All Hail the New Women of the MenBA
Don't dismiss them as trolls
In the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen some stunning announcements concerning the WNBA—and I’m not just talking about actor Hugh Laurie admitting that he supports Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham.
No, I’m talking about the former NBA ballers who’ve declared themselves—both as women, and as eligible for the WNBA draft: Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White.
As I wrote for Unherd, many are dismissing these declarations as trolling trans people. The WNBA’s recent watery statement, reported by ESPN, said, “we strongly denounce the bad-faith efforts to use these topics to demean or marginalize others."
We shouldn’t take these declarations that way. These men, who now identify as women, are calling attention to the need to clarify what is meant by “woman” when the WNBA says only women can play. Because in the age of self-ID, anyone can opt in. The WNBA, not to mention that many others critiquing Kanter and White, is missing the point entirely of these declarations. Rather than clarify that woman means adult human female, the WNBA impugns those who are pressuring them to make that clarification.
I’d like to see more male professional athletes follow Kanter and White’s lead, and declare for the draft in every sport whose guidelines or eligibility requirements leave loopholes by not defining sex. Let’s have the fellas self-ID into every sport, competitive or not, professional or club, to expose what is already happening: boys and men are competing against girls and women. And it has to stop.
I see NBA players identifying as WNBA players as a way of supporting women—not as a way of trolling trans people. Their actions have far more to do with the absurdity and danger of institutionalizing gender identity than they do with impugning people who believe in gender identity, or think they have one that is misaligned with their sex.
That said, okay, I see these fellas are having some fun with it, too. That’s okay. My own daughter, who not only regularly has to compete against males (and sometimes with them), but has learned that she cannot say anything about it without risking expulsion, gave me some great advice recently: “Make fun of everyone equally.” Now that’s equality! I guess Royce White is simply taking advantage of his—or rather, her—newly found human rights.
I love these guys… I mean, gals… Comedy is the way through this insanity.
The suggested men of the WNBA are not the trolls. They are known, visible, and public.
They are agitating against the unnamed, hidden cowards who hide within committees within pseudo-medical organizations, within vast medical institutions, behind instantaneous diagnoses, fraudulent billing records, and unnecessary surgeries designed by Satan & performed by Dr Frankensteins to create a new societal class of eunuchs incapable of reproduction & chemically dependent for the rest of their lives.
Those hidden cowards, Frankensteins, & their enablers throughout the process are the trolls.