Mother Jones wants you to know XX-XY Athletics founder Jennifer Sey is making money.
asserted
Sey → want → money
It really, really wants you to know.
asserted
you → want → ?
Madison Pauly's headline does the work before readers even reach the first sentence: "The Woman Profiting Off the WNBA's Trans Panic."
You see, Mother Jones wants you to think Sey isn't simply a woman who believes males shouldn't compete in women's sports and runs a company built around that position.
asserted
males → do → position
In Pauly's telling, she's "profiting," and the underlying disagreement isn't a legitimate debate over sex-based sports categories.
asserted
disagreement → profit → categories
Then look at how the people involved are described.
asserted
people → look → ?
Those who oppose males in women's sports are repeatedly called "anti-trans activists" or tied to "MAGA trolls."
The other side gets very different treatment.
asserted
side → oppose → treatment
Those people are scared and just want to feel safe.
asserted
people → want → ?
The WNBA is described as a sanctuary that is being taken away from them.
asserted
that → describe → them
This isn't the first time Pauly has gone looking for a grift when someone opposes males in women's sports, either.
asserted
someone → go → sports
Last year she wrote a Mother Jones investigation titled "How right-wing superstar Riley Gaines built an anti-trans empire."
asserted
Gaines → write → empire
The accompanying podcast was called "All-American Grift" and asked who was "funneling money" into Gaines' rise.
asserted
who → accompany → rise
Now Sey is "profiting off" a "trans panic."
asserted
Sey → profit → panic
At some point, you have to wonder whether Mother Jones can even imagine that people might sincerely believe women’s sports should be for women.
uncertain
sports → have → women
And Pauly uses some of the same tricks in the Sey piece, including the way she presents "research."
asserted
she → use → research
The research doesn't prove what Mother Jones says it does
Sophie Cunningham told ESPN she wanted to protect young girls in locker rooms and female athletes who shouldn't have to compete against "biological men."
Mother Jones calls that part of an "anti-trans panic" and responds that research indicates transgender people are "far more likely to be the victims of violence, including sexual assault.
asserted
people → prove → assault
But that has nothing to do with Cunningham's argument.
asserted
that → have → argument
Being at elevated risk of victimization doesn't tell us whether sex should determine access to female locker rooms.
asserted
sex → tell → rooms
Being a victim of violence and committing violence are two different things.
asserted
Being → commit → violence
Mother Jones cites evidence about one and uses it as a rebuttal to the other.
asserted
Jones → cite → other
One study Mother Jones points readers toward is a 2026 JAMA Network Open review of violence against transgender and "gender-diverse" adults.
asserted
Jones → point → adults
The headline finding sounds sweeping, but it came from a relatively small subset of the studies the review collected, and the results varied wildly from one study to another.
asserted
results → sound → another
They warned that most of the underlying samples weren't randomly selected and shouldn't simply be treated as representative of transgender people generally.
asserted
most → warn → people
Then the study leaves the academic journal and those caveats mostly disappear.
asserted
caveats → leave → journal
Mother Jones keeps the part that says "research indicates" and gives readers none of the reasons the researchers themselves said to be careful with the finding.
asserted
researchers → keep → finding
A complicated study becomes a simple talking point and, by the time it reaches the reader, "research indicates" is doing a heck of a lot more work than the research itself.
asserted
indicates → become → research
The sports "science" gets a similar treatment from Pauly.
asserted
science → get → Pauly
She writes that hormone therapy "has been shown to diminish athletic performance, though studies vary on how much."
asserted
studies → write → performance
Women's sports aren't a handicap division for male athletes who can medically reduce their performance by some acceptable amount.
asserted
who → reduce → amount
If women's sports are a sex-based category, hormone suppression doesn't change the athlete's sex.
asserted
suppression → base → sex
And even if you accept Mother Jones’ premise for the sake of argument, its own research doesn’t settle the fairness question.
asserted
research → accept → question
The studies it cites found that hormone treatment reduced some performance advantages, but others remained even after years of treatment.
asserted
others → cite → treatment
So yes, hormone therapy can diminish performance.
asserted
therapy → diminish → performance
That isn't the same thing as eliminating male-puberty advantages, and it certainly doesn't explain why women should have to compete against males once those advantages have been reduced enough for someone else's liking.
asserted
advantages → eliminate → liking
Mother Jones found SEC filings but skipped the women who organized the Seattle rally
Mother Jones spends substantial time on the July 28 rally before an Indiana Fever-Seattle Storm game, describing it as a gathering of "anti-trans activists" and folding it into a larger story about Sey, XX-XY Athletics, right-wing politics and a manufactured WNBA controversy.
So, I contacted the woman who says the rally was her idea.
asserted
rally → find → woman
Jean Chadbourne told OutKick she decided to organize the event shortly after Cunningham's ESPN interview.
asserted
she → tell → interview
She contacted Amy Sousa in the Pacific Northwest, and they later reached out to Sey and Brandi Kruse.
asserted
they → contact → Sey
Chadbourne also told me she's a lifelong registered Democrat who previously worked in the reproductive-rights movement and with incarcerated people.
asserted
who → tell → people
She founded Women Are Real, a grassroots women's group that she says is about 65% Democratic and includes a substantial number of lesbian and bisexual women.
asserted
she → found → women
Readers can disagree with Chadbourne about many of her political and social positions.
asserted
Readers → disagree → positions
But if you're portraying this fight as a MAGA-driven "anti-trans" movement, the Democratic woman who helped launch the first rally is relevant.
asserted
who → portray → rally
…and 43 more, not listed.
