The Convoluted History of Sex Testing in Elite Women’s Sports

Who gets to compete in women’s sports? Since the very conception of elite athletics, there has been controversy over who qualifies for the women’s category. Rose Eveleth is the host of “Tested,” a new podcast from NPR’s Embedded and CBC radio that explores the practice and history of sex testing in women’s sports. Eveleth follows the stories of a handful of world-class runners who have been told they can’t race as women because of natural variations in their biology. In their quest to qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, these women face hard choices: take drugs to alter their naturally-occurring hormones, abandon the sport that they excel at, or fight the rules made by World Athletics. We speak with Eveleth about the 100-year history of sex testing, the evolution and flaws of modern biology, and try to understand how we arrived at this convoluted moment in women’s sports.

Guest:

Rose Eveleth, podcast host, Tested