Speaker 1: Welcome to It Could Happen Here, seemingly the only podcast
Speaker 1: bold enough to do what the mainstream media is too
Speaker 1: cowardly to do and let trans people talk about, uh, ourselves,
Speaker 1: I guess? Or the unhinged issues that a bunch of
Speaker 1: reactionary cis people have foisted upon us. And here to
Speaker 1: talk with me today about a... truly baffling and very
Speaker 1: weird and shitty anti-trans panic that has been launched in
Speaker 1: the WNBA is Frankie de la Cruz who's a sports
Speaker 1: writer who writes at the intersection of sports and gender
Speaker 1: and does a very good job of it in a
Speaker 1: way that I was going to say few others do.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, who am I thinking about
Speaker 1: who also does this and does it this well? And like,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I have anyone. So incredible work.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: The other guest I have on today is Bugs Matrix,
Speaker 1: who if you have like been on the internet and
Speaker 1: been anywhere near trans people, you are aware of Bugs.
Speaker 1: What I think people are less aware of is A,
Speaker 1: that if you've ever heard a trans person say, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's Bugs. And B, Bugs was also a trans college athlete.
Speaker 1: So both of you two, welcome to the show. And
Speaker 1: I'm excited to get to actually talk about this WNBA
Speaker 1: Sophie Cunningham bullshit with the trio of former trans college athlete,
Speaker 1: trans journalist, and whatever the hell I am, transgender.
Speaker 3: It's truly the meeting of the vines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited, too. I spend most of my time
Speaker 2: talking to cis people about this, so it's nice to
Speaker 2: have different conversation partners.
Speaker 3: It's so nice to be able to talk with people
Speaker 3: who intrinsically know Ball.
Speaker 1: That, too!
Speaker 3: Oh, God.
Speaker 1: So, okay, speaking of knowing Ball, so the specific controversy,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what to call this, Media frenzy?
Speaker 3: Witch hunt?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Crusade?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Centered around a WNBA player named Sophie Cunningham, which
Speaker 1: I guess people have heard of her now. My first
Speaker 1: experience of this was... Seeing everyone talking about Sophie Cunningham
Speaker 1: and being absolutely baffled because I was like, wait, isn't
Speaker 1: she that bench player from The Fever? Why is everyone
Speaker 1: talking about her?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: In, like, football terms, the only thing I can think
Speaker 1: of is, like, somehow everyone in the world knows who, like,
Speaker 1: the Broncos' long snapper is. It's like, what? Like, why
Speaker 1: does anyone know this? Like, what's happening?
Speaker 3: It's like, she's the drop chap. What's going on, dog?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think The ball-knowers have kind
Speaker 2: of always known, because she's a rage-baiter, she's kind of
Speaker 2: been a professional bench-warmer and rage-baiter, but the rage-baiting has
Speaker 2: really come to the forefront over the last season or two.
Speaker 2: I think she's personally preparing for a exit of the
Speaker 2: basketball career to right-wing grifter kind of trajectory. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And this worked out perfectly, didn't it? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I can't believe this is still a looper than grift. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean..
Speaker 2: I feel like there's so many like places that we
Speaker 2: can like start to talk about it, but it's so,
Speaker 2: I think for me as a journalist, the most frustrating
Speaker 2: part of the entire thing is how it started, which
Speaker 2: was like with irresponsible journalism and like irresponsible, like ESPN
Speaker 2: profile with this like dropped in quote from her. And
Speaker 2: it has, I mean, we're on what week of this?
Speaker 2: Three of this?
Speaker 3: I think we're somewhere in week three. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems sort of like it's never ending. I
Speaker 2: wish it would end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to get more into this in a second.
Speaker 1: I cannot emphasize this enough. This is a player who
Speaker 1: comes off of the bench on this team, which means
Speaker 1: she's not a starter. And she comes off the bench
Speaker 1: to brick a couple of threes and then goes back.
Speaker 2: And start fights.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, excuse me, I'm being racist.
Speaker 3: That's true, that's true. That's true.
Speaker 1: But like, this is not like a star. And the
Speaker 1: team that she's on, the Indiana Fever, has like several
Speaker 1: legitimate superstars on it. And ESPN is like cutting their
Speaker 1: highlights where the first highlight will be like her making
Speaker 1: a basket. And it's like, well, okay, that's the only
Speaker 1: basket she's made in like two weeks. But it's like, why? God,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm frustrated about this, but we should
Speaker 1: tell the actual story. And I think it's all the story...
Speaker 1: I think we need to go back and talk about
Speaker 1: Caitlin Clark's entrance to the league, because I think that
Speaker 1: to some extent is the beginning of all of this
Speaker 1: and the beginning of kind of this bunch of weird
Speaker 1: fascists who are now, I guess, quote unquote, WNBA fans.
Speaker 2: No, I think that's true because, you know, I think
Speaker 2: the WNBA has this reputation as like a very progressive organization. league.
Speaker 2: And for the most part, that's the players that have
Speaker 2: been progressive. The league is a corporation that has benefited
Speaker 2: from the players, you know, actions. But there's always going
Speaker 2: to be conservative, you know, players or people in kind
Speaker 2: of any atmosphere. And Sophie Cunningham, if you've followed her
Speaker 2: since her college career, has always been that. She, you know,
Speaker 2: was known for being racist when she was at Mizzou. Like,
Speaker 2: there was the meme of her and Kalia Copper when
Speaker 2: they were both on different teams. They really did not
Speaker 2: get along. This is a reputation that Sophie has had
Speaker 2: for a long time and on its own just would
Speaker 2: have been, I think, you know, again, a random bench
Speaker 2: player that most people didn't know. But Kaitlyn Clark coming
Speaker 2: to the WNBA and being as high profile as she
Speaker 2: was and the way she was framed as the next
Speaker 2: great white straight cis hope for this league really brought
Speaker 2: a particular kind of culture and fan with her. And
Speaker 2: so I think without Kaitlyn Clark coming into the league
Speaker 2: and MAGA people and right-wing people seeing her as a
Speaker 2: way to kind of gain a foothold with this league,
Speaker 2: I don't think Sophie blows up in the way that
Speaker 2: she does, especially when you consider that right She's been
Speaker 2: brought to the Fever as essentially Caitlin Clark's enforcer because
Speaker 2: Caitlin Clark can't play defense or hold her own on
Speaker 2: the court at all.
Speaker 3: I swear to God.
Speaker 1: It's like this team, I keep doing cross-sports comparisons, but
Speaker 1: it's like the Fever are this weird team where it's
Speaker 1: like they're like last year's Cowboys where it's like a... weird,
Speaker 1: weird white fan base that also pulls in a bunch
Speaker 1: of random, like, I just kind of know about football fans. B,
Speaker 1: elite offense. Literally cannot play defense at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and, like, this isn't hockey. We don't have enforcers
Speaker 2: in women's basketball in the same way.
Speaker 3: Right, it's not full contact like this, dog. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's worth kind of talking about the racial
Speaker 1: dynamics of this because a lot of the initial hype around...
Speaker 1: Caitlin Clark was this weird sort of like, yeah, like
Speaker 1: what you're saying, Frankie, like this great white hope stuff.
Speaker 1: And like her rival was like, she was like set
Speaker 1: up against Angel Reese, who's a black player, who is
Speaker 1: very weird and interesting basketball player. But unfortunately, nobody really
Speaker 1: cares about that because everyone, there's just this like racist
Speaker 1: sort of panic around this whole thing to, to the
Speaker 1: extent where like, there's like congressmen everywhere. who are talking about, like,
Speaker 1: starting investigations into Caitlin Clark's, like, fouls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it's important to, like, point out
Speaker 2: whether you want to be super generous and put none
Speaker 2: of this onto Caitlin and say she's an avatar for
Speaker 2: whatever culture war the right is waging, or you want
Speaker 2: to say she really should have been shouting this down
Speaker 2: a long time ago and she's, whether she believes this
Speaker 2: or not, she's in part responsible because, you know, she's
Speaker 2: complicit in her silence. Whichever kind of route you want
Speaker 2: to take with that what you can't deny is that
Speaker 2: every time she flops or is you know takes a
Speaker 2: hard foul against a player who is black queer masculine
Speaker 2: it gets blown up the player on the other end
Speaker 2: of that is getting you know death threats they're dealing
Speaker 2: with harassment and abuse and racial slurs and this has
Speaker 2: been a pattern that goes back to her rookie season
Speaker 2: And so there is very much a gender component, right?
Speaker 2: A racial component to how Caitlin Clark is being received
Speaker 2: by this fan base and how her opponents in a
Speaker 2: predominantly Black, overwhelmingly queer league are also being received.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And circling back to what you were saying about
Speaker 1: whether or not Caitlin Clark is, you know, either you
Speaker 1: think either she's complicit or not in this, like that
Speaker 1: is the base of people who have surrounded her. And
Speaker 1: that's been the basis of the way that sports media
Speaker 1: also has, has interacted with her because if you're sports media,
Speaker 1: you know, there's an enormous incentive to just sort of
Speaker 1: drive out this like racist drivel and like, you know,
Speaker 1: make clips of like every single time she gets knocked
Speaker 1: down or something, or every time she just like flops
Speaker 1: when someone like is like even vaguely in her proximity.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It creates this sort of feedback loop of it where
Speaker 1: you have– on the one hand, you have these white
Speaker 1: supremacists who feed off of this stuff and want to
Speaker 1: use this as an avenue to push their racism. But
Speaker 1: then also that develops this symbiotic relationship with the sports
Speaker 1: media who are like, yeah, we can make money off
Speaker 1: of this. of this. And we're sort of like this
Speaker 1: a lot of the time anyways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've been covering the WNBA for about a
Speaker 2: decade since it was just lesbians and old people in
Speaker 2: the stands. And those were the best days, I will say.
Speaker 2: And as someone who has covered the league for that
Speaker 2: long and been to as many games as I have,
Speaker 2: I will obviously say not all Fever fans feel a
Speaker 2: particular way or believe a certain thing. Of course, that's
Speaker 2: the case. I've also seen the shift in the three
Speaker 2: years that Caitlin Clark has been in the league of
Speaker 2: who shows up to the Fever games. And as we
Speaker 2: will continue to talk about, I think, as we talk
Speaker 2: about Sophie, now that kind of Sophie has become the
Speaker 2: actual mouthpiece that Caitlin has failed to be for these people.
Speaker 2: the people who are showing up to their road games
Speaker 2: as well in support of Sophie and her viewpoints. And so,
Speaker 2: of course, right, probably the majority of Fever fans are great.
Speaker 2: And it's also true that there really has been an
Speaker 2: influx of people who never, I can curse here, right,
Speaker 2: never fucked the WNBA, right? They didn't care about women's sports.
Speaker 2: And they have shown up and brought a lot of the, like,
Speaker 2: toxic mainstream culture and things about men's sports culture that
Speaker 2: probably most of us watch women's sports to get away
Speaker 2: from has shown up here.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it coincides with, with Caitlin Clark, you know, coming
Speaker 1: to the league. So I guess we should start actually
Speaker 1: talking about Sophie Cunningham.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like for better or for worse, Caitlin Clark, does
Speaker 1: want to play basketball.
Speaker 3: Yeah like she's here to literally play ball like like
Speaker 3: definitely her not speaking up against like being portrayed as
Speaker 3: this avatar is shitty and frustrating but like at the
Speaker 3: end of the day she's here to play with the
Speaker 3: nice little orange sphere and Sophie not so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of these things where it's kind
Speaker 1: of vibes based, but I feel like the way that
Speaker 1: it was portrayed in the media and then this also
Speaker 1: fed into sort of like the fascist base was that
Speaker 1: Caitlin Clark was going to come into the WNBA and
Speaker 1: she was immediately going to be the best player and
Speaker 1: everyone was going to have to deal with it. And
Speaker 1: that like didn't happen because she's like, a pretty good player, but, like...
Speaker 1: She's fine. A, even if she was that good, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: unfortunately for every other great basketball player in the WNBA,
Speaker 1: you exist at the same time as Prime Major Wilson, so, like,
Speaker 1: good luck ever winning any award. Like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: This is, like, maybe the greatest basketball player who's, like,
Speaker 1: walked the earth in this generation. Like, good luck. It's true.
Speaker 2: And even when Caitlyn drops 30 points, she's often giving
Speaker 2: up 30 on turnovers, so she kind of ends up
Speaker 2: being a net neutral.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And Angel Wilson, by the way, was, like, Defensive
Speaker 1: Player of the Year and MVP. And, like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like... She's, like, yeah, you know, just this, like,
Speaker 1: transcendent player.
Speaker 2: But..
Speaker 1: I think there's this moment where, like, it becomes clear after, like,
Speaker 1: a couple of years of this that, like, you know, like,
Speaker 1: there's still a bunch of people who are in the
Speaker 1: trenches being, like, Caitlyn Clark is the best player in
Speaker 1: the league. But, like, it's not clear to me if
Speaker 1: she's better than, like, rookie Olivia Biles.
Speaker 3: She's not. I don't think she is.
Speaker 2: She's not. Olivia Biles has an MVP case, like, as
Speaker 2: a rookie. I mean, Caitlyn doesn't, in my opinion.
Speaker 4: Unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I love her. I want to talk about her at
Speaker 1: the end because I want to end up like a
Speaker 1: little bit of just like ball good. But I think
Speaker 1: there's this moment of like Caitlin, like I guess she
Speaker 1: like kind of denounced it like the end of her
Speaker 1: first season.
Speaker 3: But like she felt like without going like hard in
Speaker 3: the paint to it, like you're still leaving room.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But it's like she won't go hard in the
Speaker 1: paint against it. But she also, you know, as you're saying,
Speaker 1: like before the break, it's like, yeah, she wants to
Speaker 1: play basketball. Yeah. And so she's not willing to go
Speaker 1: on camera and say the things and do the things
Speaker 1: that these people want. And I guess that's where Sophie
Speaker 1: Cunningham came in because she will do that.
Speaker 3: She will.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I think it's also related that she
Speaker 2: started a podcast this year, right? Like she has decided to,
Speaker 2: she's basically using her profile as a fever bench player, AKA,
Speaker 2: you know, Caitlin Clark's enforcer. And the exposure that has
Speaker 2: come with that, which is more than she's ever had
Speaker 2: in her, you know, however many seven or so seasons
Speaker 2: in the WNBA. But to me, what's clear is that
Speaker 2: she is setting herself up for an exit. And the
Speaker 2: podcast is kind of the first step in that. And
Speaker 2: maybe people didn't care what she had to say before.
Speaker 2: But now that more people know who she is because
Speaker 2: of who she's playing with, she is kind of starting
Speaker 2: to step into this other, and it's very, very, we
Speaker 2: can talk more about this too, but it's very insidious
Speaker 2: the way she talks about sharing her views because she's
Speaker 2: basically co-opting social justice language when she'll say things like,
Speaker 2: people tell you to use a platform and then when
Speaker 2: you use it, right, they criticize you for it or
Speaker 2: whatever it is. And so she's kind of doing this
Speaker 2: thing where she's starting a podcast. She's already, also, she
Speaker 2: keeps getting fined for saying shit On her podcast about
Speaker 2: the refs and stuff, she really just, like, mouths off.
Speaker 3: Wait, wait, maybe her being on a podcast is a
Speaker 3: good thing. Yeah, right?
Speaker 2: So she has this podcast, but then at the same time,
Speaker 2: she's projecting the, I'm using my platform for, you know,
Speaker 2: my beliefs.
Speaker 1: Which is something that, like, I've heard even sort of, like,
Speaker 1: left-wing people, like, in the space doing this, like, well,
Speaker 1: it's just an interesting thing because the WNBA has always
Speaker 1: been a league where, like, players do use their platforms.
Speaker 1: to do activism. And like, and that is absolutely true.
Speaker 1: Like the actual first in professional sports. Actually, I could
Speaker 1: be wrong about that because maybe there was another women's
Speaker 1: league that did it first that I just missed, but
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure they were the first professional sports league
Speaker 1: that was actually doing like anti-police brutality protests.
Speaker 2: Yes, they were. They also, they were doing that before
Speaker 2: Colin Kaepernick took a knee. Oh yeah. And then once
Speaker 2: he did kneel, actually that's how I started following the
Speaker 2: WNBA was I was writing about player protests and somebody
Speaker 2: told me entire WNBA teams were kneeling on the court
Speaker 2: and it had gotten no coverage. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: and that's when I actually started. So yeah, they were
Speaker 2: doing media blackouts to talk about police brutality before Colin
Speaker 2: Kaepernick knelt.
Speaker 3: Yeah. That's fucking awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they fucking rock. Like, it's good as hell.
Speaker 3: That's sick.
Speaker 1: But then you get media people being like, well, this
Speaker 1: has always been a league where people use their platform
Speaker 1: for activism.
Speaker 3: That's such a mealy-mouthed bullshit. Like, okay, sure, technically, but like..
Speaker 1: I guess you could call a Klan rally activism. If
Speaker 1: you really want to do that, I will be angry
Speaker 1: at you. But like, this is like not the same
Speaker 1: thing at all.
Speaker 3: There is no difference between the Unite the Right rally
Speaker 3: and going to help out at Food Not Bombs. If
Speaker 3: you're stupid. If you're fucking stupid.
Speaker 1: That must be such an amazing world to live in psychologically.
Speaker 1: Everything must be so easy for you if you just
Speaker 1: don't understand anything.
Speaker 3: That would be so great to be a moron.
Speaker 2: I mean, the Turning Point USA flyer to support Sophie
Speaker 2: Cunningham spelled her name wrong, so honestly.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 1: This is coming back to one of the things about
Speaker 1: being on the right versus being on the left, which
Speaker 1: is like, you know, In order to be on the left,
Speaker 1: you do have to have standards. Like, you can't be, like,
Speaker 1: an abuser, right? Like, you will eventually get run out
Speaker 1: for that.
Speaker 2: Maybe.
Speaker 1: Whereas on the right, you can just do it and
Speaker 1: it's fine. But, comma, if you get arrested, only one
Speaker 1: of these two groups is going to be there for you.
Speaker 1: And it sure as fuck not the people who are
Speaker 1: going to spell your name wrong on the promotional flyer.
Speaker 3: It's so beastline. okay but like what has sophie been
Speaker 3: saying and doing let's just get into the video yeah.
Speaker 2: Let's let's talk about that yeah and i think this
Speaker 2: is where as i kind of said at the beginning
Speaker 2: i think it's important to look at where it started
Speaker 2: because i think this was a failure of media from
Speaker 2: the beginning and the reason that it has snowballed in
Speaker 2: the way that it is is v with an incredible
Speaker 2: headline it was basically like love her or hate her
Speaker 2: like sophie won't be ignored and i kind of was
Speaker 2: like well I was ignoring her until you decided to
Speaker 2: run a profile.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you decided she won't be ignored.
Speaker 1: On a baseline, this is such a baffling player to
Speaker 1: run a profile of.
Speaker 2: Right, well, so the profile itself, too, is such, to me,
Speaker 2: an example of shoddy journalism because they spend most of
Speaker 2: it where her parents are kind of bragging about how
Speaker 2: she was a childhood bully. Then they go on to
Speaker 2: say how she used to play on teams with boys
Speaker 2: and beat them, and that was like a source of
Speaker 2: pride for them. And then, after those things, they kind
Speaker 2: of casually drop in Sophie saying, people think I hate trans,
Speaker 2: end of sentence. Trans what? We don't know.
Speaker 3: What's it?
Speaker 2: But I don't. I don't. I just essentially, you know,
Speaker 2: I believe in love, but I think, you know, biological
Speaker 2: males should not be in sport with girls. So again,
Speaker 2: we also have adult men being playing, somehow playing sport
Speaker 2: with young girls. So there was just so many places
Speaker 2: as a reporter, if I were writing this profile, that
Speaker 2: I kind of would have been like, huh, okay, well,
Speaker 2: can you give any examples of you know, grown men
Speaker 2: playing sports against girls. Could you talk to me about
Speaker 2: why you're so proud of having played against boys? But
Speaker 2: you think like there were so many places you could
Speaker 2: have gone here and none of it happened. It just
Speaker 2: sat there in the middle of this profile. To be
Speaker 2: fair to ESPN, they did. They did fire most of
Speaker 2: their actual journalists in order to give more money to
Speaker 2: a fucking Pat McAfee, a guy who used to be
Speaker 2: a hunter, I think. And who now spends all of
Speaker 2: his time having fucking Aaron Rodgers on his show to
Speaker 2: scream about why vaccines are bad and why trans women
Speaker 2: shouldn't be able to compete in sports.
Speaker 1: So, like, you know, this is this is truly not
Speaker 1: ESPN's fault. They simply fired everyone who could normally do journalism.
Speaker 1: And now we're left with whatever this shit is.
Speaker 2: Another person whose opinion on trans women in sports, we
Speaker 2: should really be listening to Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Aaron Rodgers. I will listen. I will not agree
Speaker 1: with Aaron Rodgers' position on sports, but if he can
Speaker 1: stay in the pocket for longer than 2.3 seconds on
Speaker 1: two consecutive plays, I will listen to him talk about
Speaker 1: women's sports.
Speaker 3: And he can't.
Speaker 1: He can't do it. He won't.
Speaker 3: God, okay.
Speaker 1: Me being pissed at Aaron Rodgers for hitting me aside.
Speaker 1: Why did they write this? That's the part I don't understand.
Speaker 3: I mean, because there is like a larger media ecosystem
Speaker 3: that's going to feed on just that one little nugget
Speaker 3: of like anti-trans hate. Like it is so easy. The
Speaker 3: left is going to get mad. The right is going
Speaker 3: to embrace this and it's going to fuel this culture war.
Speaker 3: Like it's, that's going to generate so many clicks.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: And I think, I don't know how long this profile
Speaker 2: was in the works. Sometimes it can be, you know,
Speaker 2: for profiles like this, it can be in the works
Speaker 2: a very long time. Other times it's not, but I,
Speaker 2: think it's also worth mentioning that just before this profile dropped,
Speaker 2: Sophie got into a high-profile skirmish during a game against
Speaker 2: the Phoenix Mercury. Many people, most people, have probably seen
Speaker 2: the kind of viral meme of her pointing, and she's
Speaker 2: pointing at Dawana Bonner, who they're former teammates, actually, and
Speaker 2: Alyssa Thomas. And basically, I mean, it was almost like
Speaker 2: a full-team brawl, but there were a lot of kind
Speaker 2: of racial undertones to the way that that went down.
Speaker 1: Racial overtones, the way it was talked about, like they
Speaker 1: were just, that was just racist shit.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2: And the way that meme has shown up, I think
Speaker 2: is really important because there's not really a way to
Speaker 2: deny that it was racist when it's actually being used
Speaker 2: in very, like I've seen it at least in very
Speaker 2: racist or, you know, offensive or problematic ways since it happened.
Speaker 2: But that profile drops on the heels of that really
Speaker 2: big fight that was all over the televisions. It was
Speaker 2: being played up and people were taking sides and saying
Speaker 2: how great and how cool Sophie was. It was appalling, actually,
Speaker 2: to watch. But these two things, this profile drops right
Speaker 2: on the heels of that. And I think that that
Speaker 2: really put more eyes on it than might have happened
Speaker 2: otherwise as well. That makes sense.
Speaker 3: Though I did just pull up the profile and the
Speaker 3: framing of this is so fucking annoying. There's a whole
Speaker 3: section is, is she hero or heel? And then there's
Speaker 3: just anecdotes where she's a hero here. She's a heel here.
Speaker 3: It's like, it's, oh my God.
Speaker 1: It's written very clickbaity.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, this is incredibly clickbait. This
Speaker 3: is incredibly like, it's supposed to be like, she's divisive
Speaker 3: for some reason, but we're telling you that she's divisive. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I don't think there was any reason to have
Speaker 2: asked her about her stance on trans women in sports
Speaker 2: because before this profile, we could have maybe guessed where
Speaker 2: she stood based on some likes and retweets of things
Speaker 2: about protecting women and girls. But nothing was overt. She
Speaker 2: had not been overt enough that it actually, to me, again,
Speaker 2: as the journalist writing this story, I wouldn't have asked
Speaker 2: her about it because to me, it wasn't significant enough
Speaker 2: And what she had said, it isn't a thing I
Speaker 2: would have even wanted to try to have her clarify.
Speaker 2: So it seems to me either she brought it up
Speaker 2: or she was deliberately asked about it and given the
Speaker 2: opportunity to make these comments.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess this is an important part of
Speaker 1: the pivot, because kind of before this story, she was
Speaker 1: just a racist. Like, that was her lane, was just
Speaker 1: being a racist. Let's get into her doing the transphobia pivot,
Speaker 1: which was kind of arc two. Well, okay, I'm saying
Speaker 1: pivot here. It's not like she's not still doing, like,
Speaker 1: racist stuff, but..
Speaker 3: The transphobia, yes, I am.
Speaker 2: It's yes and, and I think actually, if we talk
Speaker 2: about transphobia as being rooted in white supremacy, they're really
Speaker 2: two sides of the same coin here, because at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, what's actually happening is conversations around
Speaker 2: who is an acceptable definition of a woman, whether it's
Speaker 2: the Black masculine women she's playing against and bullying, or
Speaker 2: the trans women and girls that she's speaking out against.
Speaker 2: So I'd say, eh, two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 3: I think that's a fair way to sum it up.
Speaker 1: I'm realizing now we probably should have mentioned this at
Speaker 1: the beginning for people who have not seen her, but
Speaker 1: like Sophie Cunningham looks like the kind of person you
Speaker 1: would have seen on like, I don't actually know who
Speaker 1: did the like positive propaganda for the Nazis, but like what, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like, like if you're doing, if you're
Speaker 1: doing like a dare story, like, yeah.
Speaker 3: Lenny Riefenstahl would have loved her. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like Lenny Riefenstahl, like recruitment ad thing. Like she
Speaker 1: is like the person you would put on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, she's now had more gender-affirming care than most
Speaker 2: dolls could ever dream of having, so..
Speaker 3: Also that, also that. They want to be quacky so bad,
Speaker 3: it's crazy. Like, there's something psychosexual rooted in, like, Mar-a-Lago face,
Speaker 3: I swear to God.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk about, kind of, the arc of
Speaker 1: Sophie Cunningham as anti-transmedia. person because she initially leans like
Speaker 1: all the way the fuck into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Sophie leans into it. But what happens pretty quickly
Speaker 2: is that right wing media picks it up. It kind
Speaker 2: of gets news aggregated everywhere. And then she doubles down
Speaker 2: in press conferences and starts to kind of say, I
Speaker 2: said what I said, essentially. And I... should have the
Speaker 2: ability to, you know, say what I believe. And once
Speaker 2: she doubles down in the press conference, that's when you
Speaker 2: start to see the rallies happening, anti-trans rallies outside because
Speaker 2: the fever is on a road trip now. And so,
Speaker 2: and every city they visit, anti-trans groups start showing up,
Speaker 2: whether it's, you know, to promote their bill for, you know,
Speaker 2: children having genital exams to play sports or whatever else
Speaker 2: they're there to do. But some of the more high-profile
Speaker 2: anti-trans groups starts to show up, and that's, I think,
Speaker 2: when it devolves.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess we have ahead of us the branching path of,
Speaker 1: should we talk about the devolution or should we talk
Speaker 1: about her brief attempt to pivot back to basketball?
Speaker 2: Well, I guess what I think is really notable is
Speaker 2: that the group that really shows up and, I think,
Speaker 2: where there starts to be some controversy is a group
Speaker 2: called XXXY Athletics that was started by a woman named
Speaker 2: Jennifer Say. And I think that mainstream people do not
Speaker 2: know who this group is. And basically their whole thing
Speaker 2: is that they pay cis girls to protest sporting events
Speaker 2: where they might have to compete against a trans girl.
Speaker 2: And then that protest creates media and controversy. So they
Speaker 2: literally are like paying people to create these controversies. And
Speaker 2: they showed up and they paid two girls to sit
Speaker 2: in the front row at the game against the storm
Speaker 2: with signs thanking Sophie and a storm owner got upset
Speaker 2: and cursed them out. And the storm owner got suspended
Speaker 2: and the transphobes got an apology. And so this I
Speaker 2: think is also where the WNBA now had an opportunity
Speaker 2: to do something and they took the wrong side. And
Speaker 2: so The thing to me that is really notable is
Speaker 2: that the specific group and then Riley Gaines, you know,
Speaker 2: noted fifth place swimmer Riley Gaines shows up.
Speaker 3: Oh my God.
Speaker 2: And once that happens, it's kind of, it's out of control.
Speaker 2: But I think what sucks as someone who's been covering
Speaker 2: this for so long is there are certain names that
Speaker 2: when I see them, I know the playbook. I know
Speaker 2: what's happening. I know what's coming and I'm prepared for it.
Speaker 2: And no one in media was prepared for it. And
Speaker 2: they have failed to identify anyone. people in XXXY shirts
Speaker 2: in the front row of, you know, a basketball game
Speaker 2: as wearing hate symbols. They have failed to state that
Speaker 2: like trans people are being genocided by the government and
Speaker 2: it has turned this entire thing into like a, we
Speaker 2: can agree to disagree. And so I feel like that's
Speaker 2: kind of the missing piece here, right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it is just like an abject failure to
Speaker 3: do like an iota of research on like who these
Speaker 3: folks are. So following the event with the storm, Coach
Speaker 3: getting penalized for being a normal person, like the WNBA's
Speaker 3: statement pissed me off so hard because it's like we're
Speaker 3: having hard conversations, thinking about a lot of things. And
Speaker 3: like there has never been a trans woman. competing in
Speaker 3: the WNBA there are no trans athletes who are likely
Speaker 3: to be competing in the WNBA anytime soon like this
Speaker 3: is such a hypothetical non-issue that like this this shouldn't
Speaker 3: be a hard conversation to have just like Take us stance.
Speaker 3: Like even if you fuck up, take us stance. I
Speaker 3: swear to God. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And not only is it a non-issue at this point,
Speaker 2: we have people saying, well, we can have hard conversations
Speaker 2: and agree to disagree. And I'm like, who gave a
Speaker 2: bunch of cis people permission to disagree about a group
Speaker 2: that like they are not part of and policies that
Speaker 2: actively do not affect them. And the other piece that
Speaker 2: the media doesn't do is like, okay, we can agree
Speaker 2: to disagree or we have two different opinions. What are
Speaker 2: those opinions? Like, one group wants human rights, basic human rights,
Speaker 2: and to be included in society. And the other group wants,
Speaker 2: at best, for a group of people to, like, not exist,
Speaker 2: and at worst, to die. The fact that we're in
Speaker 2: a genocide, like, by our government, and nobody will name that.
Speaker 2: And this is, that's so frustrating. These are the stakes here, right?
Speaker 3: Right. Like, this is a microcosm for all of it.
Speaker 3: And it's just like, like you're saying, like, agree or
Speaker 3: disagree on what? Just like, what are you disagreeing with? Like,
Speaker 3: let's say that the WNBA takes the radical stance of
Speaker 3: implementing the former standards that the international Olympic committee had
Speaker 3: up until fairly recently regarding trans athletes, which necessitated like
Speaker 3: two years of hormone therapy before a trans woman could compete.
Speaker 3: And I like just as on a personal stance, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't like setting hard boundaries for like when trans
Speaker 3: people can exist, but like that aside, like having just a,
Speaker 3: baseline policy that will not impact a single player currently
Speaker 3: involved in the WNBA. That's so bare bones. That is
Speaker 3: the easiest thing to do because it functionally changes nothing
Speaker 3: on the day to day.
Speaker 2: I do think the WNBA needs to be careful because
Speaker 2: we've seen like The policy you're talking about wouldn't impact anybody.
Speaker 2: And whether I agree that they should have a policy,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I don't really think anyone should
Speaker 2: have these policies.
Speaker 1: No, no, no.
Speaker 3: I agree. I agree with that.
Speaker 2: But I see your point. I think my concern becomes
Speaker 2: we've seen how chromosome testing and some of these other
Speaker 2: forms of sex testing are happening above the WNBA and
Speaker 2: often in the, you know, the International Olympic Committee and everything.
Speaker 3: Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And often, right, that trickles down. And I think something
Speaker 2: the WNBA needs to be very careful about and cognizant of,
Speaker 2: the people who are most directly impacted by these sex
Speaker 2: testing policies, there's no trans women in the WNBA. They
Speaker 2: won't be impacted. But, you know, Black women in particular
Speaker 2: are so often the directly impacted population. Like the league,
Speaker 2: the WNBA is actually full of people who are directly
Speaker 2: impacted by a lot of the policies that we're talking around,
Speaker 2: even though they're not trans. And so it's a very
Speaker 2: slippery slope that I hope they get right in this moment,
Speaker 2: because if they go too far in the other direction,
Speaker 2: it will be a mess in like 12 ways.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, no, and I'm not actually advocating for them
Speaker 3: to implement a policy like that. I'm just like, for me,
Speaker 3: having any policy, just to shut up like the couple
Speaker 3: of former NBA yahoos who are like, I'm going to
Speaker 3: go be a woman now. And I'm like, well, you
Speaker 3: can go shut up. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, no, I didn't think you were advocating for that.
Speaker 2: I think just because we can see how sex testing
Speaker 2: is going elsewhere. I think sometimes people forget.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I, I remember, I remember, uh, Castor Semenya, like,
Speaker 3: don't worry. I like absolutely do not want to see that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And, but mainstream, like whether mainstream people are like mainstream
Speaker 2: media or just like cis people in general, they don't like,
Speaker 2: there's so many nuances here too. Um, they get completely
Speaker 2: missed and everything gets flattened and then it becomes more well,
Speaker 2: we'll just put this policy in place and then, you know,
Speaker 2: people don't think about that it's a whole different, you know,
Speaker 2: can of worms. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The fact that they had no policy before any of
Speaker 3: this came into being, it's kind of what I think
Speaker 3: led this to be the perfect storm. Yeah. Because, like,
Speaker 3: with it being such a blank slate for grifters, bad actors,
Speaker 3: and even just super misinformed folks who don't really know
Speaker 3: what's going on, like, to kind of project and or
Speaker 3: manipulate the situation, there is not a clean, quick answer.
Speaker 2: There's not. And I will say a lot of leagues,
Speaker 2: I think, are trying not to put policies in place
Speaker 2: right now if they don't already have one, because if
Speaker 2: there's no policy, there's nothing to violate. And I think
Speaker 2: they hoped they could fly under the radar. I know
Speaker 2: that a lot of trans advocates in this space are
Speaker 2: actually you know, behind the scenes kind of suggesting that
Speaker 2: as well, kind of wait, wait it out a little
Speaker 2: bit because without a policy, you hope you don't end
Speaker 2: up on the radar of the Trump administration or whoever else.
Speaker 2: Obviously that has not been what happened.
Speaker 1: Here at all.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately.
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about the weird
Speaker 1: shit where like Ennis Cantor freedom, who's like a former
Speaker 1: sort of NBA washout turds, like right wing, culture war guy,
Speaker 1: him and like Royce White and apparently some other just
Speaker 1: absolute fail sons of the MNBA. They're like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: going to declare for that for the twenty twenty seven draft.
Speaker 1: And I think that that in some ways I think
Speaker 1: is actually a really clarifying thing. for what the question
Speaker 1: of can trans women play women's sports is actually about.
Speaker 1: And I think this is the thing that the media
Speaker 1: has really not understood because, you know, some of it
Speaker 1: I think is just transmisogyny, right? Like they don't actually
Speaker 1: really think that trans women are women. But like the
Speaker 1: argument over can trans women play women's sports, if you
Speaker 1: listen to how people like Sophie Cunningham frame it, and
Speaker 1: this has spread everywhere, throughout even parts of the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party where you get people talking about like, well, should
Speaker 1: young girls be playing against men? And that's the actual
Speaker 1: argument here. The stakes of this argument is not about sports.
Speaker 1: It's are trans women women or are we not? And
Speaker 1: if we're not, then it becomes sort of de facto
Speaker 1: legitimate to impose, you know, all of the segregation policies
Speaker 1: that they've been putting in place, all of the, you know,
Speaker 1: and when I say they've been putting in place, I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about even sports leagues. I'm talking about like
Speaker 1: the federal government. Right?
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: And a bunch of state governments, the Catholic Church, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of gender-affirming care bans. That's the actual stakes
Speaker 1: of this, is like, are, are we women or not?
Speaker 1: And the moment you go, no, you're not. You're like
Speaker 1: some other kind of thing where like, maybe we'll let
Speaker 1: you do this. Eventually at some point you start getting
Speaker 1: people making, you know, we listen to these people being like, well,
Speaker 1: the leagues can decide individually, like league by league, who
Speaker 1: they think is like legitimately qualified to play. And it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is an argument for segregation.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right? This is explicitly an argument that is, leagues should
Speaker 1: be allowed to segregate players. And that's also the whole, like, oh,
Speaker 1: why don't trans people go start their own league? It's like,
Speaker 1: we had this.
Speaker 3: It was segregation. It's this thing that's, like, infuriating.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't click. That's what the goal is here. Right?
Speaker 3: I think what makes, like, trans women in sports such
Speaker 3: a potent, like, rallying point, it's preying on so many
Speaker 3: axes of Not just, like, putting young girls in danger,
Speaker 3: but also, like, there's an economic component, too, because, like,
Speaker 3: so many people get involved in sports as kids so
Speaker 3: that they're able to get college scholarships, right? And so, like,
Speaker 3: it's just, it becomes this thing all the way down. Yeah. But, like,
Speaker 3: it's this... situation where by saying that this boy could
Speaker 3: be on the girls team that is implicitly signaling that
Speaker 3: this notion that this boy is going to get all
Speaker 3: of the college scholarships or this this trans woman who
Speaker 3: we're framing as a boy on the girls team because
Speaker 3: god forbid they be normal for 10 seconds and aside
Speaker 3: from everything else that is a fundamental misunderstanding of how
Speaker 3: much money there isn't in like women's college sports programs
Speaker 3: or even like women's professional sports. There is not a
Speaker 3: single trans athlete who was transitioning for that good, good money.
Speaker 2: No, it's never, never happened.
Speaker 3: That is literally never happened.
Speaker 1: Like, even if you were to transition to play in
Speaker 1: the WNBA, it's like, great, you're making you're making as
Speaker 1: much money as like, I don't know, if you're the
Speaker 1: best player in the league, you might be making as
Speaker 1: much money as like a practice team guy on like
Speaker 1: an NFL team. Like.
Speaker 2: If you're transitioning so that you can play women's sports,
Speaker 2: something tells me you just needed an excuse and you
Speaker 2: wanted to transition anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah, also that. Like, if you start, okay, actually, actually,
Speaker 3: if you start transitioning as a bit so you can
Speaker 3: dominate women's sports, call me. I want to have you
Speaker 3: on my podcast.
Speaker 2: Truly commitment to the bit.
Speaker 1: Like, obviously, like, none of the people who are doing
Speaker 1: this are ever going to like do any kind of
Speaker 1: even vaguely transitioning thing. No. The closest thing I've seen
Speaker 1: to this, the actress who did She's the Man.
Speaker 2: Amanda Bynes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, talked about it in an interview one time that, like,
Speaker 1: having to, like, pretend to be a guy gave her, like,
Speaker 1: she didn't have the words gender dysphoria, but if you
Speaker 1: read her describing it.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh no, she got gender dysphoria. No, she
Speaker 3: totally talked about having gender dysphoria. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, like it's very genuinely again like if you
Speaker 3: if this is the push that you need to start
Speaker 3: playing with your gender because for some reason you just
Speaker 3: really want to play on the women's teams like baby
Speaker 3: girl diy hrt yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: It's just this like, it's this like right-wing protect the
Speaker 1: children fantasy that they're using as the justification for, you know,
Speaker 1: like this is the wedge issue that they use to
Speaker 1: push all of the rest of their stuff. And if
Speaker 1: you go back to like the Daily Wire people who
Speaker 1: were instrumental in getting a bunch of the anti-trans bills
Speaker 1: passed under the Biden administration, like before they kind of
Speaker 1: like blew up their company trying to make Pendragon.
Speaker 3: They're thankfully in their co-op era right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But back when they were doing this, you would
Speaker 1: listen to them talk about how we need to eradicate
Speaker 1: transgenderism because that was the actual goal. It was never
Speaker 1: about sports. It was about eradicating us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the second they're allowed to speak, yes, that's when
Speaker 3: the mask comes off.
Speaker 2: And I think the piece about the trans misogyny that
Speaker 2: I think sometimes gets missed too, is we can look
Speaker 2: at somebody like Jennifer Say, who, you know, runs the
Speaker 2: XXXY Athletics. And she, in addition to someone like Nancy Hogshead,
Speaker 2: who was an Olympic swimmer who started the Women's Sports
Speaker 2: Policy Working Group with Martina Navratilova, similar kind of group
Speaker 2: trying to, you know, not allow trans women and girls
Speaker 2: to play sports with girls. These are people who actually
Speaker 2: made their post-athletic kind of names as advocates against sexual
Speaker 2: abuse in sport. They'd both been victims of adult male coaches.
Speaker 2: This is where that really insidious turfy kind of when
Speaker 2: you paint trans women as men, again, the problem is
Speaker 2: still men, right? And so these are people who were
Speaker 2: known as feminist advocates in the space before making the
Speaker 2: anti-trans pivot. And I think that sometimes that piece gets
Speaker 2: missed too in the very insidious way. that framing trans
Speaker 2: women as men actually can make some of these target
Speaker 2: points of making them seem like threats appealing or make
Speaker 2: sense to maybe feminists, quote-unquote, like Jennifer Say or Nancy
Speaker 2: Hong said.
Speaker 1: You know, this has been a thing that's been happening
Speaker 1: back down to, like, the original TERFs, right? Like, the original, like,
Speaker 1: transphobic wing of the radical feminists were, like... If you
Speaker 1: look at how this played out during the porn wars, too,
Speaker 1: one of the fundamental... issues with organizing as any kind
Speaker 1: of marginalized group is that, you know, there's always going
Speaker 1: to be people inside of your marginalized group who you
Speaker 1: don't agree with. And there can become a point where
Speaker 1: the incentive to, instead of trying to like fight or
Speaker 1: directly like have conflict with the actual group that is
Speaker 1: oppressing you, right? Where it's like, yeah, if you're doing
Speaker 1: women's sports, the group that is oppressing you is like
Speaker 1: the men who are abusing you, right? You can look
Speaker 1: at this in sort of the class context, right? Where
Speaker 1: you know, like, yeah, if you're a worker, like you're
Speaker 1: being oppressed by the actual ruling class, which is the
Speaker 1: capitalist class that owns the means of production. But there
Speaker 1: becomes a point where it's easier to try to police
Speaker 1: the behavior of your own than it is to fight
Speaker 1: the dominant group. And this is, you know, I'm taking
Speaker 1: this on a little bit of a tangent here, but like,
Speaker 1: if you've ever heard the term like the lumpenproletariat, it's
Speaker 1: just this term that I know there are going to
Speaker 1: be some people in the audience who are very attached
Speaker 1: to that term as like a self-referential thing. But it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be this, like, part of the working class that's, like,
Speaker 1: drifters and vagrants and, like, Marx goes on this, like,
Speaker 1: really sort of, like, blood-curdling rants about, like, organ grinders and, like,
Speaker 1: pimps and, like, runaway soldiers and, like, all of the, like,
Speaker 1: boot shiners on the street and, like, all of these
Speaker 1: groups of people who have nothing to do with each
Speaker 1: other from, like, a sociological class sense. Like, there is, like,
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing in common that, like, someone who polishes boots
Speaker 1: on the street has in common with, like, someone who's
Speaker 1: like run away from being a soldier. But this is
Speaker 1: like Marx's, you know, there's this thing in the journal
Speaker 1: Endnotes about this. This is like Marx's disgust, specifically at
Speaker 1: like the Victorian disgust about like this part of the
Speaker 1: class that he thinks is like lowly or whatever. And,
Speaker 1: Marx just, like, goes off on these people. And this
Speaker 1: has been a thing for a really long time of, like,
Speaker 1: the working class movement trying to, like, purify itself of these, like,
Speaker 1: lumpen elements who are supposed to be, like, anarchists and, like, unpure.
Speaker 1: And you get this in the feminist movement where, like,
Speaker 1: in the feminist movement, like, that was us. That was
Speaker 1: trans women. We were, like, the elements that was, like,
Speaker 1: the easiest to, you know, you could be, like, well,
Speaker 1: all these trans women are actually men and they're trying to, like,
Speaker 1: infiltrate our spaces. And you can spend all of your energy...
Speaker 1: trying to purify your own movement against this other group
Speaker 1: of people who are inside of your movement, instead of
Speaker 1: actually like fighting the outside. And also you'll be rewarded
Speaker 1: for it.
Speaker 2: You're doing the patriarchy's work for them.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they'll pay you for it instead of fighting you. Right.
Speaker 2: By pitting cis women and trans women against each other,
Speaker 2: they fight each other instead of realizing that their struggles
Speaker 2: are tied up together and, you know, fight the patriarchy together.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right?
Speaker 3: Like, literally, like, trans access to healthcare is going to
Speaker 3: help everyone else, too. It's that simple.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's, like, an unbelievable number of, like, reproductive healthcare organizing, like,
Speaker 1: are trans people.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like, it's a bunch of trans fans. And also trans fans, too. Like,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, these are struggles that are intimately
Speaker 1: bound up. From an external perspective, if you can pit
Speaker 1: these two groups against each other, and then from an
Speaker 1: internal perspective, if you can, you know... convince one of
Speaker 1: these groups that the reason they're being oppressed is the
Speaker 1: other one and channel them into this path of least
Speaker 1: resistance where you can nominally be doing what you think
Speaker 1: is like radicalism to like free your people but is
Speaker 1: actually just like fucking over another group of people in
Speaker 1: service of the ruling class you can do genocides and
Speaker 1: here we are yep yeah and here we are So
Speaker 1: there's a couple more things I wanted to touch on.
Speaker 1: One of which, and I think Bugs, you have an
Speaker 1: interesting perspective on this, is that like, it didn't used
Speaker 1: to be like this for trans athletes.
Speaker 3: It literally didn't used to be like this. So yeah, like,
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm the very funny camp of having been
Speaker 3: a college athlete, having competed on both the men's and
Speaker 3: women's teams for track, albeit this would have been like,
Speaker 3: you know, small potatoes, D3, everything. But it was such
Speaker 3: a non-issue for me to this. So this would have
Speaker 3: been like end terms. I'm not going to give like
Speaker 3: firm dates, but like, you know, end of the Obama era,
Speaker 3: beginning of the Trump era, roundabouts, like mid tens. And
Speaker 3: I never faced any pushback to myself from either like
Speaker 3: my teammates or anyone that I competed against. I ran track.
Speaker 3: And it I mean, it was kind of, like, eye-opening because, like,
Speaker 3: I was expecting it to be, like, much shittier. But, like, no, like,
Speaker 3: it was just... People were just normal. And, I mean,
Speaker 3: I think this is also just kind of thinking about
Speaker 3: the ways in which, like, transphobia writ large has become
Speaker 3: so many people's, like, pet little bigotry situation because they
Speaker 3: want to... They want to oppress someone. And it's so, so,
Speaker 3: so easy to go after the trans. But, yeah, like, I...
Speaker 3: managed to compete at a fairly high level within D3
Speaker 3: as a trans woman. And I, like, genuinely was terrified for, like...
Speaker 3: I competed in nationals, and for, like, a week after,
Speaker 3: I was like, and then someone's going to show up,
Speaker 3: and people are going to, like... Like, someone's going to
Speaker 3: write an article about this. And no one did, because...
Speaker 3: I mean, I really don't want to bring like the
Speaker 3: politics of passing into this, but like that could have
Speaker 3: also played a factor, at least when dealing with like competitors.
Speaker 3: Like obviously everyone on my team was very aware because
Speaker 3: even though I was, I was like very baby Tran
Speaker 3: running on the men's team because it was just like, well,
Speaker 3: I want to compete at the airbug rules. No one
Speaker 3: cares that the trans woman is trans. smoking the men's
Speaker 3: team because she hadn't started hormones yet but like even
Speaker 3: within the context of that like and again uh just
Speaker 3: getting back to what we said earlier i do not
Speaker 3: think there is a simple or one size fits all
Speaker 3: policy for any sort of like hormonal requirement, because as
Speaker 3: we discussed, that is so right for abuse. But I
Speaker 3: can speak from personal experience in saying that after being
Speaker 3: on hormones for a period of time, the fastest 400
Speaker 3: I ever ran as a woman was slower than the
Speaker 3: slowest 400 I had ever run competitively in track. dating
Speaker 3: back to my freshman year of high school. And so, like,
Speaker 3: if a trans woman's competing in sports, it's probably going
Speaker 3: to be fine. We have seen this over and over
Speaker 3: in the few instances where trans women have been allowed
Speaker 3: to compete. Like, Leah Thomas took fifth. Like, even in
Speaker 3: the moment, like, I think before Riley Gaines became Riley Gaines, like,
Speaker 3: that was still a nothing moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it's funny because we can argue
Speaker 2: about this on the basis of, like, it human rights issue,
Speaker 2: which I think it fundamentally is and that should be enough.
Speaker 2: But then if people want to argue about the science,
Speaker 2: the science is also on our side. There's literally no
Speaker 2: evidence that there's an advantage. You Talk to any trans
Speaker 2: woman who has been an athlete before and after transition,
Speaker 2: and she will tell you, I lost muscle mass. I
Speaker 2: lost bone density. I lost, like, lung capacity. Like, I
Speaker 2: watched my times go down or my weight go down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, and it happens pretty fast. Or it happened
Speaker 3: fast for me. Like, your mileage may vary.
Speaker 2: Well, my mileage is I started taking low-dose tea, so
Speaker 2: I'm going to make the Olympics next year. Watch out.
Speaker 1: Oh, well done.
Speaker 2: Alright, alright, alright. I'm on testosterone now, so watch out.
Speaker 1: Well, and it's one of these things where, like, you
Speaker 1: can look at the extent to which this isn't really, like, about..
Speaker 3: It's literally not about this.
Speaker 1: You can tell it's not about ability because, like, I
Speaker 1: can't play women's chess.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's like, what the f * * * are
Speaker 3: we doing here? Like, the second Magic the Gathering bans
Speaker 3: trans women from the pro tour..
Speaker 2: Are they going to have a pro tour anymore?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, the pro tour actually just came back as
Speaker 3: of this year, thank God.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but ability-wise, too, I'm like, so what? Let trans
Speaker 2: people win things? That's also okay?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it comes down to this. Again, the fundamental question is,
Speaker 1: is a trans woman a woman or not? Right. And
Speaker 1: if you're a woman, then you have all of the
Speaker 1: rights that a woman does. And if you're not, then
Speaker 1: you don't. That's just fundamentally what it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's so frustrating that this has turned into this
Speaker 1: sort of like, oh, we can like agree to disagree
Speaker 1: about like whether you should exist or not.
Speaker 3: And it's like, well, can I agree to disagree whether
Speaker 3: you should exist or not? Like, is this a two-way street?
Speaker 3: I'm just using my platform to advocate for my beliefs.
Speaker 1: I think journalists should be banned from having health care.
Speaker 1: I think it's actually dangerous for me as a trans
Speaker 1: woman to exist in the same space as a journalist
Speaker 1: because journalists have a long tradition and history of harming
Speaker 1: my people. So I think we should talk about restricting
Speaker 1: their access to health care because giving journalists health care
Speaker 1: allows them to reproduce transphobia.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, it got me convinced. God.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, before we wrap up, I do want to
Speaker 1: get a little bit of joy out of this episode, which, so,
Speaker 1: the kind of, one of the kind of concluding points
Speaker 1: of this story, I don't know, given the fact that, like,
Speaker 1: we now live in an administration where the richest man
Speaker 1: on earth gave two Nazi salutes at the inauguration, like,
Speaker 1: who knows, like, by the time this episode comes out,
Speaker 1: Sophie Cunningham might have, like, fucking born a swastika or
Speaker 1: some shit but like there's a kind of capstone to
Speaker 1: this story which is Sophie Cunningham doing this oh why
Speaker 1: are all the journalists talking about the culture war instead
Speaker 1: of focusing on basketball so I want to take a
Speaker 1: second to talk about Sophie Cunningham as a fucking basketball
Speaker 1: player because I have been so angry about having to
Speaker 1: hear about this motherfucker like you know what fuck it
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do the Julius Caesar bit The whole of Gaul,
Speaker 1: Julius Caesar once remarked, is divided into three parts. Likewise,
Speaker 1: analysis of athletics is also divided into three parts, one
Speaker 1: of which the tape grinders inhabit, the analytics nerds another,
Speaker 1: and the old school coaches the third. The life of
Speaker 1: the tape grinder consists of endlessly digesting and watching like
Speaker 1: fucking 17 second clips of some athlete doing something and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out whether or not they're good. The
Speaker 1: analytics nerd lives in statistical annexes of unimaginable tedium from
Speaker 1: which they emerge to tell you that this player is
Speaker 1: either good or bad based on a bunch of unbelievably
Speaker 1: convoluted mathematical formulas they are not capable of explaining. And
Speaker 1: the old school coach largely consists of like old white
Speaker 1: guys on the internet going that boy nice after they've
Speaker 1: been fired for saying slurs in a locker room. Now,
Speaker 1: very rarely, all three of these factions will come to
Speaker 1: a consensus on a player. You have heard their names.
Speaker 1: This is Aja Wilson. This is Michael Jordan. This is
Speaker 1: like peak LeBron. All three, all three factions will unite
Speaker 1: to be like this player is good.
Speaker 2: Occasionally.
Speaker 1: Once in a blue moon, you will get all three
Speaker 1: factions agreeing that a player fucking sucks.
Speaker 3: And that is Sophie Cunningham. She is, statistically, one.
Speaker 1: Of the worst players I have ever seen. Like, the
Speaker 1: regular statistics, the game before she did her big, she
Speaker 1: did her big, we're pivoting back to sports.
Speaker 3: She shot 0% from the field. 0%!
Speaker 1: 0%!
Speaker 3: Can you explain what.
Speaker 1: That means for a player to shoot 0% from the field?
Speaker 2: It means they didn't make a single basket. I mean,
Speaker 2: I love this pivot for her. It seems like being
Speaker 2: transphobic is somehow making an already bad basketball player worse. And, like, again,
Speaker 2: couldn't have happened to a better person, in my opinion.
Speaker 3: I was about to say I could do better than that,
Speaker 3: but then I'm pretty good at points, so..
Speaker 2: Oh, no.
Speaker 1: Okay, speaking of I could do better, can we talk
Speaker 1: about the game that she played after she did her
Speaker 1: Weed to Pivot Back to Basketball thing? Because, like, this
Speaker 1: is not a good WNBA player, even when she's not
Speaker 1: embroiled in controversy. Like, there's... Oh, God, who was it?
Speaker 1: The Stephen A. Smith joke about someone getting a single single? Like,
Speaker 1: if she averages a single single over the course of
Speaker 1: a week, that is her doing good. This is someone
Speaker 1: who comes off the bench, misses a bunch of three-pointers...
Speaker 1: gets somewhere between like 8 and 12 points, and then
Speaker 1: fights people.
Speaker 2: I think her career average is about 8 points a game,
Speaker 2: but she played like 28 minutes last week and scored
Speaker 2: 2 points, 3 points, something like that.
Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, really productive time on the floor.
Speaker 3: Go for her. You could put a horse on the
Speaker 3: fucking court and it would do more.
Speaker 2: Truly, I do feel like maybe I could also at
Speaker 2: some point throw a basket and it might go in.
Speaker 3: Statistically, it should happen. Statistically. That two-point game, she scored
Speaker 3: two points on free throws. She didn't roll the basket.
Speaker 3: She just got free throws. Oh my god. Oh my god.
Speaker 3: And then she had another game, which was statistically..
Speaker 1: This isn't really an advanced statistic. There's a basketball statistic
Speaker 1: called plus minus, which, Frankie, you correct me if I'm
Speaker 1: explaining this incorrectly, but it is when you are on
Speaker 1: the court, either how many more points does your team
Speaker 1: score or does the opponent's team score? So if you're,
Speaker 1: for example, like a plus 10, that means when you
Speaker 1: were on the court, your team scored plus 10 more
Speaker 1: points than when you were off the court.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: She played a game where she was on the court
Speaker 1: for 17 minutes and she had a plus minus of
Speaker 1: negative 28.
Speaker 3: Incredible.
Speaker 1: How is it even possible to be on a court?
Speaker 2: Is it the worst game in WNBA history? It's close.
Speaker 1: It's the worst game on a win.
Speaker 3: Okay. Okay.
Speaker 2: Yes. There's a great Instagram account. I think has to
Speaker 2: talk to WNBA stats or WNBA data. That's what it's called.
Speaker 3: Maddie.
Speaker 2: And Maddie looked at this game and it was definitely,
Speaker 2: if not the worst game in WNBA history, very close.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it was like the worst ever in
Speaker 1: a win. And I kind of emphasized enough, right? The
Speaker 1: WNBA games are shorter than NBA games. So you have
Speaker 1: less time to build scoring volume, right? So you kind
Speaker 1: of have to be more efficient. To have the other
Speaker 1: team score 28 more points when you were on the
Speaker 1: court for 17 minutes is astronomical.
Speaker 2: They might as well be down a player. Like, why
Speaker 2: are you even there?
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, if you were literally playing four out of five,
Speaker 1: I think you would do better. Like, that's like, it's astonishing.
Speaker 1: This is a slightly dishonest way of putting it, but
Speaker 1: it gets into like how colossal of a fuck up
Speaker 1: this is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, she's never won a championship at any level.
Speaker 2: I mean, unless you're counting high school.
Speaker 1: No, of course not. Yeah, because she's bad. And like,
Speaker 1: to put it in perspective, how bad being minus 28 is.
Speaker 1: So Aja Wilson is by a pretty big margin, like
Speaker 1: the highest points per game score in the WNBA this season.
Speaker 1: She's scoring 26 points a game. That's the best player
Speaker 1: in the league. The like, a kind of like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, like perennial MVP, like literally a generational player
Speaker 1: is dropping on average 26 points a game.
Speaker 3: You were minus 28.
Speaker 2: Having you on the court was like having Aja Wilson,
Speaker 2: but better on the other team.
Speaker 3: Like..
Speaker 2: Like, and this is the f * * * ing
Speaker 2: basketball players.
Speaker 3: I just like..
Speaker 1: This is the basketball player who's, like, maybe, like, the
Speaker 1: second or third most famous person in the WNBA now
Speaker 1: because of all of this bullshit?
Speaker 2: No, truly, I was at the Sun game last weekend,
Speaker 2: and they were not playing the Fever, and there was
Speaker 2: two people in Fever Cunningham jerseys, which is obviously now
Speaker 2: the new MAGA hat, and I kind of just wanted
Speaker 2: to go up and be like, why are you wearing
Speaker 2: the jersey of, like, the worst player in the league? Like,
Speaker 2: at least the Caitlin Clark jersey, I kind of get it, but, like,
Speaker 2: Sophie Cunningham, really?
Speaker 3: Yeah is everything okay at home like yeah like you
Speaker 3: need someone to.
Speaker 1: Check in on you babes like oh god as just
Speaker 1: like a source of joy i want to close this
Speaker 1: by talking about olivia miles who is maybe my favorite
Speaker 1: basketball player ever now who is so cool i love
Speaker 1: her she's great she's my height. So she's like a
Speaker 1: 5'10 point guard. But like, she scores at the rim?
Speaker 1: Nothing about the way that she plays basketball makes any
Speaker 1: sense to me. It's like, this shouldn't work and it
Speaker 1: does and it's beautiful and I love it and she's like,
Speaker 1: she was the best player on the best team in
Speaker 1: the league as a rookie.
Speaker 2: She's amazing to watch. You know, I knew she would
Speaker 2: be great in the W. I think I was shocked
Speaker 2: at how quickly her game translated, and I think it
Speaker 2: really highlighted, not to, like, shit on Caitlyn again, but
Speaker 2: I think it highlighted what people... kind of thought Kaitlyn
Speaker 2: Clark would look like because, you know, she's also a
Speaker 2: point guard and they have similar, you know, great passing ability,
Speaker 2: great court vision. Those are things that both players share.
Speaker 2: And you're like, oh, well, there's always a transition period.
Speaker 2: You know, you're playing against grown women. Like you got,
Speaker 2: you know, you're going to get your butt kicked your
Speaker 2: first season. That's just kind of how it goes. And
Speaker 2: then Olivia Miles steps in and it was like seamless.
Speaker 2: Like no time had passed. Courtney Williams was like happy
Speaker 2: to be like, I'm going back to being a shooting guard.
Speaker 2: You're leading our team as a rookie. Like you got us.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: She is.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to describe what she looks like
Speaker 2: when she plays because nothing she does seems like it
Speaker 2: should be possible. And yet it's also just like graceful
Speaker 2: and powerful and like smooth and just kind of everything
Speaker 2: all at once. And she's got really great style off
Speaker 2: the court. And I love that. Also, did you see
Speaker 2: the nickname? Because she wears the she wears glasses off
Speaker 2: the court. She wears like goggles on the court. and
Speaker 2: the nickname The Spectacle, which I'm now obsessed with.
Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's so good.
Speaker 3: That's so good. No, because, like, I've only recently learned
Speaker 3: who she is. It's, like, literally a couple days before
Speaker 3: we recorded this, and I'm like, holy fuck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's breaking ankles everywhere. And I, she could be,
Speaker 2: she could be an MVP candidate. I don't think, I
Speaker 2: think the only time we've seen a Rookie of the
Speaker 2: Year and MVP was Candice Parker in the same year.
Speaker 2: She could do it.
Speaker 3: I support it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is really truly one of those, like, I
Speaker 1: feel so bad for her for having to be in
Speaker 1: an MVP race with Aja Wilson. But, like, the other
Speaker 1: thing about her that I love is, like, she also
Speaker 1: plays defense.
Speaker 3: She does.
Speaker 1: And she, like, seems to really enjoy it. And, like,
Speaker 1: I have this, like, indelible image of her like in
Speaker 1: this game where she, she's trying to defend someone. I
Speaker 1: can't remember who she's playing. She's trying to defend someone
Speaker 1: who's like four inches taller than her. And she like
Speaker 1: bites on a fake. So she's like in the air,
Speaker 1: but somehow she has like, she's like, she's like in
Speaker 1: the air jumping. And she has like her back to
Speaker 1: the shooter and, but somehow she has managed to angle
Speaker 1: this such that even though she's, she like bit on
Speaker 1: a fake, it is jumping. She's still blocking the shot
Speaker 1: by being in the air in front of them.
Speaker 3: And I was like, how is that even possible?
Speaker 1: Like, How do you how do you do that? Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's just like you owe it to
Speaker 1: yourself to go watch. Just go watch some of her highlights.
Speaker 1: Go watch Olivia Miles highlights. It was like it was
Speaker 1: what I was using as like eye bleach after I
Speaker 1: was trying to watch Sophie Cunningham tape, which was like
Speaker 1: one of the most miserable experiences of my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Olivia Miles is kind of a walking highlight reel.
Speaker 2: She's really something to watch. I'm excited that it's just
Speaker 2: her rookie season, too. I get a lot more of her.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And she's on a really good team. She's in
Speaker 1: a great environment. Like, everyone seems to love her. And
Speaker 1: I just, I'm so happy for her.
Speaker 3: I'm still hooked on the spectacle. That's so fucking good.
Speaker 2: It's so good.
Speaker 3: So good.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this has been, this has been Naked Apric here.
Speaker 1: And thank you both for coming on and also for
Speaker 1: letting me gush about one of my favorite players because
Speaker 1: I love her.
Speaker 4: She's so great.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Oh my God. Literally anytime. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: If you would like to be found and have people
Speaker 1: find your work, where can people find your work?
Speaker 2: I am on social media, on Instagram and blue sky
Speaker 2: at the Frankie DLC. And the, probably the best place
Speaker 2: to follow my work is my newsletter called out of
Speaker 2: your league where I write stuff, but I also link
Speaker 2: out to the stuff that I write elsewhere. Really good.
Speaker 2: And we have a great queer women's sports discord community. Um,
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's pretty dope. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You can find me on blue sky yapping about
Speaker 3: stuff and, or if you've enjoyed hearing my dulcet cackles,
Speaker 3: I got a podcast called everything is wrestling that I
Speaker 3: do with my friend Ella Taylor, where we basically just
Speaker 3: invite cool people on to info dump about their special interests.
Speaker 3: And we try to relate it to professional wrestling. I
Speaker 3: think at the time, this drops the most recent episode was,
Speaker 3: will either have been The Law is Wrestling or Muppets
Speaker 3: is Wrestling.
Speaker 2: I'm proud of them.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, hell yeah.
Speaker 1: Thank you two again so much for coming on and
Speaker 1: talking about this. And may we all live long enough
Speaker 1: to see trans women actually in the WNBA.
Speaker 3: Honestly, yeah. That'd be sick as hell. Yeah.
Speaker 4: It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 4: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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Speaker 4: sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.