Transgender discourse has overtaken the WNBA, leading to an awkward question: If WNBA figures think there is no problem in men playing women’s sports, why should a women’s basketball league exist at all?
This entire saga started when Indiana Fever forward Sophie Cunningham expressed an opinion held by some 75% of the public: Women’s and girls’ sports should be for women and girls, as should their locker rooms. She did not attack or disparage “transgender women.” She didn’t say they should be banned from all sports. She simply said that biological men should play sports in any league other than the ones set up for biological women.
This is a political outrage in the WNBA, which is as much a social club as it is a professional basketball league. Now, coaches are being forced to weigh in, or doing so eagerly, on the topic, and their comments range from cop-outs to absurdities.
Cunningham’s coach, Stephanie White, and Portland Fire coach Alex Sarama both punted on the question, with White claiming she was not a “biologist” to try to avoid the simple answer. Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said it was a “human rights issue” to keep boys out of girls sports, while Golden State Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase said that keeping boys out of girls sports would be just like keeping her out of sports for being Asian.
Nakase also said that all women and girls deserve to be able to play basketball, and that “includes trans women.” Now, again, Cunningham didn’t say “trans women” shouldn’t be able to play sports. Like the vast majority of the country, Cunningham would have no problem with “trans women” playing men’s sports, because “trans women” are and will always be biological men. Therefore, that isn’t the problem here.
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What Nakase, Reeve, and others are then arguing, by extension, is that “trans women” — read: men — must be allowed to play in women’s sports. They think “trans women” are actually women, as Nakase made clear, even if they are biological men. So, if men and women are exactly the same and you can become one or the other by “identifying” as such, why does the WNBA exist separately from the NBA at all? Why, Coach Nakase, does the “Women’s National Basketball Association” even exist?
Everyone knows the answer, including the WNBA coaches pretending otherwise. If there were no separate league for women, and if the only avenue to play professional basketball were in a co-ed National Basketball Association, then there would be no female professional basketball players. The athletic gap between men and women is too great. The WNBA only exists by virtue of “excluding” men, including “trans women,” because “trans women” are biological men, and it would be professional suicide for the WNBA if it decided to start being “inclusive” to male basketball players.