The conversation around trans athletes and the WNBA has broken containment as former NBA athletes turned conservative media characters Enes Kanter and Royce White step in with a publicity stunt to attempt to play in the women\u2019s league.<\/p>\n
Gender politics suddenly took over WNBA news last month when Indiana Fever forward Sophie Cunningham shared her desire to keep transgender women out of women\u2019s sports locker rooms in a profile at ESPN. While Cunningham\u2019s initial comments centered on youth sports<\/a>, others quickly took the baton to weave a story<\/a> around how the WNBA itself could be overtaken by transgender women.<\/p>\n Since Kanter and White\u2019s pronouncements, right-wing commentators<\/a> have expressed glee toward the pair\u2019s efforts to undermine WNBA rules regarding who can compete in its league. But this week, former ESPN analyst Ryan Clark had some choice words for them in a recent video for his podcast<\/a>, The Pivot.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we are men, and as former athletes, and we understand how hard it is to get respect in the game, don\u2019t make a mockery about what these women are going through. Don\u2019t make jokes about things you\u2019ll never understand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cStay out of it. If you don\u2019t have some input, either right or wrong, that could be impactful or helpful, let these people be. Because dudes who could never play who want to make jokes about something that is incredibly serious are absolute clowns.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In the same clip, Channing Crowder criticized the league and its broadcast partners for giving in to these storylines, warning against allowing WNBA coverage to be overtaken by \u201cgossip.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy aren\u2019t we talking about the game? Why aren\u2019t we talking about the game like we talk about the NBA?\u201d Crowder asked.<\/p>\n \u201cWNBA, NBA, same damn three letters, but it\u2019s always a tabloid, it\u2019s always some \u2026 gossip. And I don\u2019t think the gossip of it is what you want to build your league around. So that\u2019s what I think: the publicity around the WNBA is built on gossip. Why are we looking at a 9-2-2 lady every time I look at ESPN?\u201d<\/p>\n But the league\u2019s participation policy is not the only broader social issue that has become part of the national WNBA conversation. Last weekend, Chicago Sky defensive stopper Dijonai Carrington posted the phrase \u201cwhite privilege\u201d and tagged the Fever\u2019s official account after she was called for a Flagrant 2 foul<\/a> for a physical play on Cunningham. While Carrington has since disputed that she directed the comment\u00a0<\/a>specifically at Cunningham<\/a>, the inflammatory post opened the door to\u00a0further distraction from the play on the floor.<\/p>\n Fred Taylor laid out how the WNBA\u2019s players and media partners walk a fine line between continued growth in the league\u2019s audience and revenue and some of the league\u2019s larger social justice efforts.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a fan, even of the game, you\u2019re gonna be turned off by it. There\u2019s too much politicking going on in the WNBA,\u201d he said. \u201cThe media can help you in one light because they need the TV rights and the TV deals to increase their pay. But on the flip side, with social media, you\u2019ve got the fighting over it, the politics, and the social awareness stuff that not many people like. You\u2019ve these women fighting for social justice to try and help a class of people who have been pushed down and discriminated upon.<\/p>\n \u201cBut not everybody wants to hear that. And sometimes, the people that pay your bills or help increase the money that you\u2019re bringing in, those people aren\u2019t supporting the league a lot of the time. So I just think it\u2019s a slippery slope that these women are on, because enough is enough.\u201d<\/p>\n As the noise around the WNBA all season has proven, the league has a clear messaging problem. Even former coaches and players in the league who are sympathetic to the causes it supports are suggesting the narrative is building in the wrong direction<\/a>.<\/p>\n Clark joined a growing<\/a> chorus<\/a> of voices<\/a> in the national media calling on commissioner Cathy Engelbert to get a handle on things or step away.<\/p>\n \u201cTo me, it\u2019s about pushing the right things. Not only if you\u2019re the executives, but the players as well,\u201d Clark said. \u201cTalking about the right things, making sure the right things are at the forefront of people\u2019s minds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The conversation around trans athletes and the WNBA has broken containment as former NBA athletes turned conservative media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,187883,71219,19382,296178,19383,82,187147,630],"class_list":["post-854800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-channing-crowder","tag-enes-kanter","tag-fred-taylor","tag-royce-white","tag-ryan-clark","tag-sports","tag-the-pivot","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}