You're going to be. Hello and welcome to Outward. Slate's podcast about all the things that are

keeping your homosexual group chat up at night.

I'm Christina Kauterucci, a senior writer at Slate, and the queerest thing happening in

my life right now is that my tomato plants were just massive disappointments all summer, barely producing anything.

And now, suddenly, tomato season is basically over and they're absolutely popping off like tomatoes everywhere.

The plants themselves are shriveled and yet tomatoes are still happening.

It's like, you know, their brat summer is starting now in mid-September.

And as annoying as it is, I kind of respect them for not caring at all about my hopes and dreams for them.

And just choosing their own paths living their own lives.

I'm Brian Lauter, I am an editor at Slate and that that those tomatoes sound super

queer to me. Yeah, they're like they're like

charting their own path. They're not they're not concerned about you know late

August. Not even a little like like being right on time for the

Instagram that's in the no. Well I'm Jules Gill-ules Gill Peterson and I have to say there's something, you know, could be a little bit,

a little bit transactual puberty can strike twice or strike a little later than plan sometimes,

so you know, if they're ripening now, good on them.

Yeah.

It's a great way to put it.

Switching gears.

For the past few years, the right wing has been waging a mounting battle against trans people in

sports you know just this summer one of the biggest stories coming out of the Olympics

was the defamation of Amani Kleafif, the cis gender Algerian boxer, and falsely claimed she was

...