Doping

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

I was watching a documentary on the east german doping programme in the seventies, eighties. The women were taking massive levels of tistosterone to look masculine. Once you've gone through the test ostrone gateway, you can't get back out. Most kids have no idea how precious it is to have bodily health and to have a whole body. We think we're gods because you and i are talking to each other over an eight hour time difference in thousands of miles,. But we're not gods.

Biological sex is no longer accepted as a basic fact of life. It is forbidden to admit that female people sometimes need protection and privacy from male ones. In an analysis that is at once expert, sympathetic and urgent, Helen Joyce offers an antidote to the chaos and cancelling.

Shermer and Joyce discuss: What is a woman? What is a man? • conflicting rights: trans vs. women • sex vs. gender; who you identify as vs. who you are attracted to • cross-sex identification • gender dysphoria • social contagions • gender affirming care • puberty blockers, testosterone, hormone treatment • detransitioning • top surgery, phalloplasty, vaginoplasty • preferred pronouns: compelled speech ≠ free speech • trans sports • exclusive spaces, and more…

Helen Joyce is a senior staff journalist at The Economist, where she has held several positions, including Britain editor, Finance editor and International editor. Before joining The Economist in 2005 she edited Plus, an online magazine about mathematics published by the University of Cambridge. She has a PhD in mathematics from University College London. On Twitter, she is @HJoyceGender.