Welcome friends!
Listen, I’m tired of the same-old podcast-style convos in the Running World—so I’m trying something new: video and audio, yay! In our effort to build better resources for you all, I sat down with the brilliant Rose Eveleth—award-winning reporter and host of the amazing Tested podcast series from NPR's Embedded and CBC in Canada.
We talk about how these so-called “new” gender regulation policies are really about power and control—reinforcing rigid, exclusionary ideas of sex and gender.
I hope you enjoy the conversation!
ps. If you do, please heart this post— likes are a very easy way to support our community!
Show Notes:
I jump right into the conversation, cutting out part of the introduction because …ahem... Substack doesn’t think we have a big enough audience for a video longer than an hour 😒.
Rose mentions The Race to Be Myself: A Memoir by Caster Semenya and highlights a racist, eugenicist research paper that’s often cited to falsely claim that most Africans are intersex. You can read more about this harmful fallacy here.
I also reference Decolonizing Trans/Gender 101 by b. binaohan—an essential read for anyone looking to unpack the colonial and Western hegemonic frameworks that shape dominant understandings of gender.
As you all continue to have this conversation, it is important to recognize how current gender regulations are deeply embedded in anti-Black, colonial, white supremacist ideologies. These systems not only enforce the gender binary—insisting there’s a clear, biological divide between male and female—but they also frame Blackness as “Other,” existing outside normative definitions of womanhood.
When we think about how all of this lands personally, this is where it hits: it shapes how women relate to and connect with each other, and their bodies.
White (thin) women are still treated as the default—for femininity, for beauty, for belonging... every single thing, even in Running. While Black and racialized women, by contrast, continue to be excluded from dominant narratives.
Upcoming Community Events:
Join us in community this month, where we will be continuing this conversation in Edmonton and Vancouver on April 27th 💕
pps. If you learned something new, please support this Black-woman’s work by sharing and giving credit to this newsletter for facilitating your (un)learning. Lastly—full transparency: I wear many hats (maybe too many sometimes), and I’ve recently added “video editor” to the list. In my true and imperfect style, I’m sharing this first draft video with minimal edits. Please receive it with love—and no judgment. thank you! 🙏🏾
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