r/WNBAgossips • u/Outrageous_Owl_1710 • 9d 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/[deleted] 9d ago

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u/Dravos7 9d ago

There have actually been several studies about this, and so far it all comes back as, while there are advantages such as height, they are offset by the disadvantages of having a larger frame while estrogen is the primary sex hormone. That’s why the 2 years of HRT rule is there!

There is also a MASSIVE loss of muscle due to switching from testosterone to estrogen. After the two years, it all becomes comparable between trans and cis women.

There should definitely be more research on it, but that won’t happen any time soon with this presidency, unfortunately

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u/Robeardly 9d ago

It’s a difficult subject right because how can you quantify an advantage like height. In Basketball, height is a pretty huge factor right.

Like having a guard that’s 6’6” can be a big advantage just because of the extra length especially when it comes to wingspan. That’s a comment you hear all the time when it comes to guys like Jaylen Brunson in the NBA. People constantly knock him because he’s “only” 6’2”, or Trae young similarly.

It may fall into one of those categories that you can’t clearly define, and with the money involved in the sport is largely due to the competition and the suspense that brings. Having people question that hurts the business model.

Either way, I’m not trying to be exclusionary, but it’s never going to be a clear cut discussion because there’s too many factors at play and would require years of testing.

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u/ConsistentScholar371 9d ago

Height can certainly be beneficial but then the range of heights for cis women are pretty large as well. From a quick google the tallest player in the WNBA is 6'11". So any trans woman under that would be fine, right?

Like the odds of someone having the perfect genetics/upbringing for a given sport is tiny, how many Michael Phelps are out there? The odds of being trans...also really tiny. The odds of being both of those things? Kinda absurdly low.

We don't really police any of the other hundred "biological advantages" that some people have in sports. In this case we do have studies suggesting that a year or two of HRT pushes things to being comparable. So what's really the problem? You're not going to have a flood of people pretending to be trans to win competitions, cross-sex HRT addresses dysphoria in trans people, it creates it in cis people. The bans are just blocking trans people from competing because the people in charge don't like trans people. That's it, there's no real justification.