Here's How the WNBA Can Win the Anti-Trans Controversy

The league has a golden opportunity to make a definitive and educational point about trans athletes–if it has the courage to do it

Last week, WNBA player Sophie Cunningham's transphobic publicity stunt escalated into a full blown public relations crisis as former NBA players Enes Kantor Freedom and Royce White declared their intent to enter the WNBA draft.

Both White and Kantor Freedom made the move to force the league into adopting a formal transgender player eligibility policy, with the aim of having the league fully ban trans women. There are no trans women players in the league, and there has never been an openly trans pro player, nor are there any trans players playing Division 1 women's basketball, and also trans girls are banned from playing high school basketball in 30 states, so this policy is not needed at all except for the demands of a few professional bigots.

However, there is another way out of this mess that both puts down the challenges from the former NBA players and keeps the league inclusive for trans women.

Before all of this trans athlete panic, most elite athletic associations had medical eligibility standards for trans women requiring at least a year or two of documented testosterone suppression before being able to play. The system worked to keep out bad faith men who might take advantage of more open rules while also offering a pathway for trans athletes to make it to higher levels of athletic achievement.

This system was in place at the Olympics and in the NCAA for about 8 years and none of the worst case scenarios predicted by anti-trans activists came to pass. Trans women didn't end up dominating women's sports. There were a few elite athletes who competed but hardly dominated and they prompted thousands of breathless headlines decrying their participation in the first place.

In the history of overblown moral panics, few can match the anti-trans athlete panic.

Early studies nearly uniformly show that after a period of hormones and testosterone suppression, trans women's performances were comparable to their cis women counterparts.

The system we had before worked, but the anti-trans movement lied constantly through the right wing and British press, claiming that trans women could just jump into women's sports immediately after declaring themselves to be women (this is the idea behind Kanter and Royce's stunt). They lied about how hormones work, they lied about how male puberty worked, and they lied about nearly everything about Lia Thomas, the collegiate swimmer that basically kicked this all of this as a political issue.

After the early scientific reports refuted their claims about hormones, anti-trans activists shifted their rhetoric, making trans participation out to be about denying cis women opportunities by simply allowing trans women to play. This doesn't work on the WNBA because of the aforementioned lack of trans women basketball players.

Of course, all of this obscured the fact that the current policies denying trans women from women's sports act as a de facto total ban. Anti-trans activists insist that trans women can simply play men's sports, but trans women on hormones simply can't match up physically and can't make teams or competitions because of physical limitations.

This moral panic has resulted in trans women getting completely shut out from organized sports, one of the basic building blocks of society across the globe.

Now it's the WNBA facing down the gauntlet of breathless negative media coverage and protests by small handfuls of transphobic freaks like Riley Gaines. Cantor Freedom and White claim to be protecting women with their publicity stunt. White has also previously run for congress on an anti-trans platform.

But White's ex-wife recently got a 50 year protective order barring him from contact with her and their teenage son for decades after allegations of serious domestic abuse came to light. White has responded by pulling this WNBA stunt, and receiving the adulation of the anti-trans movement across the globe.

This is the man claiming to be all about "protecting women" and who is now threatening to intrude upon the locker rooms of the WNBA. It's desperate and pathetic–and genuinely forcing the league to quickly form an ad hoc response to the nonsense.

But there's one simple trick the WNBA can pull to shut this whole thing down instantly:

Simply institute a requirement that trans players take two years of hormones and testosterone suppression before being eligible to play in the league.

It's the old standard that worked perfectly fine before the transphobic panic first started, and there is simply no world where either former NBA player goes to that kind of effort to prove their point. And even if they did, the gender dysphoria from growing breasts, losing muscle mass, changing their smell, lightening their body hair, etc, will quickly overtake them.

There will be no genuinely trans players in the league for this to apply to likely for decades, but this policy will keep the bath faith attention seekers at bay without giving the anti-trans activists what they want: an official definition of womanhood that doesn't include trans women and a full ban on trans women players.

The WNBA can show how effective the old policy actually was, and maybe educate the masses along the way. I'm not sure league officials have anyone in the room with enough courage to try this, but it is the only viable move at hand.

Let's hope they go for it.

Thanks once again for reading! I had a lovely vacation with my family last week and have returned rested and ready to go. The only big thing now for the rest of the year is my hernia surgery next month and I'm already stressed about paying for it.

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