Story summary
Here's a summary of the news story:
In the midst of a culture war over transgender athletes, two former NBA players, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, have demanded that they be allowed to play in the 2027 WNBA draft. White claims to be transgender and argues that he should be eligible to play in the women's league, sparking controversy. The WNBA has stated that it has no active crisis regarding transgender eligibility.
However, this publicity stunt is part of a larger narrative being pushed by conservative groups and individuals who are seeking to restrict the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports. Jennifer Sey, the founder of XX-XY Athletics, a sportswear startup, has been at the forefront of this movement, producing viral ads that stoke fear and outrage over trans athletes.
Meanwhile, ratings for WNBA games have soared due to the controversy, with some commentators suggesting that the attention is being fueled by right-wing media outlets looking to exploit the issue for ratings. The Indiana Fever's Sophie Cunningham has been at the center of the controversy after making comments about "protecting" young women in locker rooms, which were seen as sparking the current drama.
The narrative surrounding this story involves a culture war over trans athletes, with some conservative groups and individuals pushing to restrict their inclusion in sports, while others are speaking out against such restrictions.
Written for “Trans Athletes in the WNBA” on 2026-09-09,
grounded in this article and the 1 other(s) covering the same event.
Jennifer Sey had been waiting for an athlete like Sophie Cunningham.
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Sey → wait → Cunningham
Sey, the founder of XX-XY Athletics, a sportswear startup that openly calls transgender people’s identity a “lie,” has spent the last two and a half years stoking the flames of the national panic over trans athletes.
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that → call → athletes
A former marketing executive at Levi’s, Sey was now running a company that produced viral video ads showing young female athletes pleading for others to defend them against a looming transgender threat.
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others → run → threat
Meanwhile, Sey and the brand offered cash rewards to athletes who boycotted matches against trans athletes or spoke out against them—incidents that fueled right right-wing outrage cycles.
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that → offer → cycles
And it gave endorsement deals to students willing to denounce trans teammates or competitors.
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it → give → teammates
Yet even as Sey made the rounds on Fox News, XX-XY Athletics remained fringe, with no mainstream athletes endorsing the company message.
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athletes → make → message
Its most famous face was Riley Gaines, the former college swimmer who leveraged the story of her fifth-place tie with a trans woman into a career as a MAGA pundit.
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who → leverage → pundit
On July 21, ESPN quoted Cunningham saying that she gets “a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans.
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me → quote → trans
And I’m like, ‘I never said that.’”
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I → ’m → that
She continued: “I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
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who → continue → men
The ESPN profile dropped like a bomb in sports and political media.
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profile → drop → media
Cunningham was the most prominent pro athlete to adopt talking points of the anti-trans panic: insinuations that trans women are locker room predators (research indicates that they are far more likely to be the victims of violence, including sexual assault) and claims that their bodies are the same as men’s (hormone therapy has been shown to diminish athletic performance, though studies vary on how much).
uncertain
studies → adopt → performance
The right claimed Cunningham as hero, while much of the WNBA fandom reacted with outrage—sensing an assault on the culture of a league whose icons are often queer Black women who defy gender norms.
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who → claim → norms
“Being outside of a gender binary is so rarely celebrated with the vigor that a W game brings,” explains Austin, a nonbinary fan of the Phoenix Mercury and Atlanta Dream.
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Austin → celebrate → Mercury
“That’s what it is for me—seeing women who are not mainstream society’s idea of a woman, seeing 10,000 people cheer those women on.
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people → ’ → women
No trans women have ever played in the WNBA, now or at any point in its 30-season history.
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women → play → history
But MAGA trolls zeroed in on the league’s collective bargaining agreement, which states that “only players who are women are eligible” to compete and does not define “woman.”
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who → zero → woman
Clay Travis, the founder of the Fox-owned sports website Outkick, proclaimed he would field an all-trans franchise called the “Nashville Balls.”
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he → own → franchise
Then Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White—former NBA players-turned right-wing personalities—tried to declare themselves eligible for the WNBA draft.
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themselves → turn → draft
“I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for purposes of basketball, professional basketball,” smirked White, a few days before badly losing the Minnesota Republican Senate primary.
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White → identify → primary
The league announced it would hold a meeting on trans athletes, and emerged with a statement decrying “bad-faith efforts to use these topics to demean or marginalize others.”
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it → announce → others
Then, during a game in Chicago, Kanter Freedom nearly stepped onto the court in a confrontation with Sky point guard Natasha Cloud, and was subsequently kicked out by security.
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Freedom → step → security
“To every trans kid/person, you are apart of MY community…you will always be protected by me,” Cloud posted on social media after the incident.
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Cloud → protect → incident
Jennifer Sey’s branded shirts have become a de facto uniform for the anti-trans activists who now stage rallies outside WNBA games.
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who → brand → games
In a two-week period following the ESPN article, the company claimed its sales increased “sixfold,” including nearly 7,000 t-shirts.
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sales → follow → shirts
After a Lynx-Fever game in Minneapolis where she personally hosted a rally, Sey posted a photo of herself and Gaines standing courtside with a beaming Cunningham.
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Sey → host → Cunningham
“She’s the brave pro athlete we’ve been waiting for,” Sey wrote on X, publicly pitching Cunningham on leaving her brand deal with Adidas and taking one with XX-XY.
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Sey → ’ → XY
“It’s not just that she’s a fantastic athlete, and she’s a currently competing professional athlete,” she elaborated on Fox News.
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she → ’ → News
“She’s tough and she says what she thinks, and that’s what we’re all about.”
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we → ’ → what
Decades ago, Jennifer Sey was speaking out for different reasons.
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Sey → speak → reasons
In 1986, a year after breaking her femur at the gymnastics world championships, she won the all-around title at US nationals and was on track to head to the Olympics.
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she → break → Olympics
Instead, she left the sport the following year and went to Stanford.
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she → leave → Stanford
Decades later, she wrote a memoir, Chalked Up, revealing the pain of her gymnastics experience, including abusive coaching and eating disorders.
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she → write → coaching
But in 2008, the book met with denials and backlash.
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book → meet → denials
Sey would eventually serve as a producer for Athlete A, a documentary about doctor Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse of young gymnasts.
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Sey → serve → gymnasts
Meanwhile, she pursued a marketing career at Levi Strauss, climbing the ranks to brand president by 2020.
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she → pursue → 2020
But the imposition of Covid public-health restrictions that year sent her on a “right-wing spiral,” says her son, Wyatt Warren, a 23-year-old college student.
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son → send → spiral
(Warren reached out to discuss his mother’s politics after Mother Jones co-published a story about Riley Gaines last year with the sports journalism podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out.)
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Torre → reach → podcast
Sey started as a vocal critic of school closures in San Francisco, appearing on news shows and posting fiery tweets.
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Sey → start → tweets
Then she started “talking down on Black Lives Matter,” says Warren.
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Warren → start → Matter
…and 65 more, not listed.
