I firmly believe that trans girls, biological men who claim to have been born a woman, should not play in women’s sports of any kind after a certain age. I also happen to be a huge Sophie Cunningham fan but it killed me when she decided to comment on trans girls in sports despite agreeing with her. I hated that she said it because I knew what would happen next.
You see, people who have hated the WNBA and never watched a game for decades decided to use the WNBA as their vehicle for spreading their grotesque politics. It all started with Caitlin Clark. For some reason, Cunningham’s far better and more recognizable teammate on the Indiana Fever was some sort of white nationalist idle that the freaks on the right tried to make into this metaphor for their politics.
The right wing of the American culture war, who probably watches the least amount of WNBA games has been using its echo chamber, coupled with clips online to suggest that black lesbian basketball players are targeting Clark because she’s straight and white. While this targeting was happening, the refs were apparently looking the other way (no points for mentioning that NBA refs are equally hated by fans). If you go on X (Twitter) right now and search Clark, you’ll find hundreds of posts by white men with crosses in their bios, saying they’re never going to defend Clark again because she won’t speak up about the trans issue. When you search these guys’ accounts for posts defending Clark, there are none. It’s all performative of course.
Then Sophie Cunningham decided to weigh in. Here’s what she actually said: ““I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” She later said, “I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that.’ … I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
As a self-described normie and the father of a ten-year-old girl, of course I agree with this statement and I do not know a single person who disagrees with the notion that biological males should not be in women’s locker rooms. Any policy to the contrary is insane. But Sophie. . . . why did you have to wade into this issue?! You were just fine being Caitlin Clark’s enforcer as well as the Homecoming Queen/kicker on your high school football team.
Before I discuss my issues with her statement, let me criticize the negative reactions first. The Valkyrie head coach and the Lynx head coach have made statements recently about being inclusive and the freaks have suggested the coaches are fine with trans girls playing in the WNBA. Of course they don’t think that. Use your brain. The coaches are trying their best to accomplish several things with their cagey wordsmithing:
- They don’t want to give the right wing grift their soundbites to run to social media and manipulate the narrative;
- Cheryl Reeves doesn’t want to be placed into the same bucket as Sophie Cunningham;
- The coaches don’t want their belief that biological women should only play in the WNBA to be utilized to spread more hate onto a marginalized group;
- It’s safer to take the “high road” and speak about inclusivity generally than to talk about exclusivity specifically.
Certainly there are some on the left whom are going far beyond what Reeves is doing here, which amplifies the issue and gives oxygen to the right wing’s case. For example, the Seattle Storm owner confronted two young girls at one of the games against the Fever while the two young girls were wearing the XYXX Chromosome shirt. The online rag Jezebel had a particularly nasty piece titled “Sophine Cunningham is Working Hard to be the WNBA’s Biggest Loser. And Valkyrie guard Gabby Williams said she would welcome a trans athlete on her team. Ben Shapiro summed that last comment up pretty cleanly, “You only say this sort of silly thing when you know that you’ll never have to make good on it.” Williams’s comment is particular frustrating because 1) I don’t believe she believes that but 2) if you type WNBA into X today and simply search the league, the first dozen or so tweets are about her comments rather than the awesome Aces Fever finish last night that ended with a buzzer beater in overtime or that the Sparks ended the Lynx’s ten game winning streak.
And of course, Clay Travis and Riley Gaines are having a field day about it. In less than five days since the Lynx Fever game, they have now 1) Fired Caitlin Clark as Queen of Maga and instead anointed Cunningham, 2) Adopted Arnya Sabalenka as the next in line because she agreed that tennis players should get gender tests and 3) Discovered a Trans woman was dominating the French League to the tune of 21 points and 20 rebounds and are now trying to recruit her to the WNBA.
But there are no trans girls in the WNBA. So why is this such a big deal?
Money.
The people that care, the people who weighed in on this, they all make money from outrage. Except me of course because very few people read my blog (thank you if you’re still here btw). I’m just writing this because I’m mad. I’m mad because I like the WNBA and I like the Lynx. Olivia Miles is the next Magic Johnson (I said what I said). The Lynx are going to win it all and there’s real talent (beyond just Caitlin Clark) in the W. I even like the fashion that has become part of the league’s identity.
I am also mad because these reactions are part of a larger problem in this country. Outrage Inc. These people, even the people you’ve never heard of are chasing that Twitter money for engagement and holy buckets does being anti trans in sports get you some engagement right now. I do think the phenonomen is basically an “engagement cartel” where the circular nature of the posts, views and likes leads to artificial amplification. Of course, this concept is dangerous because it distorts the importance of certain issues.
And the media can’t help itself. It chases every. single. trans story. All of them. Did you know that public court filings revealed last week that Capital One dropped the President as a client because Trump violated anti-money laundering statutes? But you’ve probably heard about Sophie Cunningham’s comments that girls should play girls sports. Did you know that Trump just started a service where companies could pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for insider information from the President so that they could trade stocks before anyone else? You didn’t? But you know about this trans thing though don’t you…..
Riley Gaines is probably the person who profits the most from this grift. If you don’t know Riley, she swam for the University of Kentucky and swam in the 200 yard freestyle NCAA Division I Finals back in 2022. In that race, she competed against a trans girl, Lia Thomas, and they tied for fifth with identical times. Fifth. If Thomas had not swam, Gaines would still have finished fifth. Yes, Fifth. This experience led Gaines to become the biggest champion of women’s sports being for biological women only. It’s a massive grift. I receive fundraising emails and letters in the mail from Gaines all the time, asking me to pay her money so she can continue this crusade. Thomas swimming in that race (and having zero impact on the outcome for Gaines) was the absolute best thing that ever happened to Riley. She’s a MAGA celebrity, invited on all the podcasts. Has met the President and been shouted out several times. Gaines was even spotted courtside for the Lynx Fever game and took a picture with Cunningham afterwards, which of course makes Cunningham look like she’s in on the grift and going full MAGA (even though I refuse to believe it).
Lia Thomas also swam in the 500-yard Freestyle event, but Gaines did not. Thomas won that event but none of the competitors who lost to her complained. In fact, the third-place finisher Erica Sullivan said, “All athletes — including transgender athletes — deserve to be respected and included.” While I don’t agree that trans athletes should be “included” to mean they may compete against biological women, Sullivan’s response is one of humility and humanity. Again, not suggesting she’s right, but the juxtapose between Sullivan and Gaines could not be starker. Gaines would have slipped into anonymity without her fifth-place finish and Gaines has financially capitalized on her tie.
Another disgusting offender is Clay Travis who is the bloated, right wing heir to “conservative” talk radio voice, Rush Limbaugh. Travis pretends to care about protecting women’s sports but he’s made a career out of demeaning the WNBA and women’s sports in general. Since this story became a thing, Travis has been . . . . let’s just say he’s been on one. Just today, Travis tweeted, “No way a high school boy could defend Angel Reese. These offensive moves are unstoppable” while posting a video montage of missed shots by Angel Reese. Travis also offered to buy a WNBA expansion franchise and sign all transgender women to the team. Travis also said about three weeks ago that Caitlin Clark is worth more than the rest of the WNBA combined, should leave the league and start her own competing league. Travis even complained in February that ESPN was launching Women’s Sports Sundays and then maybe the cherry on top – he asked in 2025 how many high school boys basketball teams would lose to the two teams playing in the WNBA finals and then suggested that none would lose. Clay Travis – a real defender of women’s sports.
Stephen A. Smith, someone who certainly does not need the money, felt the need to weigh in too. Smith said he refused to back down and heavily criticized Reeves for wearing the shirt. Smith isn’t as terrible as Clay Travis and has at least expressed some objectivity in his career. But let’s be real here, Smith had made his money being a provocateur as well, saying controversial things over time. Smith too is channeling the outrage machine while conflating Reeve’s point but did so in bad faith.
There is no good faith discussion happening unfortunately.
To perhaps better illustrate the point about Smith, Marc Lamont Hill tried to articulate the measured, leftist position regarding trans rights on Piers Morgan the other night. Lamont Hill argued that two things can be true at once: 1. Biological males (trans women) have biological advantages over biological women and therefore should not compete in women’s sports after a certain age and 2. We can still call trans women, women because that’s their preferred gender. Immediately after he’s done articulating this really obvious point that most normal, measured people would take, Morgan and Michael Knowles (a right wing personality) immediately steer Lamont’s position back to “the left wants men to play women’s sports.” The position that Lamont Hill is staking here is exactly the position that the WNBA coaches are taking and it’s the position that every normal person is taking: Protect women’s sports without tearing down trans girls by showing trans girls dignity and respect. Basic decency. So of course, these WNBA coaches do not want to see trans women in their sport. But they’re not going to play this silly game either by feeding the right wing grift either.
American tennis star Coco Gauff summed everything up perfectly yesterday. She said this in response to genetic testing in her sport, “Yes, I guess I kind of agree of trying to protect the fairness in women’s sports, but I also do not like the attack that it is creating. People who don’t really care but just want to use this as an excuse to attack the trans community, so I’m not really a big fan of that either. . . .” Exactly. Again, there are currently zero Trans WNBA players. There are no Trans college basketball players. There are zero trans tennis players. There have been rules in place for decades to prevent this very thing from happening; you just have not heard of them because these rules are benign and so obvious. This is a nonissue championed on the right by people who have never watched women’s sports, championed them or otherwise. These are the exact same people who ridiculed the four-time World Cup Champion Women’s team for fighting for equal pay and were happy when they got beat in the most recent cup. These people do not care about women’s sports. At all.
I wrote this piece because I really just want my country back. Unfortunately, there’s a cottage industry of grifters who package hate and division and those people are not going way unless their audiences do. Go on Twitter. There’s literally thousands of posts about this nonsense.
If you’re going to defend women’s sports, you shouldn’t have a long history of demeaning women’s sports. If you do, you’re not helping women. You’re just an asshole, trying to make a buck. As consumers of content, we must understand that our clicks and our views are currency. Normal people cannot let these made-up problems by divisive, unpatriotic grifters with large platforms skew our reality.
In this case, let’s show some respect for the WNBA, the players and the coaches. My gosh, is that all these fools in the media and online can muster to talk about? Did you know that the Lynx beat the Fever 108-100? It was a great game but that’s not what anyone wants to talk about and that’s a shame.
The Reasonable Man Standard 