Podcast: Embedded

Who gets to compete? Since the beginning of women's sports, there has been a struggle over who qualifies for the women's category. Tested follows the unfolding story of elite female runners who have been told they can no longer race as women, because of their biology. As the Olympics approach, they face hard choices: take drugs to lower their natural testosterone levels, give up their sport entirely, or fight. To understand how we got here, we trace the surprising, 100-year history of sex testing. Tested is a new 6-part series from NPR's Embedded and CBC. Hosted by journalist Rose Eveleth, it launches July 15, ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games. Embedded+ supporters enjoy early and ad-free access.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The end of the 113th General Assembly of Tennessee is fast approaching. Melissa Alexander, Mary Joyce and Sarah Shoop Neumann have reached a new stage in their understanding of the statehouse. But they also face a new challenge: how to square their long-held conservative beliefs with the new politics they've picked up in the year since the shooting at their kids' school. When two of the women make a controversial decision, it threatens to upend everything they've worked for and splinter the bonds they've formed with one another. How will the women continue on? And what do the bills they've been tracking – ones that pass, and those that fail – mean for Tennessee's future? To listen to this series sponsor-free and support NPR, sign up for Embedded+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Melissa Alexander came to the Tennessee statehouse to convince members of the Republican party – her party – to adopt gun control measures after a mass shooting at her son's school. A year later, she doesn't feel like she's gotten through to many lawmakers. But there's at least one Republican senator who's made Melissa and the other Covenant moms feel welcome: Richard Briggs. Briggs has been in office for about a decade. He's a doctor and an army veteran. And recently, he's had to navigate a statehouse in transition. Briggs represents a faction of the Republican majority that isn't often visible: those who are concerned about the GOP's shift further to the right. They feel that they are a minority within the majority – stewards of what the party used to be. As Melissa contemplates a big decision, we turn to Briggs' story. What can more moderate Republicans achieve in the Tennessee legislature? And will Melissa decide to follow the path that Briggs has already been down? To listen to this series sponsor-free and support NPR, sign up for Embedded+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's been four months since the Covenant moms – lifelong conservatives Melissa Alexander, Mary Joyce and Sarah Shoop Neumann – pleaded with their lawmakers to pass gun control measures during a special session at the Tennessee statehouse. Now they're back – for months, not days – and this time, they feel prepared to face the GOP-dominated legislature. But when the 2024 legislative session begins, the mothers realize that the Republican majority's new bills may be more complicated than they anticipated. The women discover a long line of dissenters flocking to the statehouse, to protest bills about abortion, education, police violence and LGBTQ rights. Will the women stand alongside these other constituents and broaden their objectives beyond gun control? And what happens when they begin to imagine unseating one of their lawmakers? To listen to this series sponsor-free and support NPR, sign up for Embedded+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In 2023, a mass shooter attacked The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, and three mothers were compelled to act. Their mission: help pass some kind of gun control in one of the reddest states in the country, a state where the Republican Party has a supermajority in the legislature. But these women aren't your typical gun control activists. They're lifelong conservatives, believers in the Second Amendment and – at first – sure that their own party will understand their concerns. In episode 1 of Supermajority from NPR's Embedded, host Meribah Knight follows the women as they enter the state capitol for the first time in their adult lives. Will these political newcomers get what they came for? And what happens if they challenge those in power to do it? To listen to this series sponsor-free and support NPR, sign up for Embedded+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Supermajority is a new 4-part series from NPR's Embedded, in partnership with Nashville Public Radio. As Americans focus on national politics this election year, we zoom in on one state and its political majority. Host Meribah Knight has been following three conservative moms in Tennessee over the course of a year as they learn to navigate their Republican-controlled state legislature. These political newcomers will confront powerful lawmakers, a dizzying legislative process and most importantly – their own long-held beliefs. What can these women accomplish? How will the work change them? And what might it all reveal about democracy? Launching Thursday, June 20. Embedded+ supporters enjoy early and ad-free access.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The second in a two-part special series featuring conversations between Embedded host Kelly McEvers and NPR reporters who have been on the ground during the current conflict between Israel and Hamas In this episode, Morning Edition's Leila Fadel paints an intimate portrait of displacement in Gaza. She shares voice memos she's been receiving from a college student trying to survive and the story of a family that escaped the war only to find that it had followed them home.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The first in a two-part special series featuring conversations between Embedded host Kelly McEvers and NPR reporters who have been on the ground during the current conflict in Gaza. In the first episode, NPR's Daniel Estrin talks about the challenges of reporting on the Israel-Hamas war and the work of his colleague Anas Baba from inside Gaza.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In this Taking Cover update, a U.S. senator wants answers from the Marines about what went wrong - and we meet an Army soldier still serving on active duty who's been denied the truth about his war wounds. To listen to this series sponsor-free and support NPR, sign up for Embedded+ in Apple Podcasts or plus.npr.org.

Since activist Karima Baloch's mysterious death in 2020, her family has been searching for answers. Journalist Mary Lynk has, too. The documents Mary gets and the people she talks to will lead her closer to the truth of what happened that day. But is the truth enough closure for a family? For the people Karima was fighting for back home in Balochistan? For other dissidents like her, in exile or hiding across the globe? The Kill List is a 6-part podcast from the CBC's investigative series, Uncover. To listen to this series sponsor-free and support NPR, sign up for Embedded+ in Apple Podcasts or plus.npr.org.

As her native Balochistan mourns activist Karima Baloch's death, we dive deeper into what Karima was fighting for and why – and learn about the intense history of the Baloch people and the state of Pakistan. Also – the story of what happens to dissidents who disappear... and then come back alive. The Kill List is a 6-part podcast from the CBC's investigative series, Uncover. To listen to this series sponsor-free and support NPR, sign up for Embedded+ in Apple Podcasts or plus.npr.org.

We talk to the people closest to Karima Baloch, including some who are opening up for the very first time, to try to understand what could have led to her death. The Kill List is a 6-part podcast from the CBC's investigative series, Uncover. To listen to this series sponsor-free and support NPR, sign up for Embedded+ in Apple Podcasts or plus.npr.org.

Critics of the Pakistani government, like Karima Baloch and Sajid Hussain, find themselves in this kind of nightmarish club of exiles who flee to far away countries in the West but still fear the reach of Pakistan's intelligence agency. In this episode, we meet some members of that club and ask: could Pakistan be targeting exiles in the West? The Kill List is a 6-part podcast from the CBC's investigative series, Uncover. To listen to this series sponsor-free and support NPR, sign up for Embedded+ in Apple Podcasts or plus.npr.org.

Before Karima's death, another prominent Baloch dissident was found dead in Sweden. The two deaths bear a striking resemblance. Could they be connected? The Kill List is a 6-part podcast from the CBC's investigative series, Uncover. To listen to this series sponsor-free and support NPR, sign up for Embedded+ in Apple Podcasts or plus.npr.org.

Karima Baloch was forced to flee to Canada because of her work fighting for human rights in her home of Balochistan, a province of Pakistan. But when Karima's body washes ashore on Lake Ontario, it raises questions about the disappearances and deaths of other Pakistani dissidents. The Kill List is a 6-part podcast from the CBC's investigative series, Uncover.

In the final episode of the series, we meet Christine, an 18 year old from New Mexico, shortly after starting hormone replacement therapy, as she navigates her freshman year of college. We also meet Dr. Charles Ihlenfeld, who was a physician at the John Hopkins Gender Clinic, working with many young people as they transitioned in the 1970s. We spend time with one of his patients, Joanna, whose path to transition meant hiding her past, and how in 2023, being visible can be empowering, but also dangerous.

In part 2, we meet Parker, a senior in high school in Columbus, Ohio. Parker is a top field hockey athlete, but as a trans person, he is faced with making a difficult decision: either pursuing his dreams as a D1 trans field hockey player in college next year, or pursuing his dreams of starting hormone replacement therapy, which could get him banned from playing. We also meet two historical trans youth of the 1960s, Vicky and Donna, both facing barriers to getting the care and treatment they need after repeatedly looking for help.

In our first episode, we meet Zen, a Mexican-American, New Orleans native, coming into their transness, exploring its spectrum, as we learn about an historic trans person, Bernard, from Alabama in the early 1900s, fighting to be seen. They're both navigating their identities in a world that is constantly trying to define them.

All The Only Ones is a new 3-part series from NPR's Embedded. Host Laine Kaplan-Levenson unearths the little known and often neglected history of trans youth in America. We follow the lives of young transgender people today and travel back in time to the turn of the 20th century to meet some of the earliest trans youth documented in American history. Launching on November 2.

When Annette Vega was seven years old, she found out the man she called "dad" wasn't her biological father. But all she knew was that her mom had had a teenage romance with a guy named Angel Garcia. Annette has searched for Angel for more than 30 years. That search is coming to the end."The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island" is a new series from Radio Diaries that tells the stories of seven people buried on Hart Island through a range of circumstances. Hart Island, an uninhabited strip of land off the Bronx in Long Island Sound, is America's largest public cemetery, sometimes known as a "potter's field." Since 1869, more than a million people have been buried on Hart Island, including early AIDS patients, unidentified and unclaimed New Yorkers, immigrants, incarcerated people, artists, and about ten percent of New Yorkers who died of COVID-19.