“Sports are supposed to be a diversion,” said Candace Buckner in The Athletic, but the Women’s National Basketball Association suddenly feels “less like a sport and more like a societal powder keg.” When the Indiana Fever in 2024 drafted Caitlin Clark, the leading scorer in NCAA history—male or female—the league’s audience exploded, but so did the culture war nastiness. Clips of the straight, white Clark being clobbered by Black opponents, in a league where 25% to 35% of players are publicly LGBTQ+, became a staple of rightwing social media. Then, this summer, Clark’s teammate Sophie Cunningham became her on-court “bodyguard” and a social media phenomenon in her own right. Cunningham recently told ESPN that society should “protect young girls” from playing sports or sharing lockers with “biological men,” and the already toxic “cesspool” of WNBA discourse became instantly more poisonous. Pro- and anti-trans activists held dueling rallies outside Fever games. But now two burly ex-NBA players, Enes Kanter Freedom (6-foot-10 and 250 pounds) and Royce White (6-foot-8 and 270 pounds) have “mockingly” threatened that if the league doesn’t ban male-born players, they’ll declare themselves women and enter next year’s WNBA draft. With attendance and TV viewership at record highs, this “should have been a history-making season for the WNBA,” said Rachel Bachman in The Wall Street Journal. Instead, the season has “spiraled into absolute chaos,” amid racial resentment, feuds, and on-court physical fights.
Kanter and White are “attention-starved” trolls who can safely be ignored, said Mike Wise in MS.now. The WNBA has never had a male-born player, and with about 3 out of 4 Americans agreeing with Cunningham, probably never will. Cunningham isn’t a troll, said Kase Wickman in Vanity Fair. But the blonde, beautiful social media star likes to seek attention, as she demonstrated with her viral “pointing” meme after a scuffle with a Black player in June, which gained her throngs of new followers and lucrative endorsement deals. By coming out against trans players, Cunningham became “MAGA’s favorite women’s basketball player.”
Don’t blame Cunningham, said Joe Nocera in The Free Press. The league could have avoided its “trans mess” just by following the lead of the Olympics or the Women’s Tennis Association, whose rulebooks now clarify that “woman” means “biological woman.” Because that would anger its progressive and LGBTQ+ fan base, however, WNBA executives are responding to the firestorm with meek, meaningless calls for “inclusivity.” Their cowardice also explains why the league’s “race issue isn’t going away.” When the Chicago Sky’s DiJonai Carrington blamed “white privilege” last week, after being ejected for a flagrant foul on Cunningham, the league stayed silent. Unless it can “develop a spine,” the WNBA will remain a “piñata in the culture wars.”
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