9:19

not willing to accept being treated

9:21

unequally. And

9:25

in a very organic way, they came

9:27

together and said things like, we

9:29

are not going to be oppressed again.

9:41

Regardless of what happens at Cass,

9:43

some of these athletes say that

9:45

they will never give up. Last

9:49

December, Caster Semenya spoke at a sports

9:51

and human rights conference at the United

9:53

Nations. Here's what she said. The

9:56

minute you start categorizing women's sports, you're

9:59

touching us. and we come for you.

10:02

I promise that as long as I

10:05

live, I'm never

10:07

gonna stop. I'm gonna be

10:09

that whistle in your ear. Your

10:11

ceilings will be written Castor

10:13

Semana. So... The

10:27

Court of Arbitration for Sport isn't the

10:29

only way to fight these rules. Last

10:32

year, Castor Semana won a case in front

10:34

of the European Court of Human Rights, a

10:37

ruling that is now being challenged by the Swiss

10:39

government. Meanwhile

10:46

Christine was still trying to make

10:48

it to Paris. And

10:50

after her last place finish in Nairobi,

10:53

Henk told me that she was struggling.

10:56

Not physically, but mentally.

11:00

After Kip Cano, she went home and ran

11:02

a small race in Namibia on the track

11:04

where she trains. But she

11:06

didn't land a qualifying time there either. Christine

11:10

doesn't like discussing her

11:12

problems. When I was with

11:14

her in January, I asked her who she

11:16

goes to when things get hard. And

11:19

she told me that she rarely talks

11:21

to anybody. I

11:23

really don't, you know, talk

11:26

to people. Like for me, when I

11:28

tell someone my problem and the person

11:30

feel pity for me, I feel bad.

11:33

I don't want someone to see that I'm weak. At

11:38

one point in May, Henk told me that

11:40

he was going to offer Christine an out.

11:43

We will have a nice chat tomorrow. And

11:46

I need to tell her, listen, if you don't want to do

11:48

this anymore, let's just leave it. We

11:50

are not forced. You are still a human being. You

11:53

are not an object. So I'll

11:55

have the talk with her tomorrow and I'll let

11:57

you know. Henk and

11:59

Christine had a long talk. And

12:02

after their conversation, he told me that

12:04

she agreed to talk to a sports

12:06

psychologist. And Henk told

12:08

me that it's important to him to not

12:10

pressure her into anything. And

12:13

I will say this a thousand times, that

12:16

it's not about medals and winning and

12:18

everything. It's

12:20

nice to have those, but if it's not meant to

12:22

be, it's not meant to be. But

12:28

Christine didn't want to give up. Not

12:31

yet. So in early June, they

12:33

flew to Europe. Their first

12:35

stop was France, where Christine visited the

12:37

Eiffel Tower. The

12:40

Olympics were happening so soon that the tower

12:42

had the iconic rings put up. Christine

12:44

posed for a selfie beneath them. Watching

12:47

her Instagram stories, I couldn't help but think

12:49

that she was so close, yet

12:52

still so far away. On

12:56

June 18, she left Paris and ran

12:58

in a tiny event in Romain, in

13:00

southeastern France. And again,

13:02

she couldn't land a qualifying time. Then,

13:06

in the last week of June,

13:09

Christine went to Cameroon for the

13:11

African Athletics Championships. This

13:13

was her last chance to hit

13:15

a qualifying standard. In

13:22

the semifinal, Christine lined up in lane two.

13:29

She gets off to a strong start off

13:31

the blocks and then, about halfway

13:33

through, she gets passed by

13:35

almost everybody in the field. Then

13:46

came in last, again. Her

13:49

time was 12 seconds flat, nearly

13:52

a second too slow to qualify.

14:00

Christine would officially miss the Olympics

14:02

in Paris. You

14:04

know, it was just everything went wrong. We

14:06

thought that would be our big one, but

14:09

everything didn't work out. Yeah, was she disappointed,

14:11

or are you disappointed about the Olympics? I

14:14

must be honest with you, I was, and I think

14:16

she didn't say she was, she said

14:18

she's okay, but I can see in her face she was

14:20

not happy about

14:22

it. And obviously, knowing

14:24

it's 20 days to go and know that other

14:26

athletes are on their way and not being part

14:28

of that doesn't make you happy, but it's not

14:31

the end of the world. Yeah,

14:34

it's sad, but it's like

14:36

so I'm okay with

14:38

that. That's very positive. You

14:40

weren't sad at all. I feel like you're allowed to

14:42

be a little bit sad. Yeah, I

14:45

just got a bit sad, but yeah, it's okay.

14:48

I asked Christine how she stays so

14:50

positive and keeps going in the face

14:52

of all of this, and

14:55

she told me basically that her whole

14:57

life has been full of hurdles. This

15:00

is just one more. I'm

15:02

still a president, so, long,

15:05

waste of happened in my life. Like, for

15:07

me, not missing out the

15:10

Olympic for this year, it won't be

15:12

like, it won't bring me down. So,

15:15

I lost my mom, a lot

15:18

of people criticized me, waste

15:20

of happened with me. This is

15:22

not the only thing, the bad thing

15:24

that happened to me, but

15:26

still I stand out being

15:28

strong, and yeah.

15:33

Some people will point to Christine's

15:35

failure to qualify for the Olympics

15:37

as proof that these rules are

15:40

necessary and working, that it

15:42

was only her high testosterone that made her great.

15:45

But we can't know whether or not

15:47

the medications are what have kept Christine

15:49

from being able to get back to

15:51

her previous pace. It could

15:54

be her nagging hip flexor injury from two

15:56

years ago. It could be that

15:58

it takes a while to get back into...

16:00

shape if you haven't been competing at the

16:02

elite level for two years. It

16:05

could be the mental toll, the stress and

16:07

attention on her. It could

16:09

be all of the above. While

16:12

on the drugs, Christine has struggled with getting

16:15

back to her peak competition weight. And

16:17

while she says she doesn't think she's

16:19

got side effects, Hank recently learned that

16:21

she's been sleeping way more than usual.

16:25

I didn't realize she's sleeping the whole day. She's

16:27

literally in bed covered with blankets in bed.

16:29

Yeah. When you told Christine, like, Hey, I

16:32

noticed you're sleeping all day. What did she

16:34

say? Yeah, she

16:36

was, she was like looking

16:38

at me funny at first, but

16:41

I think, um, after the

16:43

day's session again, she actually like say, yes,

16:45

it's true, coach. I'm sleeping more than usual.

16:48

And, and I feel like I can't do

16:50

anything. And Christine told me that

16:52

she wishes she just had more time. But

17:04

it's not over. I

17:08

think our focus was too big on the

17:10

Olympic qualifying, then just getting back

17:12

to running and just get her back on a

17:14

career. So that's what we are

17:16

doing currently. So we haven't stopped with our

17:18

season. We will go ahead and

17:20

see if there's still races and we'll still run for

17:23

the rest of the year. So

17:25

you're still, you're still racing. You're going to race

17:27

the rest of the season. Still, you're not like

17:29

giving up on the drugs and trying something else.

17:31

I mean, she's got a family to support and

17:33

we decided this is what we're going to do

17:35

for at least another year. And then if we

17:38

see there's still no results, then we'll look at

17:40

a different option for what we

17:42

will do then. But I'm still fairly positive.

17:44

She just told me she's positive. We

17:46

will just have to work twice as hard.

17:49

I will just have to focus on my

17:51

season. It's

17:56

not the end of my season. You think you'll be

17:58

back to it, though? Next. Olympics, you'll be there?

18:01

Yeah, next time. Over

18:11

this series, we've followed Max

18:13

and Christine, because they

18:16

are examples of two of the key

18:18

choices, take the drugs or

18:21

fight. But there are

18:23

other athletes impacted by these rules too,

18:26

some of whom also tried to qualify

18:28

for this year's Olympics. But

18:30

as far as I know, based on all

18:32

my reporting, none of them were

18:34

able to do so. No

18:37

DSD athlete, as far as I'm aware,

18:39

will compete in track and field in

18:41

Paris. This

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the last several years, I've traveled around

20:23

the world and talked to athletes and

20:25

coaches whose lives have been upended by

20:28

these rules. Aminatou Seni

20:30

from Niger has opted for the

20:32

medication too. I visited her

20:34

back in December in France where she trains

20:36

to talk about her decision to take the

20:38

medication. What

20:41

do you want people to know about you? Like

20:43

what would you hope that we would make sure

20:45

to include? She

20:54

says, I'd like people to understand one

20:56

thing. Even if we have

20:58

a different body or even if I'm different to

21:01

others, it doesn't mean I'm not human, because

21:03

there are people who judge with no holds

21:05

barred. In

21:08

June, Amina started competing again, but

21:10

it was too late for her to manage to

21:12

qualify for Paris. Other

21:18

athletes have had irreversible changes made to

21:20

their bodies in the hopes of getting

21:22

to run. One

21:24

of them is Annette Nagesa of Uganda. My

21:27

female, old body female, my

21:30

parents know me as female, my

21:32

father know me as female, and

21:34

my friends know me as female. But

21:37

in 2012, she was told she

21:39

couldn't compete in the female category

21:41

unless she lowered her testosterone. And

21:44

to do that, she wound up having

21:47

surgery to remove internal testes from her

21:49

body. So because I

21:51

like, there's too much love for this

21:53

body, I had to go in

21:55

for the surgery. Annette

21:58

says that at the time, no body

22:00

was able to do it. Judy made

22:02

sure she understood what surgery meant. She

22:04

told me that she thought they were going

22:07

to give her an injection to somehow pull

22:09

the testosterone out of her body. Instead,

22:11

she says she woke up and

22:14

found incisions on her abdomen. So

22:16

whereby I woke up in the morning from

22:18

the operation room when I have the cuts

22:21

under my brain and was wondering myself. And

22:24

I was so scared. She

22:27

says the surgery and lack

22:29

of post-surgery care ended

22:32

her career. I

22:35

didn't know the consequences which would

22:37

come up later. I

22:39

didn't know that it would be the end of

22:42

all my dreams which I was chasing for.

22:46

Annette's story was featured in a

22:48

2019 Human Rights Watch report titled,

22:50

They're Chasing Us Away From Sport.

22:53

At least three other women have

22:55

undergone surgery in an attempt to

22:58

comply with the regulations. World

23:01

Athletics says that it doesn't advise

23:03

athletes on treatments and has quote,

23:05

never forced any athlete affected by

23:08

its regulations to undergo surgery. The

23:11

latest regulations specifically say quote,

23:13

surgical anatomical changes are not

23:16

required in any circumstances. Another

23:22

story I'll never forget is about

23:24

Margaret Nerera Wambui. In

23:27

2016 at the Kenyan National Trials, she

23:29

won gold in the 800 meters. She

23:33

crossed the finish line. She had got a ticket

23:35

to her first Olympic Games. A

23:38

moment of celebration. That's

23:40

Celestine Karonyi. At the time, she was

23:42

a sports reporter for CGTN Africa. But

23:45

you have a section of the crowd saying,

23:47

no, no, hapana, hapana.

23:50

Hapana means no in Kenya. Sioma

23:53

namke, sioma namke in Swahili means not a

23:55

woman. When a whole crowd shouts

23:58

at somebody who's won their first Olympic ticket, that

24:02

you're not a woman. Imagine what

24:04

he does to that person. Margaret

24:08

has given up on competing in track

24:10

and field at the international level. So

24:14

have other runners I spoke with for

24:16

this series who have found it impossible

24:18

to keep training when they have

24:21

no idea if they'll be able to compete again.

24:24

Peyoshni, the athletes' rights advocate, is in touch

24:26

with 38 women affected

24:28

by these rules, not

24:30

just in track and field, but in

24:33

other sports too. And

24:35

all of this is happening because

24:38

elite sports remain committed to that

24:40

original division. Men over

24:42

here, women over there. Here's

24:45

Alison Carlson, who worked tirelessly to get

24:47

the chromosome tests abolished in the 1990s.

24:51

Humanity is messy, and

24:54

sports is asking for humanity not to

24:56

be messy, and they're

24:58

trying to find a

25:00

definitive standard or

25:02

measure to make

25:05

humanity less messy for

25:08

the convenience of sports. Sports

25:11

are binary. Human

25:14

bodies are not. So

25:17

what do we do? There

25:20

are a lot of answers to this question.

25:24

Each one has pros and cons. So let's

25:26

run through them, shall we? One

25:29

option is do what world athletics is doing

25:31

now. Ask

25:34

some women to regulate their body's chemistry to be allowed to

25:36

compete in the female category. And

25:39

some athletes who aren't impacted by these rules. Don't

25:43

mind them. We reached out to as many

25:46

non-DSD track and field athletes as

25:48

we could think of, trying to see if any of them

25:50

would speak to us about these rules. Nobody

25:53

would. would.

26:01

Here's Celestine Caroni again. A

26:03

lot of people from Aelion tended

26:06

not to really speak their mind on

26:09

record. So on

26:11

record, nobody will tell you they're cheating. No, no, no. But

26:14

the undertones you got and

26:16

the whispers were that, no,

26:20

this is tantamount to cheating.

26:23

And if we do keep these regulations

26:26

in some form, there's a big question

26:28

we haven't tackled yet. At

26:30

what age should this kind

26:32

of testing and regulation begin?

26:35

Here's Dr. Casey Orozco-Por, a

26:37

medical resident at UCLA and

26:39

intersex health specialist. At

26:42

what point do you look at someone's genitalia and run

26:44

their blood? Do you do it at the middle school

26:46

level if someone's really good? How good do they have

26:48

to be before you check their genitals? A

26:59

second option is to allow

27:01

for regulations, but based on

27:03

more appropriate science. This

27:06

is what the International Olympic Committee says

27:08

it believes should be done. In 2021,

27:10

the IOC parted

27:13

ways with world athletics and

27:15

effectively said it was getting out

27:17

of the business of regulating DSD

27:20

athletes. That year,

27:22

the IOC published a set of principles

27:24

for sports federations on how they should

27:26

tackle the issue. It

27:28

emphasizes words like fairness and

27:31

inclusion, while leaving it

27:33

up to individual governing bodies, like

27:35

world athletics, to make

27:37

their own sport specific rules.

27:40

But it says those rules should be

27:42

evidence based, and the data

27:44

should be gathered from a population

27:47

consistent with the athletes who are

27:49

being regulated. Reading between

27:51

the lines, the IOC seems to

27:53

be suggesting world athletics science isn't

27:55

good enough. Because most of the

27:57

data didn't come from DSD athletes.

28:00

competing at the elite level. Still,

28:03

a set of principles can

28:05

only do so much. Madeleine

28:07

Pape works for the IOC as an

28:09

inclusion specialist. She once raced

28:12

against Castor Semenya, and she says

28:14

the IOC's position is a balancing

28:17

act. On the one hand,

28:19

the IOC framework insists

28:21

that any policies that are put

28:23

in place should be based on appropriate evidence. And

28:25

at the same time, recognises that

28:28

appropriate evidence is really hard to come by.

28:31

I asked Madeleine if the IOC would

28:34

ever step in to stop world athletics

28:36

from enforcing rules that don't meet IOC

28:38

standards. You need the sport-specific

28:41

knowledge to be able

28:43

to identify how you're going to go about

28:46

defining what you consider

28:49

to be fair and meaningful competition.

28:52

So I think it's not really feasible

28:54

for the IOC to be able to decide

28:56

for each sport, actually, what the eligibility rules

28:58

should be. Some

29:01

athletes I met in my reporting said they

29:03

felt abandoned by the IOC. Here's

29:05

Max Imali. Yes, it's

29:08

very frustrating, because, you know,

29:11

they are the head of sports.

29:14

They're the ones who protect us. They

29:17

have to stand for us. They know

29:19

we have been violated, but they don't act

29:21

on that, and that is not good at all. Yeah,

29:24

I'm very pissed off with them. Another

29:28

option is to simply not do any

29:30

of this. We

29:34

could let athletes like Max and Christine

29:36

compete as they are and allow for

29:38

whatever advantages might

29:40

exist to just be one of the many advantages that

29:45

one athlete might have over another. Here's

29:48

Kelvin Charinga, a radio reporter in

29:50

Namibia. A scorpion stings. Why

29:54

should you want to inject it with someone

29:56

that stops it from stinging? That's the magic. of

30:00

a scorpion to sting. Kristin Bomer

30:02

is a bullet. Why then

30:04

would you want to tone down on the speed

30:06

of that bullet? It was designed to move at

30:09

that particular speed. So live with

30:11

it, accept it, and move on.

30:21

So far, all of these solutions

30:23

have still operated within a world

30:25

where sports stay separated by the

30:27

sex binary. But there are

30:29

also solutions that people have proposed that

30:32

break that. One

30:34

of them is to create a third category.

30:37

Sometimes you hear about this as a

30:39

category for intersex competitors. Other

30:41

times you hear about it as a category

30:43

for trans competitors. And still other

30:45

times you hear about it as a

30:47

category for non-binary competitors. And

30:50

some people suggest just throwing all

30:52

three of those groups together into

30:54

this other space. Some

30:57

of the athletes impacted by these

30:59

policies have supported this idea, saying

31:01

basically, fine, sure, whatever, I

31:04

just want to run. But

31:06

other folks have argued that this isn't

31:08

a real solution. Here's

31:10

Frankie De La Creta, a journalist who

31:13

covers sports and gender. If

31:15

we're putting a third gender category, we are

31:17

essentially forcing people to out themselves either as

31:20

intersex or trans just to compete, and I

31:22

don't think that should be required. And

31:25

Frankie says it's not just about ethics.

31:28

It's also about just baseline

31:30

practicality. The trans

31:33

athletes and intersex athletes who are competing

31:35

at this very, very elite level are

31:38

really small in number. In

31:40

a team sport, you may not even have enough people

31:42

at the elite level to like, feel the whole team. They

31:45

just don't exist. The

31:47

last solution, and perhaps the most

31:50

radical, is to simply end

31:52

the sex binary in sports altogether.

32:00

I think that we are so limited

32:05

that people's

32:07

imaginations won't even let us go there.

32:09

What does it actually look like to

32:12

blow up the way sports are organized

32:14

and imagine something different? These

32:18

solutions all try their best to

32:20

tackle this big question. What

32:23

is fair? We talk

32:25

about fairness and inclusion as if

32:27

they are diametrically opposed things, but

32:29

I don't think that they actually

32:32

are. And I

32:34

think the other question we need to ask is fair

32:36

to whom? Throughout

32:40

this series, we've kind of skirted around

32:42

a topic that you've almost certainly heard

32:44

about in the news. Trans

32:47

athletes. The athletes I

32:49

followed in this series aren't trans. And

32:52

advocates for athletes with sex variations

32:54

say that it's important not to

32:56

conflate the two groups. But

32:59

there is also some overlap in this

33:01

discussion. Who gets to

33:03

race in the women's category? And

33:06

who doesn't? Right

33:09

now, DSD athletes are allowed to

33:11

race with these restrictions. But

33:14

trans women are no longer allowed to

33:16

compete in elite track and field at

33:18

all, no matter what their testosterone levels

33:20

are. World athletics officially

33:23

banned them a year ago. Here's

33:25

Cece Telfer, the author of Make It

33:27

Count, My Fight to Become the First

33:30

Transgender Olympic Runner, talking about the

33:32

day the ban was announced. I was sleeping. I

33:34

got a call from my manager and he said,

33:36

it's not good. And right then and

33:38

there, I knew what it was. And my heart

33:40

broke because it was also on International

33:43

Transgender Day of Visibility, March

33:45

31st. So it was

33:48

more like a slap in the face. And

33:50

while there might be different rules

33:52

governing trans and DSD athletes, Cece

33:55

points out that they do have some things in

33:57

common. Both groups are constantly

36:00

biological males. And

36:02

I think that was a strategic move

36:04

on their part to say

36:07

if we don't regulate DSD, we'll

36:10

end up with having trans athletes

36:12

competing in the female category and

36:14

winning all the medals. I

36:17

asked world athletics to respond to

36:19

this allegation, but nobody there replied

36:22

to my many questions. And

36:24

the organization declined to do an interview

36:26

for the series. I've

36:34

spent the last 10 years thinking

36:36

about this story, in

36:38

part because it has so many compelling wrinkles,

36:41

so many people I've come to care about, so

36:44

many twists and turns. But

36:47

I think the reason I spent so long

36:49

trying to tell this story is because

36:52

it forces me to grapple with how

36:54

we try and impose order on

36:57

a messy, confusing world. Where

37:12

I live in Northern California, there's

37:15

a bird called a red-shafted flicker.

37:18

It gets its name because when it's flying

37:20

away, you can see reddish feathers. On

37:23

the East Coast, there is a very

37:25

similar bird called the yellow-shafted flicker, which

37:27

shows yellow feathers when it flies away.

37:31

Otherwise, these birds look and sound

37:34

basically the same. And they

37:36

are kind of the same. They're

37:38

so similar, in fact, that they can

37:41

breed and create a hybrid bird that

37:43

has kind of orange-colored feathers. Birding

37:46

books now consider this one species.

37:48

It's now called the northern flicker. And

37:52

I've spent the past few months trying to

37:54

see one, because this

37:56

bird has come to symbolize something for

37:58

me. going

40:00

to do that. Because fables

40:02

are, by their nature, simple.

40:06

There is a clear villain and a

40:08

lovely little moral arc and

40:10

in the end a straightforward

40:12

answer. This

40:15

story and our world is

40:17

a lot more complicated than that. Which

40:21

isn't necessarily a bad thing. There

40:24

is joy in the chaos. Wonder

40:27

in the spectrum. If

40:29

we let ourselves embrace the bigger,

40:32

weirder, more interesting world out

40:34

there, we get

40:36

to be excited when we see a bird. No

40:39

matter what color its tail feathers are. That's

40:42

a flicker. That's a flicker.

40:44

That's flying over that way. The

40:46

realm! Ah, god damn

40:48

it. Did you see it though? I saw it.

40:50

I did. Okay, good. It was flying from there

40:52

to there. It was flying from there to there,

40:54

yes. Yes! We did it! Yes! Four and a

40:56

half seconds we saw a flicker. And

41:12

that's it. That's tested.

41:16

If you want to learn more about anything you

41:19

heard on this show, follow along with these athletes

41:21

as they keep trying to compete. Hear

41:23

about whatever happens with that court case.

41:26

See behind-the-scenes content for my reporting. All

41:28

of that good stuff. You can go

41:30

to tested-podcast.com. Tested

41:33

is written, reported, and hosted by

41:35

me, Rose Eppolut. And I

41:37

have been working on this series on and off for

41:40

ten years now. I spent eight years

41:42

pitching this story and five traveling around the

41:45

world to report it. Which means that on

41:47

top of the normal credits I have a

41:49

lot of people to thank. So buckle

41:51

up. If you are a credits listener, boy

41:54

do I have some credits for you. Alison

42:00

McAdam and Veronica Simmons, and produced by

42:02

Ozzy, Lena's Goodman, Andrew Mambo, and Raina

42:04

Cohen. Additional development, reporting, producing, and editing

42:06

by Lisa Pollack, who worked on this

42:09

show with me, unpaid, for many years,

42:11

before we found a home for it.

42:14

Sound Design by Mitra Kaboli, who made musical

42:16

magic happen. Our production manager

42:18

is Michael Kamel, who made sure everything

42:20

actually got done on this show. Anna

42:23

Ashite is our digital producer. The series

42:25

was mixed by Robert Rodriguez, fact-checking

42:27

by Danya Suleiman. Long Live Fact

42:30

Checkers, the unsung heroes of journalism.

42:33

Our Intersex Script Consultant is Hans

42:35

Lindahl, archival research by Hilary Dan.

42:38

Our cross-promo producer is Amanda Cox.

42:40

Our video producers are John Lee

42:42

and Evan Agard. Our project

42:44

manager at NPR is Lindsay McKenna.

42:47

Translation and interpretation in this series

42:49

was provided by Vanessa Nikolai, Rosina

42:52

Crossman, and Jerome Sokolovsky. The

42:54

tested episode's specific art is by

42:56

Danny Pendergast. Thanks to

42:58

Laura Rojas-Aponte for production and administrative

43:01

support. Special thanks

43:03

for this episode to Max, Christine, and

43:05

Hank, who fielded endless texts and phone

43:07

calls from me over the course of

43:09

this project. And to Ed

43:11

Yong, who helped me see that flicker after

43:13

I failed to find one several times. Tested

43:17

would not exist without the help

43:19

of so many academics, lawyers, scientists,

43:21

archivists, and more who helped us

43:24

track down documents, understand studies and

43:26

lawsuits, and explain history. Thank

43:28

you to Diego Giraud, Laura Freeman, and the

43:30

rest of the team at the Olympic Studies

43:32

Center. Amanda McGrawrey at

43:34

the US Olympic and Paralympic

43:36

Committee Archives, the Library and

43:39

Archives Canada, and Chris Zolo and the

43:41

rest of the team at the Medical

43:43

Historical Library at Yale University. Thank

43:46

you also to Lindsay Piper, whose book

43:48

about sex testing was an invaluable resource

43:50

throughout this project. Special thanks

43:53

also to Adeyan Jaggabousi, Bradley

43:55

Anawalt, Leon Bauham, Sydney Bower,

43:57

Andy Brown, Anastasia Busis, Dan

43:59

Dyk. Simon, Jake Elsis, Sonia

44:02

Eric Hainan, Myron Janelle, Paul

44:04

Van Goel, Sharon Kinney Hanson,

44:06

Kathy Isham, Beth Jacobs, Evans

44:08

Kothambu, Ben Cattilly, SoundWorks Recording

44:11

Studio, Third Wheel Podcast Studio,

44:13

Elaine Tanner, Sami Macharia, Gordon

44:15

Mack, Debbie Mayer, Frank Montgomery,

44:17

Ivan Arhansky, Celia Roberts, Sima

44:19

Patel, Helga Schulz, Erastus Semeno,

44:22

Sam Sharp, Vivian Topping, Zari

44:24

Van Anders, and Michael Waters.

44:27

When I said that I talked to a lot of people for

44:29

this show, I was not lying. Thanks

44:32

also to those who spoke with me off the record.

44:35

You know who you are. At

44:38

CBC, Chris Oak and Cecil Fernandez are

44:40

executive producers. Tanya Springer is the senior

44:42

manager and Arif Noorani is the director

44:45

of CBC Podcasts. Leslie

44:47

Merklinger is the executive director of

44:49

CBC Podcasts. At

44:51

NPR, Katie Simon is supervising editor

44:53

for Embedded. Irene Noguchi is executive

44:55

producer. Legal support from Micah

44:58

Ratner and Adam Zissman. Tony Kavan is

45:00

the managing editor of Standards and Practices

45:02

at NPR. Colin Campbell

45:04

is NPR's senior vice president,

45:06

podcasting strategy and franchise development.

45:09

At Bucket of Eels, my production company,

45:11

our web producer is Joanna Thompson. Legal

45:13

support from Quinn Herody and Beverly Davis.

45:16

This series was created with support from a

45:19

New America Fellowship. And

45:21

special thanks to you for listening

45:24

all the way to the very end, which

45:26

is very impressive. If

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