Lynx-Valkyries game draws protesters with WNBA at center of trans athlete debate
Geno Auriemma on the current WNBA news cycle
Ralphie Aversa asks UConn head coach Geno Auriemma about his thoughts on the current controversial news cycle coming out of the WNBA right now.
Sports Seriously
The two top teams in the WNBA standings played Wednesday, Aug. 19, with the Minnesota Lynx notching their fifth consecutive win, 77-66, over the Golden State Valkyries, behind 40 combined points from Olivia Miles and Kayla McBride.
The focus before the game was on the ongoing conversation about transgender girls and women playing in women’s sports leagues. Protesters on both sides of the argument gathered outside the Chase Center in San Francisco.
A group referring to itself as “Women Are Real” held a protest with the rallying cry of “save women’s sports.” Some of them wore shirts from XX-XY Athletics, a brand founded by former gymnast and former Levi Strauss chief marketing officer Jennifer Sey, which says it exists to “protect women’s sports and spaces.”
While no transgender women play in the WNBA, the league has become a lightning rod for the topic following comments Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham made in an ESPN story and then doubled down on, saying young girls playing sports “shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” Controversy has followed, including incidents where a Seattle Storm co-owner was suspended for five home games for comments she made to fans of Cunningham and then two fans being asked to cover up their XX-XY shirts by security at a game between the Indiana Fever and Atlanta Dream.
Before the game between the Lynx and the Valkyries, both head coaches — Cheryl Reeve of Minnesota and Natalie Nakase of Golden State — were asked about the protests and the firestorm the WNBA finds itself in.
“In the world and just in sports right now, there’s too much hate that’s going on. Too much hate speech. I would highly suggest people lead with love,” Nakase said. “I love to lead with love. I don’t think the word love has been expressed enough. For me, I want to continue to share that and also just continue to support. I know when we love on each other, we bring the best out of each other.”
Reeve, who has been outspoken in her support for transgender athletes, was a bit more pointed with her comments.
“I don’t want to give them any more oxygen than they deserve,” Reeve said. “I’ve said this before, transgender kids belong. And I think, as we’re seeing sort of politically, in this country, they’ve found a talking point that people are buying into, and the only thing I ask is that people educate themselves further on these issues and what we’re capable of doing when we work on something together. And that something is not used as simply rhetoric to marginalize a community that does not deserve marginalization.”
Another WNBA head coach, Jose Fernandez of the Dallas Wings, was also asked about recent debates swirling around the WNBA. He called it “really frustrating.”
“I’m not partaking in the circus and everything that takes away from our team, the league,” Fernandez said Aug. 19. “This (expletive) is not happening in the NFL, MLB, NBA.”
Cunningham’s comments on transgender athlete participation and the ensuing conversation came after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld states’ right to ban transgender girls and women from participation in women’s sports. There has not been an openly transgender player in WNBA history.
Legislation passed in 27 states barring transgender girls and women from participating in women’s sports is aimed at a small portion of the population — 1% of people aged 13 and over in the U.S. identify as transgender, according to a 2025 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA Law. The Human Rights Campaign reported in 2023 that 19% of transgender youth nationwide were playing sports, including fewer than 1,300 who played sports in school. In 2024, NCAA president Charlie Baker testified to the Senate that he knows of fewer than 10 transgender students out of 510,000 college athletes.