The Sunday Story: Running with testosterone

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🗓️ 5 November 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

Today is the New York City Marathon. Around 50,000 runners are racing in the men's and women's divisions. And this year, for only the third time in the race's history, a number of runners will be competing in the nonbinary category.

The nonbinary division emerged due to advocacy from trans and nonbinary athletes like Cal Calamia—a rising star in this emerging category. Calamia, who uses both he and they pronouns, is trans and nonbinary, and he started his transition back in 2019. In the last two years, Calamia has been advocating for nonbinary runners and sharing his journey with thousands of social media followers.

But this summer, Calamia caught the attention of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, or USADA, for using a prohibited substance. And that substance? Testosterone—which Calamia has been taking for years as part of his gender affirming hormone therapy.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Aisha Roscoe and this is the Sunday story.
0:03.1	Today is the New York City marathon.
0:05.8	Around 50,000 runners will be racing in the men's and women's divisions.
0:10.2	And this year, for only the third time in the racist history,
0:14.0	a number of runners will be competing in the non-binary category.
0:19.0	The non-binary division emerged due to advocacy from trans and non-binary athletes.
0:26.0	Runners like Calcalamia.
0:28.0	I'm not a cisgendered woman. I'm not a cisgendered man.
0:32.0	I have so much experience in multiple
0:36.0	genders. Cal is a rising star in this emerging category. He's trans and non-binary. He started his transition back in 2019.
0:47.0	In the last two years, Cal has been advocating for non-binary runners and sharing his journey
0:52.4	with thousands of social media followers.
0:55.0	But this summer, Cal caught the attention of the US Anti-Doping Agency, or USADA, for using a prohibited substance.
1:04.0	And that substance?
1:05.8	Testosterone, which Cal has been taking for years as part of his gender-affirming hormone
1:11.4	therapy.
1:15.9	Producer Ariana Garib Lee has been following cow's journey.
1:18.6	In today's episode of the Sunday story,
1:21.0	we hear about the process cow went through in order to continue running and
1:25.8	competing. And the larger questions his experience has brought up about gender,
1:32.1	fairness, and equity in sports.
1:35.0	A quick note, and this story will be using he-hem pronouns for cow.
	...

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