The WNBA’s Biggest Test
  August 11, 2026 Salutations, Meteor readers, When the great poet said “August slipped away like a bottle of wine,” she really wasn’t kidding. The month just started, and yet I already feel like it’s ending as I prepare for my daughter’s first school season 😭. I’m not crying because I’m wistful; I’m crying because I saw the price of uniforms.  In today’s newsletter, we’re talking about the foul heard round the world. Plus, some good news for abortion seekers. Backpacks and bellinis, Shannon Melero  WHAT’S GOING ONWho’s “protecting” whom?: On Saturday, in a game between the WNBA’s Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky, the Sky’s DiJonai Carrington committed a flagrant foul that has reverberated beyond the court for one very specific reason: She elbowed the vocal anti-trans player Sophie Cunningham. Carrington was ejected from the game after some jawjacking between the two teams. Afterward, she said the contact was unintentional (Cunningham is skeptical) and called for the league’s refereeing “to be consistent across the board regardless of the name on your jersey or your skin color or the score of the game.” As with all things pertaining to sport, none of this is just about basketball. Over the last few weeks, there have been a number of “fan incidents” at WNBA games where said fans hurled racist comments at players and held courtside anti-trans demonstrations. Owners have been suspended. Fans have been ejected. This behavior at games is not necessarily new, but the incidents have become frequent enough that in July the WNBA Players’ Association met with the league to discuss safety concerns. At the center of this maelstrom is the anti-trans movement, which has hitched its wagon to Cunningham, a white, attractive, middle-of-the-pack player—the right does love to make stars out of the unimpressive—and much of the attention and support around her is being drummed up by a conservative clothing brand XX-XY, which is capitalizing on Cunningham’s stance of “protecting” women and girls in sports from “biological men.”  IT’S KIND OF GIVING RENAISSANCE PAINTING. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) Cunningham, her new bestie Riley Gaines, and XX-XY are all playing up (and monetizing) the manufactured fear of some trans boogeyman infiltrating the WNBA to steal all the jobs of the women in the league. Truly, I dare anyone to try and come for A’ja Wilson’s job! The reality is that in the history of the WNBA there has been one (1!) active player who came out as trans: Layshia Clarendon, who played for eleven seasons. And yet, women like Sophie Cunningham are still positioning themselves as victims of trans women and allies. In fact, Cunningham is so committed to this victim bit that she recently stated that she just “wants to get back to basketball” and not continue discussing an issue that she herself brought up. It’s not a coincidence that the war against trans women is boiling over to this degree at the WNBA just a few months ahead of the midterms. Why else would a man running for a Senate seat announce mid-campaign that he’s declaring for the WNBA draft? The W, for all its woes, has created a standard for inclusivity and has shown on a national scale the power of Black women and queer people who organize around a cause. This league is the right’s nightmare, and now this white woman being accosted is a sneaky way to spread the message that Black women must be silenced and trans women eliminated. In the immediate aftermath of the flagrant foul, attention-starved anti-trans “activists” jumped to Cunningham’s defense and the so-called defense of women’s sports overall. The WNBA’s front office also announced that it would be reviewing eligibility requirements. No matter how this unfolds, the battle lines have been drawn. The W will either have to full-throatedly condemn the anti-trans movement and enshrine its stance in the eligibility requirements, or it will have to bend to the will of bigots. There’s no more room to hide behind Pride nights and vague slogans; the moment to truly walk about what it talks about is here. The ball is quite literally in their court, and the privilege of silence no longer exists. AND:
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