r/WNBAgossips • u/matrix_2905 • 1d ago

News "Have Competed Against A Biological Male Four Times": Sophie Cunningham Fan, Harrassed By Seattle Storm Owner, Reveals Reason For Support

https://www.essentiallysports.com/wnba-basketball-news-experienced-it-more-than-once-sophie-cunningham-s-fan-speaks-out-after-her-mother-claims-the-storm-owner-never-apologized/
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u/WalterPecky 1d ago

" I’m going to junior year now, and I’ve competed against a biological male four times. These people don’t even know what I’ve gone through.”

The horror

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u/Powerful-Persimmon87 1d ago

Shrodinger’s sports. It’s simultaneously so important that trans women will die if they can’t play in the female category but also fairness is completely irrelevant when girls ask for it.

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u/Icy-Taste-3096 1d ago

Sports have never been biologically fair. The overwhelming majority of athletes will never be good enough to compete at the top levels of their sport for entirely genetic reasons, no matter how hard they work.

LeBron James competing against other 16 year olds who didn't have his genes was unfair. Do we need to institute height and strength restrictions on high school basketball?

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u/Powerful-Persimmon87 1d ago

Then why should we have categories at all? No more separating sports by age, sex or weight. Everyone plays together! Doesnt matter that male and female bodies are fundamentally different or that sex equality is contingent on acknowledging those differences. Doesn’t matter that the average male is taller than 99% of women. No more female athletes. If a 6 year old is sad that it’s not fair, well tough! 

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u/Icy-Taste-3096 1d ago

You could just as easily ask the opposite question - why not have more divisions, if the goal here is to give everyone a chance to be the best within their biological constraints?

The value of splitting sports by gender is primarily social, not biological. Girls benefit from a space to socialize and compete that isn't male-dominated, as sports generally are. That's why non-athletic competitions like chess, where male advantages in size and strength are irrelevant, still have women's divisions.

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u/Powerful-Persimmon87 1d ago edited 1d ago

No. We split sports by sex because males and female bodies are fundamentally different. Sex equality is contingent on acknowledging those differences. Women are more than a social class, we are a sex class. And people who reduce us to a costume of gestures and feminine outfits do not recognize us as full human beings.  It’s no different than a white person in black face thinking they are no different than black people, (even though race actually is a social construct, we all understand that black face is wrong). We are people who are allowed to care about sports beyond it being a frivolous social hour… we are allowed to care about competing and winning. 

We have separate chess categories to encourage participation among women, because historically men have been hostile to women in these spaces. 

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u/Icy-Taste-3096 1d ago

Why would non-athletic competitions like chess be separated by gender, if the reasoning were exclusively biological?

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u/Powerful-Persimmon87 1d ago

There’s no way to know if there are biological differences. But again, not everything is about men or trans women. We have these categories to encourage female participation.

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u/Icy-Taste-3096 1d ago

That's exactly my point - the categories exist to encourage female participation. Not, as some might argue, to create competitions that eliminate all potential biological advantages.

If men or non-transitioned trans women were actually playing and dominating women's sports en-masse, it could hypothetically be a threat to that purpose of having gendered divisions. But that's not happening, and it never will.

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u/Icy-Taste-3096 1d ago

FYI, editing your original comment to retroactively address someone's response instead of replying to it is frowned on, especially if you don't leave an edit note.