Topline
The WNBA’s increasingly heated debate over transgender athletes has taken an unexpected turn involving a French basketball player, Indiana Fever guard and years-old joke from President Donald Trump suggesting NBA star LeBron James could transition and dominate the women’s league.
Key Facts
Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham drew renewed attention to the issue of transgender women in sports last month with a call to “protect young girls” in locker rooms that later drew praise from the White House.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the issue is one “the president feels strongly about,” and slammed people who were critical of Cunningham’s remarks.
This week, the story took on new life when a years-old Trump comment on the WNBA went viral on X and French basketball player Julie Tétart was dragged into the debate by Fox News-owned sports outlet OutKick.
Tétart, a 34-year-old transgender woman who plays for Monaco in second-tier French women’s basketball Ligue 2, responded to a direct message from OutKick this week admitting she’d answer any call from the WNBA, but reportedly saying “you have to be realistic: I’m old, and there are far better players than me!”
OutKick then published an article slamming the “inclusive” WNBA for not having called up the player after her dominating season in France’s second division, Outkick founder Clay Travis called the league “transphobic” on X, and Tétart has become a lightning rod for transphobic attacks on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform.
Key background
The WNBA, players and coaches have largely been able to avoid the controversy about transgender participation in women’s sports simply because there aren’t many openly transgender women looking to play in the league. The league has never made a declaration on if trans athletes would be allowed to play, but many individual players have been largely supportive of the idea—until Cunningham. The Fever guard, who has been described as “MAGA Barbie” online, last month said she wants to “protect women’s sports” and doesn’t think people born male should be allowed into the league. “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 told ESPN. Her remarks have since triggered rallies both supporting and opposing her at WNBA games and several figures, including Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve and Golden State Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase, have publicly pushed back on Cunningham’s position.
WHAT DOES TRUMP HAVE TO DO WITH IT?
Very little, in terms of kicking off the current controversy. Trump has been vocally against transgender women playing in women’s sports but, beyond Leavitt confirming he was following the story after Cunningham’s remarks, he hasn’t commented on that or the Tétart drama. But, as those two stories have garnered online attention, a comment he made about the WNBA in 2022 began circling online. At Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit in Florida that July, Trump joked that he would be the greatest women’s basketball coach ever because he’d simply ask superstar LeBron James if he had any “desire to be a woman.”
THE WNBA’S LOSE-LOSE
By essentially goading Tétart into participating in the American transgender athlete debate, OutKick has set up a lose-lose situation for the WNBA. The framing puts the league in an awkward position: If it declines to pursue Tétart, critics (and conservative news outlets) can argue that its support for transgender athletes is performative. If the league does seek her, the same critics could use it as evidence that the WNBA is willing to compromise women’s sports for political reasons.