The WNBA’s Stance on Transgender Players Just Got Messier

Oh my, what do we have here: the WNBA might’ve had a transgender player after all. The league is still twisted like a pretzel over this issue, prompting former NBA players to declare for the WNBA draft. The WNBA cannot define what a woman is — they tried and failed —. There was a meeting, and it proved to be a waste of time. You people cannot figure out what the “w” means here?

The Left has argued that no transgender players have ever stepped foot on the WNBA court, so this point is moot. Indiana Fever’s Sophie Cunningham sparked a brushfire this summer by voicing support for girls’ sports. Biological males shouldn’t be permitted to play in their leagues. In fact, that’s the way out of this mess: declare the facts of biology and note that this league is for biological women only. 

As noted, it looks like we had one transgender already: Layshia Clarendon, who played for 11 seasons and got chest surgeries back in 2021; she apparently is a trans man (via Sport and State):

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert stated publicly at this time of Clarendon’s surgery: “We are so proud that Layshia is part of the WNBA and we know that their (Layshia uses they/them pronouns) voice and continued advocacy will not only support and help honor and uplift many other non-binary and trans people, but also encourage empathy and understanding for the community across all levels of sport.” The owner of the New York Liberty, Clarendon’s team at the time, Joseph Tsai, also said Layshia is “a proud embodiment of our belief that our strength lies in our truth and no one should live constrained by societal boundaries.”

Layshia has written, “Existing outside the binary for me is freedom. I’ve learned that my gender doesn’t fit into these molds that keep trying to hold it down and box it in. I know that my gender will keep evolving because we change and grow and shape shift and expand. I know that as Andrea Gibson says, my pronouns haven’t even been invented yet. I know that we all have masculinity and femininity inside of us and mine show up equally and wholly and fully.”

She says that her WNBA teammates helped her draw a mustache on her face so she would look more like a man. “One of my teammates, before I had my little mustache, she helped me fill it in one day for media day with her eyebrow pen. She was like, ‘Oh, try this!’ So that was such a sweet, tender moment of a teammate just seeing you and affirming you in the same way someone will be filling in their eyebrows or mascara on their eyelashes.”

[…]

Not surprisingly, ESPN, via a trans writer, no less, did a huge feature story on how courageous Clarendon was. The article was published in 2021. You should read it. It lauds Clarendon for leading her team in wearing “Black Trans Lives Matter” t-shirts and speaks about her political activism. ESPN labeled Clarendon: The WNBA’s most influential player. The article, which was written amidst the peak-woke sports era, praises Clarendon for her left wing political activism:

[…]

But whatever you think of trans-related issues and far left-wing political activism in sports, the Clarendon story is a huge legal mess for the WNBA when it comes to establishing league eligibility rules. Clarendon is a woman who identifies as a man and the league allowed her to play, while receiving gender change treatments — likely including testosterone treatments — and referring to her as him in all league press releases, guidebooks, and game notes.

If the league truly believes that gender is malleable, the WNBA has already allowed a man to play in the league.

In order to exclude Freedom and White, the league would have to argue Layshia Clarendon wasn’t actually a man, which directly contradicts the public statements the league has already made celebrating her transition to a man.

What a calamity. What’s needed desperately is a new corporate front office – this commissioner has lost control, and it’s now beyond shambolic over there. 

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