The WNBA admitted Monday that league security improperly forced a mother and her teenage daughter to cover their during Sunday’s game between the Indiana Fever and Atlanta Dream.
“The WNBA is aware of interactions at last night’s game in Atlanta in which fans were asked by league security to cover their shirts,” a WNBA spokesperson said in a statement provided to OutKick. “This should not have happened.”
The WNBA’s admission is as damning as it is simple: its own security forced paying fans to cover shirts supporting women’s sports.
OutKick’s Jon Root first detailed the incident involving Georgia resident Kasey Thomason and her 17-year-old daughter, Annie, who were sitting courtside during Indiana’s 95-91 victory when security confronted them in overtime. The pair wore XX-XY Athletics shirts backing Fever guard Sophie Cunningham and her stance on protecting female athletics. The shirts have become a symbol of the WNBA’s trans dilemma, exposing an uncomfortable question for a women’s basketball league struggling to define who belongs in women’s sports.
They wore them for four quarters without issue. Then, in overtime, Kasey said a fan complained and security issued an ultimatum: cover up with Dream shirts or get tossed.
“Biology and science is offensive?” Kasey recalled responding. To watch the conclusion, they reluctantly put on the Dream shirts.
CLUELESS WNBA ATTACKS ‘BAD-FAITH’ FANS WHO DON’T WANT BIOLOGICAL MEN RUINING WOMEN’S SPORTS
The WNBA admitted security crossed the line. But that only raises a bigger question: How did a women’s basketball league reach the point where stating biological reality became grounds for security intervention?
Cunningham sparked national debate weeks ago by voicing support for keeping biological males out of women’s sports.
The controversy even prompted a WNBA task force discussion among team executives, while the league denounced what it called “bad-faith efforts” to use the transgender-athlete debate to demean or marginalize others.
But the debate hasn’t remained confined to league statements and meetings.
Less than three weeks ago, Seattle Storm minority co-owner Celeste Keaton confronted two teenage girls wearing XX-XY Athletics gear and supporting Cunningham at a Fever-Storm game. The Storm subsequently apologized, and the WNBA fined Keaton an
