There Are No Trans Women in the WNBA, so Right-Wingers Are Making Some Up
There Are No Trans Women in the WNBA, so Right-Wingers Are Making Some Up
WNBA 中并没有跨性别女性，所以右翼分子正在编造一些
“Look, I’m not trying to do a conspiracy here,” wrote right-wing commentator Sydney Watson in an X post on Monday, before proceeding to implicitly endorse one. “听着，我并不是想搞什么阴谋论，”右翼评论员悉尼·沃森（Sydney Watson）周一在 X（原推特）上发帖写道，随后便开始含蓄地支持一种阴谋论。
The Australian YouTuber, who has more than a million followers on that platform, had shared a 2024 video of Brittney Griner, center for the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun, admiring a new basketball arena at Baylor University, where she was a legendary powerhouse NCAA player between 2009 and 2013. Watson speculated in her post that “maybe the reason the WNBA refuses to define ‘woman’ and definitively say that men can’t play in the league is because there is already a man … in the league.” 这位在 X 平台上拥有超过百万粉丝的澳大利亚 YouTuber 分享了一段 2024 年的视频，视频中 WNBA 康涅狄格太阳队的中锋布兰妮·格里娜（Brittney Griner）正在参观贝勒大学的新篮球馆，她曾在 2009 年至 2013 年间作为该校球员在 NCAA 赛场上叱咤风云。沃森在帖文中推测：“也许 WNBA 拒绝定义‘女性’并明确表示男性不能参加该联赛的原因，是因为联赛中已经有了一个男人……”
The baseless and inflammatory remark (Griner is a cisgender woman) came amid an ongoing moral panic about transgender women in sports, which has been ginned up by MAGA world and Donald Trump with help from a handful of female athletes. The most outspoken of these is Riley Gaines, a former collegiate swimmer for the University of Kentucky; she tied for fifth in a 2022 NCAA championship event with Lia Thomas, a transgender competitor, and soon rocketed to fame as an anti-transgender activist thanks to the grievance-industrial complex of the far right. 这一毫无根据且煽动性的言论（格里娜是顺性别女性）出现在围绕跨性别女性参与体育运动的持续道德恐慌之中，这种恐慌是由“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）阵营和唐纳德·特朗普在少数女性运动员的帮助下煽动起来的。其中最直言不讳的是肯塔基大学的前大学游泳运动员莱利·盖恩斯（Riley Gaines）；她在 2022 年 NCAA 锦标赛中与跨性别选手莉亚·托马斯（Lia Thomas）并列第五，随后凭借极右翼的“不满工业复合体”迅速走红，成为一名反跨性别活动家。
In the WNBA, Sophie Cunningham, a shooting guard and small forward for the Indiana Fever, has likewise begun to embrace a role as spokeswoman for this rancorous movement. 在 WNBA 中，印第安纳狂热队的得分后卫兼小前锋索菲·坎宁安（Sophie Cunningham）也开始担任这一充满怨恨运动的代言人。
Cunningham made waves with a July ESPN profile that quoted her opposition to allowing trans women in leagues such as the WNBA, becoming an icon of transphobic fear-mongering overnight. She explained in the interview that she wanted to “protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” In subsequent comments, Cunningham reaffirmed her stance: “I think it’s kind of common sense,” she told members of the press before a game. “I think it’s really important to protect children, and that’s little girls who are also involved in that category. I stand on what I said.” 坎宁安在 7 月份接受 ESPN 采访时引发了轩然大波，她明确表示反对允许跨性别女性进入 WNBA 等联赛，一夜之间成为了跨性别恐惧症煽动者的偶像。她在采访中解释说，她想要“保护更衣室里的年轻女孩，或者体育运动中不应该被迫与生理男性对抗的年轻女孩”。在随后的评论中，坎宁安重申了她的立场：“我认为这是一种常识，”她在赛前对媒体成员说。“我认为保护儿童非常重要，这也包括那些属于该类别的女孩。我坚持我所说的话。”
But the uproar over the WNBA not expressly forbidding the inclusion of trans athletes is much ado about nothing. No transgender women have ever played in the league, which noted in a statement this month that there are also “no immediate eligibility matters” for it to address. League commissioner Cathy Engelbert has dismissed the anti-trans online vitriol and tiny protests outside stadiums as the work of “haters.” 然而，关于 WNBA 没有明确禁止跨性别运动员参赛的喧嚣完全是无事生非。该联赛中从未有过跨性别女性参赛，联赛本月在一份声明中指出，目前也“没有需要解决的即时资格问题”。联赛专员凯西·恩格尔伯特（Cathy Engelbert）将网上的反跨性别恶毒言论和体育场外的微小抗议斥为“仇恨者”的行径。
To keep their non-controversy alive, then, culture warriors have been forced to get creative. As former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, both cisgender men, fight to prove that identifying as women makes them eligible for the 2027 WNBA draft in April (it doesn’t), Watson and others in her orbit are seeding the lie that active players such as Griner are secretly transgender. It’s a development that validates years of warnings from activists that the right’s campaign to allegedly “save women’s sports” harms cisgender women as well as transgender athletes, leading to dangerous harassment across the board. 为了维持这场“伪争议”的热度，文化斗士们被迫发挥“创造力”。当顺性别男性、前 NBA 球员埃内斯·坎特·自由（Enes Kanter Freedom）和罗伊斯·怀特（Royce White）试图证明通过认同女性身份即可获得 2027 年 4 月 WNBA 选秀资格（事实并非如此）时，沃森及其圈内人正在散布谎言，称格里娜等现役球员是秘密的跨性别者。这一事态发展证实了活动人士多年来的警告：右翼所谓“拯救女子体育”的运动不仅伤害了跨性别运动员，也伤害了顺性别女性，导致了全面的危险骚扰。
Another MAGA influencer with nearly 400,000 followers on X, for example, on Tuesday went far beyond demands that the WNBA bar trans players, calling for cheek swabs to determine the sex chromosomes of active players. That Tuesday post included a photo of Griner on the court. “Women’s sports exist because men and women are different,” the user wrote. “If the league is terrified of a cheek swab, that tells you everything you need to know.” 例如，另一位在 X 上拥有近 40 万粉丝的 MAGA 网红周二的言论远超要求 WNBA 禁止跨性别球员的范畴，他呼吁通过口腔拭子检测来确定现役球员的性染色体。周二的帖子中包含了一张格里娜在球场上的照片。“女子体育的存在是因为男女有别，”该用户写道。“如果联赛害怕口腔拭子检测，那这就说明了一切。”
The sentiment that individuals assigned male at birth are already playing in the WNBA as women is now widespread across a social media platform where owner Elon Musk famously declared the words “cis” and “cisgender” to be slurs that violate community guidelines. A self-described “American Patriot” on the site who goes by “Kentucky Girl” and has more than 150,000 followers wrote this week, “I think it’s possible there are already men in the WNBA and that’s exactly why they are struggling to handle this situation.” The post included pictures of Griner as well as Courtney Williams (Minnesota Lynx), Natasha Cloud (Chicago Sky), Alyssa Thomas (Phoenix Mercury), and Crystal Dangerfield (formerly of the Dallas Wings, she currently plays for a Turkish basketball club). “出生时被指定为男性的人已经在 WNBA 以女性身份参赛”这种观点，如今在 X 平台上广为流传。该平台的所有者埃隆·马斯克曾宣称“顺性别”（cis/cisgender）一词是违反社区准则的侮辱性词汇。该网站上一位自称“美国爱国者”、拥有超过 15 万粉丝的“肯塔基女孩”（Kentucky Girl）本周写道：“我认为 WNBA 中可能已经有男人了，这正是他们难以处理这种情况的原因。”该帖子附上了格里娜以及考特尼·威廉姆斯（明尼苏达山猫队）、娜塔莎·克劳德（芝加哥天空队）、阿丽莎·托马斯（菲尼克斯水星队）和克里斯塔尔·丹格菲尔德（前达拉斯飞翼队，现效力于一家土耳其篮球俱乐部）的照片。
And yet another blue check X user suggested to her sizable audience on Monday that the league was covering for any number of rostered men, stating she is “pretty sure there are already men playing in the WNBA,” adding, “the only question is how many.” 另一位拥有蓝标认证的 X 用户周一向其庞大的受众暗示，联赛正在掩盖名单中的男性球员，她声称自己“非常确定 WNBA 中已经有男人在打球了”，并补充说，“唯一的问题是有多少个。”
On the Facebook page Transvestigation Disclosure NOW 2.0, a long-running conspiracist group with some 50,000 members, basically no one is immune to accusations of being trans, and just about any WNBA player fits the bill. (“Transvestigation” is a term used for pseudoscientific analysis of a person’s physical features to supposedly “prove” they are transgender.) Users there have lately misidentified Angel Reese (Atlanta Dream), Sabrina Ionescu (New York Liberty), and, frequently, Cunningham’s teammate Caitlin Clark as trans; one member has claimed that the entire Las Vegas Aces team is “dudes.” 在 Facebook 页面“跨性别调查披露现在 2.0”（Transvestigation Disclosure NOW 2.0）上，这个拥有约 5 万名成员的长期阴谋论团体中，基本上没有人能免受“跨性别”指控，几乎任何 WNBA 球员都可能成为目标。（“跨性别调查”是一个术语，用于对人的身体特征进行伪科学分析，以所谓“证明”他们是跨性别者。）那里的用户最近错误地将安吉尔·里斯（亚特兰大梦想队）、萨布丽娜·约内斯库（纽约自由人队）以及坎宁安的队友凯特琳·克拉克（Caitlin Clark）认定为跨性别者；一名成员甚至声称整个拉斯维加斯王牌队都是“男人”。
Cunningham’s politics haven’t protected her, either, with the group mostly agreeing that she is a male. Likewise, a verified X account has posted Cunningham’s swimsuit photos from Sports Illustrated and commented, “Sophie Cunningham is a man, you see it right?” 坎宁安的政治立场也没能保护她，该团体大多认为她也是男性。同样，一个经过验证的 X 账号发布了坎宁安在《体育画报》上的泳装照，并评论道：“索菲·坎宁安是个男人，你看到了吗？”
Clearly, the hysteria over trans athletes has left the door wide open to foment hate against cis women athletes, too, who may be taller, more muscular, and look less traditionally “feminine” than some wholly invented visual standard of womanhood. But the slippery slope gets steeper, as it turns out. Tuesday on Fox News, The Five host Dana Perino said that players voicing anger over the rising tide of transphobia were “proving that women shouldn’t have a league,” because they were “too dramatic.” 显然，围绕跨性别运动员的歇斯底里已经为煽动针对顺性别女性运动员的仇恨敞开了大门，这些运动员可能比某些完全虚构的女性视觉标准更高、更强壮，看起来也不那么传统意义上的“女性化”。但事实证明，这条滑坡只会越来越陡。周二在福克斯新闻的《The Five》节目中，主持人达娜·佩里诺（Dana Perino）表示，那些对日益高涨的跨性别恐惧症表示愤怒的球员正在“证明女性不应该拥有一个联赛”，因为她们“太戏剧化了”。
It sure didn’t take long to go from protecting the legitimacy of the WNBA to advocating for its dissolution. 从保护 WNBA 的合法性到主张将其解散，这转变的速度确实令人咋舌。