This surge in discourse—like most other ongoing “debates” around trans people in politics and culture—is entirely manufactured, most recently sparked by Cunningham’s statements and egged on by a media ecosystem well versed in alienating trans people and stoking moral panic.
Let’s lay some facts out. There are currently no trans women athletes in any major women’s professional league or on track to enter the leagues any time soon. While research into human biology is always evolving, there is no “new” groundbreaking data that has broken open the conversation around hormones and physical advantage. And no, there is no trans woman dominating at professional—or any level, for that matter—women’s sports.
That’s all to say: There is no discernable reason for roughly half of the women’s sports stories on The Athletic to be related to trans people, as they were at one point last week, or for players, coaches, executives and owners to be expected to weigh in on how they feel about the prospect of a trans woman playing professional sports. And while some have met the moment with thoughtful shows of solidarity (see: Reeve’s shirt on the court) or clear statements of allyship (Valkyries player Gabby Williams, I see you), it’s frankly insulting to athletes and fans of all genders—trans and cis—that airtime continues to be devoted to this.
So Royce White is threatening to sue the WNBA unless they let him play in the women’s league.
And transphobes are cheering it on, saying it “highlights the absurdity of gender ideology” and “makes transpeople look like hypocrites for being mad about it.”
But I’m not talking about them right now, I’m talking about a group of the right I found that legitimately wants him to compete.
They actually claim it would make the WNBA fun to watch, that it would improve viewership and make the WNBA relevant. That it should be standard for all women’s teams to have one male player and for the game to revolve around him… and I was floored by this.
They’re actually debating the merits of allowing cismale competitors into a woman-only game. When if we were talking about trans women, they’d be the first to point out the myth of the biological advantage (Note: According to Science, if you’ve been on hormone therapy for two years, you have no advantage… Except maybe height, but tall women exist so…), they’d scream “PLAY IN THE MEN’S LEAGUE!111”
But when it’s a cisman joking about entering a woman’s league, suddenly they want a rational open-minded discussion on whether or not that would improve ratings.
Their problem was never about “fairness”, it was about transpeople having public visibility at all.
It was also just about hating women in general, as their suggested “improvement” shows.
