Coming Soon: TESTED
Hi there!
You’re getting this newsletter because at some point you subscribed to learn more about my latest podcast — a series called Tested.
On Monday of next week the first episode of the show drops. It's a six part documentary podcast series about something that most people have no idea even exists: so-called "gender verification" regulations in sports. Here's the official, press people approved summary:
Since the very beginning of women’s sports, there has been a struggle to define who, exactly, gets to compete in the women’s category. A century later, this struggle is still very much alive.
Last year, track and field authorities announced new regulations that mean some athletes can’t compete in the female category unless they lower their body’s naturally occurring testosterone levels. Tested will follow the still-unfolding story of two of these athletes: Christine Mboma, the Olympic silver medalist from Namibia, and Maximila Imali, who holds two Kenyan national records. These women are not trans athletes. They were assigned female at birth, raised as girls, and have never questioned their gender identity. But they have bodies that some argue give them an “unfair advantage.” The new rules offer them three choices: give up their Olympic dreams, try to challenge the rules, or alter their bodies.
This story will trace the surprising, 100-year history of sex testing in elite sports that led to this moment. Through the eyes of Mboma, Imali, and a whole cast of historians, scientists, doctors, and other athletes, the series will explore a question that goes far beyond sports: What is fair and who decides?
Now, a less PR approved message from me, Rose:
This project is extremely close to my heart. I've been following this story for over ten years. And I want to take a second to say a little more about how this podcast came to be (and how it almost didn’t).
I first pitched Tested in 2016, while I was working at ESPN’s 30 for 30 podcast. They didn’t bite, and I have been trying to find a home for it ever since. For those of you who have lost all sense of time (relatable), I'll do the math for you: that's eight years of pitching. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it. I mean... eight years is a long time to be pitching something.
For eight years I spent most of my spare time and money traveling around the world, interviewing women who had been impacted by these policies. I hired a researcher to dig into archives. I interviewed historians and read every paper I could find. I made pitch deck after pitch deck, email after email, call after call. And for eight years I got nowhere.
One outlet said they'd love it as one episode, but only if I could make it "funny." Another said they'd love to run the six-episode series but they could only pay me $5,000 for it. I found an editor who loved the idea, and who told me he thought he could get his boss on board too. Three days later, his entire team was laid off. A major sports outlet strung me along for over a year claiming they were interested, but then wound up passing because "anything that questions the gender binary is too experimental for us." A major narrative studio passed because "sports don't do well for us, our listeners are too high brow for that." Another major narrative studio told me they were "tired of being pitched trans stories" and when I tried to explain to them that this is not, in fact, “a trans story,” they stopped replying to my emails. Two places passed because I wasn’t a big enough name to be the host.
I pitched 26 outlets, and got 26 no’s.
And then (thanks to a connection from Chris Berube, who I now owe a life debt) I wound up on the phone with CBC. For the first time, I felt like an editor actually got the project. Thank you for that, Chris Oke. A few months later, another friend (Andrew Mambo, MVP forever) said that NPR might be interested too. After months of back and forth, we had a deal — Tested would be co-distributed by CBC and NPR.
It's unreal that I can even type that. I've never made anything for this kind of audience, or for outlets this big. I'm incredibly thankful to the CBC and NPR for making this show a reality, and for distributing it. And/but the brutal reality of this era of podcasting is also this: at the end of the day, I made a grand total of -$3,240.20 dollars making this show. That’s not a typo. Negative three thousand dollars. Net. That is not accounting for my living expenses.
I'm not saying this for sympathy (although, okay, I'd like just a smidge of that, as a treat) but to explain just how much this series means to me. I knew I'd make no money when I signed this deal. I agreed to use up all my personal savings to make this show because the alternative was to not make it, and I couldn't live with that.
I really truly believed — and still do believe — that this story is meaningful. That it reveals something really important not just about sports, and gender, and power — but about how people think about the world. How someone decides what is acceptable, and what is not.
I can't wait for you to hear it.
The first episode of Tested drops Monday, July 15th. You can hear the trailer, and subscribe to the feed here.
This newsletter will let you know when episode are out — but more importantly will be full of other stuff too. Behind the scenes photos from reporting trips; stuff I had to cut from the show; essays, ruminations, and rabbit holes that spiral out from the episode at hand. Plus, updates on the athletes you meet in the series, and coverage of how things go for them once the show concludes.
Thanks for joining me on this ride,
Rose