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Once again, transgender athletes are in the news … despite the fact they don’t even play in the league at the center of the controversy.
This time, Sophie Cunningham of the WNBA’s Indiana Fever set off a firestorm when she was quoted by ESPN as saying, “I also think with that love is truth, [if I’m] being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
Cunningham’s comments made her an instant Fox News star and MAGA cause célèbre.
Former NBA players Enes Freedom and Royce White have since declared that they now identify as women for the purposes of playing in the WNBA and will therefore declare for the 2027 draft. This is clearly being done as a trolling stunt meant to either force the WNBA to ban transgender women, or to work their way into the WNBA to prove a point about men being better than women.
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Of course, Freedom and White didn’t consider the possibility that the WNBA could require them to do what every other NCAA, olympic, or professional transgender athletes had gone through to play prior to the bans: namely, chemical castration or undergoing gender reassignment surgery (i.e. physical castration plus vaginoplasty). They seemed to assume that transgender athletes could just declare themselves one day and play the next. Somehow, it’s doubtful either would be willing to socially transition and emasculate themselves for a WNBA rookie contract — but that was never the point.
“Men in women’s sports came ravaging through our cities”
None of this discourse happened because there is a new high-profile transgender athlete in the news. In fact, there are no transgender players in the WNBA or on the verge of making the league. Nor is there one in the NCAA, Olympics, or FIFA.
Instead, Republicans are starting a culture war to rile up their base, co-opt Democrats into agreeing with them, and create precedents which push transgender people out of public life altogether.
Trump seemingly cannot go without talking about “men in women’s sports” in every speech he gives, even bringing it up randomly during completely unrelated pressers.