Hormones, Ideology, and the Cost of Dissent with Carole Hooven

Conversations with Coleman

The Free Press

Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.5 • 614 Ratings

🗓️ 3 November 2025

⏱️ 95 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My guest today is evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven. If you’ve followed her story, you know she was effectively pushed out of Harvard for articulating a basic biological fact—and doing it politely. We talk through her research on hormones, rough-and-tumble play, aggression, and libido; what puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones actually do; why sports can’t be reorganized around “hormone levels”; and how elite institutions reacted to her saying things they all once taught. This is a conversation about evidence, not slogans—and about the cost of speaking plainly. Carole Hooven is a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and an associate in Harvard’s psychology department. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman.
0:04.6	My guest today is Carol Hoeven.
0:07.5	Carol is an evolutionary biologist and author who holds a PhD in biological anthropology
0:12.9	and taught in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University for many years.
0:19.3	In 2021, she published the book, T, the story of testosterone,
0:24.7	the hormone that dominates and divides us. Because she is an expert on the effects of testosterone,
0:31.5	her work put her at odds with trans activists and others who believe that gender has no biological basis.
0:39.0	In this episode, Carol recounts the disturbing story of how she was hounded out of Harvard
0:44.4	University for her beliefs, and after that, we move on to the substantive areas of her expertise.
0:50.6	We talk about, for instance, the effect that testosterone has on the brain, how testosterone
0:55.9	drives biological and psychological differences between men and women, whether women and men should
1:02.3	be segregated in sports, and much more. So without further ado, Carol Hoeven.
1:17.8	Music further ado, Carol Hoeven. Carol Hoven, thanks so much for coming on my show.
1:20.2	Thanks for having me, Coleman.
1:22.3	So I've met you before in real life.
1:24.7	I've followed your work.
1:26.6	I've followed some of the way that you've been
1:29.0	treated by the institutions that you've worked for. And I imagine people in my audience,
1:36.0	some will be familiar with the story, but for those who aren't, can you tell me a little bit
1:41.5	about, first of all, your academic background? How did you get into studying the topics that you study? And then what has been your treatment from academic institutions in the past, you know, three years?
1:55.6	Okay. So how far back do you want me to go? Well, if you could give me this short version of sort of your whole career, like why are you
2:03.4	interested in the topics you touch and so forth and how did you come to be at Harvard and so
	...

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