Gonads: Dana

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

History, Science, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Society & Culture

4.6 • 44.5K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2018

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Dana Zzyym applied for their first passport back in 2014, they were handed a pretty straightforward application. Name, place of birth, photo ID -- the usual. But one question on the application stopped Dana in their tracks: male or female? Dana, technically, wasn’t either. In this episode, we follow the story of Dana Zzyym, Navy veteran and activist, which starts long before they scribble the word "intersex” on their passport application. Along the way, we see what happens when our inner biological realities bump into the outside world, and the power of words to shape us. This episode is a companion piece to Gonads, Episode 4, Dutee. "Dana" was reported by Molly Webster, and co-produced with Jad Abumrad. It had production help from Rachael Cusick, and editing by Pat Walters. Wordplay categories were written, performed, and produced by Majel Connery and Alex Overington. Special thanks to Paula Stone Williams, Gerry Callahan, Lambda Legal, Kathy Tu, Matt Collette, Arianne Wack, Carter Hodge, and Liza Yeager. Radiolab is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science. And the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org. Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before we get started, this episode has a lot of strong language, including repetitive F-bombs, strung together to a beat.
0:11.0	Wait, you're listening.
0:12.1	Okay.
0:13.4	All right.
0:14.6	Okay.
0:16.0	All right.
0:17.3	You're listening to Radio Lab.
0:20.4	Radio Lab. Radio Lab.
0:22.8	From W. N. Y. C.
0:23.7	See?
0:28.1	I'm Molly Webster.
0:29.6	This is GONADS episode 5.
0:31.6	This week we're bringing you a pair of episodes.
0:34.4	This is the second one in the pair.
0:36.6	They grew out of our reporting on X's and Y's and all the different biological realities that live inside of us. In this episode, there they go. They're calling in. Dana Zim. Hello. Hello. Hello. I can hear you. Hi. This is Molly Webster. I can hear you. I got one of you're working. The other one's pretty low. Do you want to just turn the headphones around? Or is that working for you? Dana is doing something kind of historic, I guess you could say. Uh, she had a little soft. And just to start us off, Dana uses the pronoun they. Not him or her, but they. And a few years ago,
1:13.0	2015 or 14, I can't remember which. I have memory issues. It's around 2014. Dana is filling out
1:21.2	a passport application, and there are two boxes to check, male or female. And Dana's like,
1:27.1	well, I'm not either one of those. And so they
1:30.0	wrote in a third option, intersects. I basically apply for my passport. Got talked to by the
1:38.3	manager of the office. He took me to aside and said, you know, you cannot get this passport. And they turned me down and I appealed.
1:48.1	You can appeal a passport application. Yeah. To who? Do you go back to the passport office?
1:54.1	I appeal. Yeah, I took everything back to the passport office and, you know, and I appealed.
	...

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