Justin's Sports Corner

Mathew Rodriguez at Them:

After two male basketball players publicly declared that they will identify as women only to qualify for the WNBA draft, the women’s professional sports league will soon hold meetings to clarify its language about gender eligibility. WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert sent a note to teams on Friday, August 7, saying that officials would soon meet to clarify eligibility for trans players. “I know many of you have received questions in recent weeks regarding transgender athlete participation in women's basketball, and I expect this topic will continue to receive significant attention,” Engelbert said in the memo, which was obtained by ESPN. “I wanted to reach out to share how we are approaching these conversations at the league office and to thank those of you who have responded to questions from the media with thoughtfulness and professionalism.” A task force of team presidents and general managers, which was already set to meet this week, will now add the question of eligibility by gender to their agenda.

Currently, the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement does not have any language regarding trans players and states, “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA,” per The Athletic. Engelbert’s announcement came after two former professional basketballers, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, declared that they plan to declare for the WNBA draft. Neither Freedom nor White has previously made any statements about being trans and have both expressly stated that they are doing this to exploit vague language in the WNBA’s policy. [...] The Women’s National Basketball Players’ Association, the players’ union for the WNBA, released a statement shortly after Freedom’s stunt went viral. “We embrace justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Those are the values that unite this Union and allow it to protect women’s sports while creating transformational change,” the statement reads. “Hate, abuse, and demonization of any person or group of people, including transgender people, only fuel fear, division, and harm. We will continue to have hard conversations,” the post continued. “But we will not be used as political pawns.” Just hours after Freedom’s declaration, former NBA player Royce White also said that he would declare for the WNBA draft, saying that he identifies as a woman only when it comes to playing basketball.

Thanks to Royce White and Enes Kanter Freedom’s embarrassing stunt to declare for the 2027 WNBA Draft with the intent to mock trans sports inclusion (and the trans community at large), the league plans to meet to determine whether trans women are permitted to play in the league.

Both White and Kanter Freedom formerly played in the NBA, and have become right-wing pundits in recent years.

There has never been a trans player to play in the WNBA in its 30-year history.

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Quispe López at Them:

Conservatives have identified their latest target for transphobic vitriol amid their ongoing attacks on transgender participation in women’s sports: beloved Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu’s teenage sibling. The anti-trans news site Reduxx identified and allegedly outed Liu’s 16-year-old sister, who we will not name here, as transgender in an article titled, “Olympic Figure Skater’s Brother Quietly Racking Up Wins In Girls’ Sports,” per LGBTQ Nation. (The headline notably misgenders Liu’s sibling.)

The Reduxx article claims that Liu competes on several women’s sports teams at her high school, proceeding to misgender her and share a name for her that had not yet reached broader public knowledge. Despite claiming to be a “pro-woman, pro-child” website, Reduxx went on to share more sensitive information about a minor, including the name of her high school, her ostensible sports records (including locations she previously played), and even photos of her, while blurring other presumed children in the frame. Though the Olympian’s sister appears to have public social media profiles, it is worth noting that there is a difference between a trans teen being out to her local community and a conservative outlet broadcasting her name, image, and location to the entire internet. The article also goes on to cite Marshi Smith, co-founder of anti-trans organization Independent Council on Women’s Sports, who tells Reduxx, “The Liu family represents two opposing forces: the pinnacle of excellence in female sports and, at the same time, a profound threat to the integrity of those sports.” Though gold medalist Alysa Liu has not directly addressed the report, she has frequently supported LGBTQ+ rights in the past, skating alongside openly queer members of Team U.S.A. like Amber Glenn (who says she received “scary” threats for advocating for queer and trans rights).

Alysa Liu’s trans teen sister Jaylin was outed by anti-trans extremist doxxing site Reduxx.

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Jess Piper at The View From Rural Missouri:

The funny thing about the Heritage Foundation is that they have always been upfront about their plans. They write hundreds of pages of plans for the dystopian future they envision, and they don’t hide the plans. They publish them online for the world to see…remember Project 2025?

Analyses by the Center for Progressive Reform, an organization tracking the progress of Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation indicate that about 53 percent of the domestic administrative policy recommendations outlined in Project 2025 have been initiated or completed. The Project is a far-right governing blueprint, and the Heritage Foundation has never been shy about its agenda. Project 2025 told us what they wanted to do to government, and a new report published by the Heritage Foundation tells us what they think about women. We are not partners in public life, but people to be managed and separated and minimized. I happened across a sentence in the new Heritage report entitled, “Title IX’s Failed Experiment: Why Accommodating Sex Differences Beats Engineered Parity.” The Report was released by the Heritage Foundation on July 8, 2026. That sentence shook me. I couldn’t believe I read it in a report from an organization that is actively working inside the Trump regime. Trump appointed several contributors and authors tied to Project 2025 and the Foundation, such as Russell Vought (Office of Management and Budget), Tom Homan (border policy), and Brendan Carr (FCC). The Heritage Foundation is now fully embedded in the Trump regime.

I went on to read the entire report on Title IX, and I could barely contain my anger and outrage. The plan is to end, or severely limit, women’s competitive sports and return to sex-segregated opportunities for men and women in schools across the country. To assert that women never needed sports in the first place. To prove that Title IX has become a tool of “feminist social engineering.” To demonstrate that women don’t need competitive sports and that “clubs, intramurals, and exercise classes…” would suffice. To instead encourage “activities that emphasize rhythm, coordination, community, and graceful exertion.” To prove that women don’t need to compete at elite levels, but rather benefit from activities that build, “health, good habits, vigor, grace, confidence, and beauty.” The report outlines that the goal for women’s sports should be, “…virtue and health grounded in reality and freedom, not the imposition of a male-oriented competitive ideal.”

[...]

So, I did a little digging into the man who wrote the report: Scott Yenor, PhD. He is the acting Chair of the American Citizenship Initiative and a Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. The page dedicated to him on the Heritage Foundation’s site has praise for his work, saying: “Yenor is a student of the hostile forces of feminism and liberals that rip the family apart or prevent families from forming.”

[...]

The “weaponization” Yenor is referring to is the inclusion of women and girls in school sports. Sounds like the old and tired DEI arguments from the Right. Giving equal opportunity to women and people of color is somehow diminishing the opportunities of others. We can clearly see where anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion have landed us since they have been dismantled by the Trump regime. Our country is not better without DEI — we could argue that it is worse. The irony in all of this is not lost on me. The Heritage Foundation has consistently fought to “save” girls’ sports and has taken a stand against trans athletes in sports. They argue that “male genetics and physiology provide inherent competitive and safety advantages that undermine fairness for female athletes under Title IX” all the while the true intention was to dismantle women’s sports.

The “men in women’s sports” rhetoric was just anti-trans rhetoric. The anti-trans sports fight was always a vehicle for a broader rollback of women’s sports protections. The Heritage Foundation was never committed to an effort to save or better women’s sports. They used their anti-woman, anti-trans, anti-inclusion talking points to try to attain their true goal: the elimination of competitive sports for women. To keep women segregated from men starting in school sports.

Right-wing extremist "parental rights" group Moms For Liberty's Illinois chapter will hold rally in support for Sophie Cunningham in Chicago

J.D. Wolf at MeidasTouch:

Moms for Liberty’s Illinois chapter is encouraging supporters to attend a pregame rally in Chicago on Saturday in support of WNBA player Sophie Cunningham ahead of her game at the United Center. A graphic shared by the organization invites fans to gather at 1 p.m. on Madison Street near Lot C to “cheer for Sophie and celebrate women’s sports,” while featuring the slogan, “With love is truth.” The rally comes after Cunningham has become a popular figure in MAGA circles for standing against transgender athletes in women’s sports. Moms for Liberty, a conservative parental-rights organization that has aligned itself with Republican education priorities and has been praised by President Donald Trump, has made opposition to transgender inclusion in girls’ and women’s sports one of its signature issues.

Paige Skinner at HuffPost:

WNBA star Caitlin Clark responded to recent anti-trans comments from her teammate Sophie Cunningham, saying leagues should work with athletes “to find solutions” regarding trans girls and women in sports. “I think it’s for leagues and governing bodies to work with their athletes to find solutions,” the Indiana Fever guard told reporters on Sunday after the team’s loss to the Minnesota Lynx. Clark said the topic of trans girls and women in sports isn’t something she and her teammates discuss in the locker room. “Our focus is on basketball,” Clark said. “That’s what we talk about and how we can get wins, and obviously, we didn’t do that tonight. So we need to find an area to improve in that way.”

When Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark was asked a question on trans athletes in the wake of her teammate Sophie Cunningham’s anti-trans sports comments, she answered that the leagues and governing bodies should be the ones that have the authority to settle the trans athletes eligibility question.

That answer, predictably, infuriated anti-trans and right-wing ideologues such as Matt Walsh, Riley Gaines, and Clay Travis.

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Ari's Threads (Ari Drennen): Caitlin Clark Declined to Attack Trans Athletes. Matt Walsh Called Her “the Biggest Coward in the History of Sports.”

Mathew Rodriguez at Them:

The so-called “MAGA Barbie” of the WNBA and the Fifth-Place Avenger have made contact. WNBA player Sophie Cunningham, a guard for the Indiana Fever, was seen hanging out and posing for photos with NCAA swimmer and anti-trans crusader Riley Gaines at a Sunday away game between the Fever and the Minnesota Lynx. Gaines, who has made a career out of right-wing advocacy after disappointing finishes in her college career, tweeted a photo of the pair together, with Cunningham sticking her tongue out. Gaines was wearing a T-shirt for XX-XY, an apparel brand that opposes trans inclusion in sports.

Other social media accounts posted photos of the pair posing together courtside, with Cunningham holding up a sign that said “Sophie, Thank you — A Girl Mom,” though it is unclear who gave the player the fan-made sign.

The sign that Cunningham held likely references the same comments which would have endeared her to Gaines. In July, while speaking to ESPN for a profile, Cunningham apologized for re-upping an anti-trans tweet about swimmer Lia Thomas, against whom Gaines competed, and denied “hating trans” while also reaffirming her stance opposing trans participation in sports.

Jonathan Sigal at MLS:

NEW YORK – Larry Berg has been named Major League Soccer’s next Commissioner following a vote on Monday at the league’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan. Berg, who has served as Co-Managing Owner of LAFC and Co-Chair of Major League Soccer's Sporting and Competition Committee, was selected via a comprehensive succession planning process led by the MLS Board of Governors, with Commissioner Don Garber supporting the transition process and Korn Ferry, CAA and The Miles Group serving as advisors throughout the search.  Berg will be officially introduced on Tuesday, Aug. 4 at MLS’s new office and assume the role of Commissioner on Jan. 1, 2027. Garber will continue to serve as Commissioner through the end of 2026 before becoming Chairman in 2027, ensuring a seamless leadership transition as MLS enters one of the most transformative periods in its history and builds on momentum from the 2026 FIFA World Cup. In the coming years, MLS will launch its new competition calendar for the 2027-28 season, continue evolving its roster model, open several new soccer-specific stadiums, engage in future media rights discussions, and finalize a new collective bargaining agreement. "I'm honored to lead Major League Soccer into its next era," said Berg. "Thanks to the vision and commitment of so many people, Major League Soccer has achieved tremendous success, but I believe our greatest opportunities are still ahead.

[...] During Garber's 27 years as Commissioner, MLS has grown from 10 to 30 clubs, attracted a new generation of world-class owners, overseen the development of 26 soccer stadiums, and helped transform the United States and Canada into prominent soccer nations.

AP, via Los Angeles Times:

MINNEAPOLIS — A crowd of critics and supporters of Indiana guard Sophie Cunningham’s stance on transgender participation in women’s sports gathered around and inside Target Center on Sunday as the Fever faced the Lynx in Minnesota. Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve wore a light blue shirt under her jacket that said “Trans kids belong” as she directed her team — the top team in the WNBA — to a 108-100 win over the Fever. There were fans in the stands wearing T-shirts that read, “Trans kids belong in sports.” It’s the third straight Fever game that drew a rally after Cunningham recently voiced support for barring transgender girls and women from girls’ and women’s sports in an ESPN article published last week. Before the contest, Cunningham and Reeve held a conversation at midcourt. Reeve didn’t want to share the exact nature of their talk. [...]

Cunningham was booed by the crowd on her first touch of the game and throughout. Outside the arena, dozens of fans gathered near the entrance. A person using a loud speaker repeatedly said, “Protect trans women.” There were signs held up that read, “Love is truth” and “Thank you Sophie.” Asked how she and the team are navigating the outside conversations, Caitlin Clark said after the game, “I think we’re excellent.

Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve keeping it real, unlike Riley Gaines wannabe Sophie Cunningham.

Daniel Villarreal (he/him) at LGBTQ Nation:

Eric Conn, an antisemitic far-right Christian nationalist pastor at Refuge Church in Utah, knows what causes “transgenderism,” and it’s the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). In a July 29 post published on X, Conn wrote, “Women’s sports are a key propaganda & discipleship tool of the Longhouse™.” The longhouse is a pejorative metaphor used by right-wingers to describe modern Western bureaucratic society as an over-feminized, safety-obsessed collective that suppresses individual male ambition, hierarchy, and open conflict. “WNBA is a hot bed of androgyny and homosexuality that inevitably leads to transgenderism,” he added. His claim is overstated to say the least, since the WNBA has only had one known out nonbinary and trans player, Los Angeles Sparks guard Layshia Clarendon, who retired in 2024; and even they were assigned a female sex at birth.

Sonja Chen at MLB.com:

LOS ANGELES -- The price tag was high. But for the back-to-back champion Dodgers, no cost is too steep with a three-peat bid in play. The Dodgers are in agreement on a deal to acquire two-time AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal from the Tigers in a blockbuster ahead of Monday's Trade Deadline, sources told MLB.com on Saturday night. The teams have yet to confirm the deal. In return for Skubal, who will be a free agent after this season, the Dodgers are sending a trio of prospects to Detroit. Two of them are ranked on MLB Pipeline's Top 100 list: outfielder Zyhir Hope (No. 25) and right-hander River Ryan (No. 68). Right-hander Brady Smith, who was L.A.'s No. 17 prospect before the trade, rounds out the package. "I’m excited to be a Dodger," Skubal said to reporters after the Tigers' game against the A's in West Sacramento, Calif. "I’m excited to get down there and meet all those guys and chase three championships in a row. It’s hard to do, so I’m excited to be a part of that." Skubal is the first reigning Cy Young Award winner to be traded in-season since Justin Verlander in 2023, and the sixth overall.

Nick Ames at The Guardian:

Gianni Infantino’s proposal to sell chunks of the World Cup to private investors has sensationally collapsed, with the Fifa president admitting the project “has created divisions of a nature that are no longer in the interest of the objective”, amid widespread anger globally. The plan had caused ructions within football around the world, leading Uefa to threaten a boycott of future Fifa tournaments if it was not shelved. Other confederations had also come out in opposition while one of Infantino’s senior advisors, Carlos Cordeiro, resigned on Friday in protest at the scheme. The Fifa chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, had also aimed a scathing rebuke at Infantino’s “serious lack of respect” in seeking to force it through with minimal consultation.

It has led Infantino to back down amid speculation the venture capital firm Thrive Capital, which was leading the proposed investor group, had also expressed doubts after a week that threatened to tear the sport apart. Infantino’s previously secure presidency has come under severe pressure and it remains to be seen whether his climbdown will be enough to save his position.

“Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place,” Infantino said in a statement. “Our purpose has always been – and will always be – to unite and improve. As a result, this proposal will not proceed. Moving forward, my intent is to bring all interested parties back together in the coming days and weeks in the spirit of shared interest in our game, and with the objective to continue growing football everywhere, particularly in those countries that mostly need our support.”

The proposed Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE), unveiled earlier this week, had been intended to raise hundreds of millions of dollars by selling a significant stake in the commercial rights of the men’s and women’s World Cups, and the Club World Cup, to investors. It promised an increase in distribution to “over $10bn” (£7.5bn) being spread back among Fifa’s 211 member associations. A deadline of 19 September had been set for member associations to sign up to the scheme, which offered an optional $20m (£14.8m) to those participating.

S. Baum at Erin In The Morning:

The WNBA has long been considered “the most LGBT-inclusive professional sports league,” as per The Advocate; it was the first professional sports league to launch a Pride Month campaign. But Celeste Keaton, co-owner of the Seattle Storm, has been fined and sidelined—at least for now—because of a heated confrontation with a paid anti-trans advocate sitting courtside at a game. Ahnaleigh Wilson, a Washington teenager, is an activist in the anti-trans movement’s political crusade against athletes. She and another young woman, who has not been publicly named, donned t-shirts from XX-XY Athletics—a sportswear company founded for the explicit purpose of advancing the assault on trans rights. It sponsors Wilson, a high school runner, and its “charitable” arm awarded her $5,000 for publicly outing and deriding another student athlete who was reportedly transgender. Wilson and her counterpart also carried signs praising WNBA player Sophie Cunningham “for speaking up for girls,” as Wilson’s poster read. Cunningham, a guard for the Indiana Fever, also recently won words of support from the White House because she denounced equal rights for trans people in sports and called trans women “biological males.”

Political tensions were boiling ahead of Tuesday’s Storm-Fever face-off. Outside the Seattle stadium, opposing protests formed. Wilson joined a few dozen people sporting pro-Cunningham signs, XX-XY merchandise, and advertisements for the conservative organization Let’s Go Washington. The group is spearheading efforts to install a statewide ban on trans girls in women’s sports. Afterwards, Wilson and the other young woman made their way to courtside seats, clutching their Sophie Cunningham posters with the social media handle of XX-XY scrawled by hand along the side. Wilson told a far-right podcaster after the game that they “weren’t trying to be political.” Still, they were seemingly primed to grab the attention of viewers at home. Their propaganda also caught the eye of Keaton.

Joseph Gedeon at The Guardian:

Fifa could face a sweeping US congressional investigation into its expanding financial and political ties to Donald Trump and his family if Democrats reclaim the House of Representatives in November, a senior party figure has warned. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, accused global football’s governing body of a “smash-and-grab scam of colossal proportions” after it proposed a multibillion-dollar privatization of its commercial operations.

Raskin, a Democratic representative of Maryland, would become the judiciary committee’s chair under a Democratic House majority, vowed to make Fifa an early target of scrutiny – and accused the organization of embedding itself in what he described as a pattern of corruption surrounding Trump’s second administration and the Kushner family. “Over the last few weeks, Fifa’s cozy relationship to Donald Trump has been floating to the top of the swamp of quid pro quo corruption in which the Trump Administration is swimming,” Raskin said in a statement to the Guardian. “But now we see where all the bribes, kickbacks and sweetheart deals have been leading.” Raskin’s comments follow plans of the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, to pursue a spin-off of the organization’s commercial business into a standalone company, reportedly valued at about $20bn. JPMorgan Chase is leading the fundraising effort, with Thrive Eternal, an investment vehicle linked to the Thrive Capital founder, Joshua Kushner, among the prospective investors. Joshua Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a high-level White House adviser.

[...] Should Democrats – who lack the legal power to demand that witnesses appear under the current Republican House majority – win control of the chamber in November’s US midterm elections, Raskin would have the authority to compel testimony and documents from Fifa, JPMorgan and entities connected to the Kushner family’s investment vehicles. “Fifa needs to cooperate in good faith now,” he added. “If and when Democrats take the House, this Committee will have the tools we need to get answers, expose corruption, protect sports fans against exorbitant and fraudulent charges and block this attempt to turn world soccer into a global financial shakedown.”

Lisa Needham at Daily Kos:

Sophie Cunningham is a mid-tier guard on the WNBA’s Indiana Fever who went viral for aggressively pointing her finger at an opposing player and hasn’t been part of the starting lineup since May. The 29-year-old hoopster can’t steal the spotlight with her game, so she’s pivoting and making her name by being MAGA trash instead. Just before the WNBA’s July 25 All-Star Game—which, it must be noted, did not include one Sophie Cunningham, who has never made the All-Star team—she got a weird soft-touch puff piece in ESPN thanks to her becoming a “cultural flashpoint.” Yeah, that’s just code for “anti-trans conservative blonde chick who says bigoted things and gets seal claps from bigots.” Even when the author of the ESPN article tries to puff her up, it’s a fail.  [...]

“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, I never once said that. I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest,” she blathered. “And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” This garbage could have come out of the mouth of President Donald Trump. Or his bigoted henchman Stephen Miller. It’s rancid anti-trans intolerance, and Cunningham knows it, and she knows that there is an audience for it.  While Cunningham played coy with ESPN about how she doesn’t express her political beliefs, and is “very much in the middle,” and agrees “with things on both sides,” and whined that “people love to assume” she’s MAGA Barbie, her TikTok account makes pretty clear what her beliefs are.

To her 3.2 million followers, Cunningham has reposted a video slamming immigrants and mocking family separation along with one claiming rap is demonic. She follows Candace Owens and Riley Gaines. She posted some “USA core” that included Trump humping the flag at CPAC in 2020. Your beliefs aren’t a mystery, girl. The Trump administration is eager to claim Cunningham, and she seems just fine with it. Over on its official account on X, the Department of Education posted a picture of Cunningham in a crown with a caption reading “Common sense prevails,” after Cunningham doubled down on her anti-trans remarks, saying “I said what I said. I think it’s kind of common sense.”

Lisa Needham at Daily Kos:

The World Cup may be over, but the stench of FIFA corruption remains. That’s little surprise,  given the antics of FIFA President Gianni Infantino before and during the World Cup. He sought to ingratiate himself with President Donald Trump, and he’s now continuing his efforts to sully the sport of soccer by putting it all up for sale. 

In an announcement that seems to have surprised many of its 211 member federations, FIFA declared on Tuesday that it will be creating a private company called FIFA Forward Enterprise, valued at $20 billion, to run the World Cup and other competitions. Private investors would be able to buy stakes in that for-profit company.  What investors, you’re wondering? FIFA is working with J.P. Morgan, one of its top investors is expected to be a group called Thrive Eternal, which was founded by Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. Naturally, reports say that figures close to the Trump administration have been consulted on the plan. As if Infantino were going to do this deal without making sure the big man approves and his family gets a taste.  In an announcement that seems to have surprised many of its 211 member federations, FIFA declared on Tuesday that it will be creating a private company called FIFA Forward Enterprise, valued at $20 billion, to run the World Cup and other competitions. Private investors would be able to buy stakes in that for-profit company.  What investors, you’re wondering? FIFA is working with J.P. Morgan, one of its top investors is expected to be a group called Thrive Eternal, which was founded by Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. Naturally, reports say that figures close to the Trump administration have been consulted on the plan. As if Infantino were going to do this deal without making sure the big man approves and his family gets a taste.  [...] Infantino tried a similar privatization thing in 2018, engineering a secret deal where SoftBank, apparently backed by Saudi money, would create new global soccer tournaments. It fell through after UEFA, the European soccer governing body, pushed back.

The corrupted FIFA will be creating a sell-off scheme called FIFA Forward Enterprise to run the World Cups (both men’s and women’s), Club World Cups, and other FIFA competitions.

UEFA is right to push back against the corrupt proposal designed to tear apart the cherished traditions of the World Cup.

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Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:

A leading Democratic-aligned think tank is urging political leaders to defend transgender people from discrimination while accepting that restrictions on their participation in sports “may be appropriate under some circumstances,” a proposed political reset that is already drawing criticism from within the LGBTQ+ community. The Center for American Progress published the six-page report, “Ending the Backlash on LGBTQI+ Issues,” on Thursday. Written by Caleb Smith, CAP’s director of LGBTQI+ health policy, and Winnie Stachelberg, a longtime LGBTQ+ policy strategist who founded the organization’s LGBTQI+ policy program, the document offers Democrats a framework for responding to Republican attacks on transgender health care, athletics and military service. Smith, who is trans, said the paper is intended to give leaders a clear, accessible way to discuss issues that the political right has saturated with misinformation.

The goal, he told The Advocate, is to “turn down the temperature” while “aggressively holding the line” on civil rights for transgender people and the broader LGBTQ+ community. The paper is not meant to prescribe every policy, Smith said, but to establish principles that remain unchanged by elections or polling.

Stachelberg said the report is also designed to prevent Republicans from continuing to define the debate. Republicans around the country have focused their attention on stripping rights from transgender people, a group that represents less than 2 percent of the U.S. population. “The backlash here, the attacks by the far right, the hundreds of millions of dollars of ads fueled by the far right are threatening hard-won civil rights protections and really some of the most vulnerable in our society,” she said. Its purpose, she added, is partly to “take the issue off the table as a Republican attack line.”

A reset shaped by political headwinds

The report declares that civil rights are inalienable and should not depend on “shifting parties in power or the latest polling results.” It calls for passage of the Equality Act, condemns political interference in gender-affirming health care, and supports transgender people serving openly in the military. But it also urges LGBTQ+ supporters to “reckon with the defensive environment” confronting the community. The authors write, “We all know there are differences between men and women,” note that LGBTQ+ issues are not among most voters’ leading priorities, and say political leaders must “regain their foothold.” Polling helps explain the political pressure behind that language.

[...]

CAP leaves room for sports restrictions

CAP argues that eligibility rules should be determined by schools, communities, and athletic governing bodies rather than elected officials. Policies may appropriately differ depending on the sport, athletes’ ages, and the level of competition, the authors write. They cite two sharply different examples. The National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association allows participants to compete according to their gender identity. The NCAA, by contrast, changed its policy after President Donald Trump’s executive action targeting transgender athletes and now bars transgender women from competing on women’s teams.

“This is where these decisions appropriately lie: with sports’ governing bodies or schools themselves rather than with politicians,” the report says. “While local bodies and associations should minimize unnecessary exclusion, restrictions may be appropriate under some circumstances.” Asked what would constitute a necessary exclusion, Smith declined to identify a specific policy CAP would endorse. “That’s exactly what is not in our purview,” they said. “We’re not giving them some sort of eligibility roadmap because these are the sports associations and schools that have that information.”

[...]

Smith said the NCAA was included because it is a prominent governing body, not necessarily because CAP endorses its current rule. Trump’s intervention, he said, demonstrated precisely the political interference the report opposes. “We’re not necessarily speaking directly to their policy because we’re making the point that politics should not be part of the process,” Smith said. “We should not have politicians trying to interject themselves into school board meetings about sports policy.” Alejandra Caraballo, a civil rights attorney and clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, said that explanation does not resolve the problem. By presenting the NCAA rule as one legitimate outcome of institutional decision-making, she said, CAP is normalizing a policy adopted under Trump administration pressure. “They’re essentially legitimizing a Trump-directed action,” Caraballo, who is trans, told The Advocate. She noted that the NCAA policy reaches beyond elite Division I competitors to students in lower divisions who may play largely for exercise, friendship, and campus involvement. “To legitimize the NCAA ban was just like, it is just a slap in the face,” she said.

Caraballo also called CAP’s approach legally incoherent. The organization supports broad nondiscrimination laws, she said, but exclusionary sports policies could violate state civil rights protections covering education. “You can’t on one hand say you support anti-discrimination protections and then on the other say you’re going to support the NCAA ban,” she said. Smith rejected the idea that the report provides intellectual cover for discrimination. CAP opposes categorical state and federal bans, he said, while acknowledging that advocates have reason to scrutinize any language allowing exclusion.

[...]

On health care and military service, CAP draws a harder line

Beyond sports, the report says parents and physicians, not politicians, should make decisions about transgender medical care for minors. It condemns bans on transgender military service and says transgender veterans must retain the benefits they earned. Stachelberg said Democrats should answer anti-transgender attacks rather than leaving a vacuum their opponents can fill.

Democratic Party-aligned think tank Center For American Progress (CAP) wrote in a 6-page report entitled Ending the Backlash on LGBTQI+ Issues. In that report, it urges political leaders to defend trans people from discrimination, urges the passing of the Equality Act, supports trans people serving in the military openly, and condemning interference gender-affirming health care, while also accepting that restrictions on trans sports may be acceptable in certain circumstances.

See Also: