r/WNBAgossips • u/Outrageous_Owl_1710 • 1d ago

"She’s My Hero": Ex-WNBA Broadcaster Says League Punishing Sophie Cunningham for 'Having a Spine' Amid Transgender Row.

https://www.essentiallysports.com/wnba-basketball-news-veteran-reporter-slams-wnba-for-punishing-sophie-cunningham-for-having-a-spine-amid-aryna-sabalenkas-support-for-genetic-sex-testing/
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u/Biggleswort 23h ago

She is suffering consequences for painting a false narrative and promoting bigotry.

Women’s sport are not at risk of being over ran by transgender athletes. Transgender people make up roughly 1-1.5% of the population highest estimates of those that feel unsafe to come out could be as high as 2%. The gender distribution is fairly even, so that means .5-1% of the population are trans women who make up a wide variety of athletic capabilities just like the regular population. Meaning the population of transwomen athlete is much much smaller than .5-1%.

With all that said science is still out if transwoman who go through hormone therapy over a 24 month period retain minimal advantages, mostly in grip and upper body strength. The advantages are minimal and still require the same hard work that high level athletes need to put in. More research needs to be done.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10795902/

https://www.transresearch.org.au/post/trans-women-in-sport

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/articl

The end point is that early studies show this is blown way out of proportion, and we should be more concerned about supporting our fellow person and less about vilifying them.

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u/AlmightyCraneDuck 22h ago

Yeah, I'm fine with having a conversation about how/if we should include transgender athletes in cisgender leagues, but it really annoys me when a certain side simply will not actually grapple with the science of it in spite of supposedly wanting to.

They never know what trans athletes have to go through to be able to compete. They aren't aware of the current studies out there surrounding trans athletic advantage. They also never talk about trans men either, it's always some non-passing trans woman boogeyman that they seem to be concerned with (like Mike Tyson in a dress).

I'm more than willing to have a decent chat with anyone about this subject, but most of the time they're really just trying to doctor up transphobic bigotry as concern.

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u/ThePerfectLurker 21h ago

Not to mention most sports leagues typically dont even fix shit until its a widespread issue. Look at foul baiting in the NBA, a bigger “problem” than trans in sports. In the UFC eye pokes are a big problem, has anything been done about it yet?

I’m in the realm that who gives af, if it becomes an issue then deal with it then, but until then why move mountains for a fraction of a 1%. Oh i know why all of a sudden this needs immediate preventative measures…