Former WNBA star Val Whiting has condemned the growing push by transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports.
The two-time national champion at Stanford took to social media to make her viewpoint clear on Saturday night after South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley broached the issue ahead of the team’s national championship game against the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Staley said she supported the idea so Whiting chose to disabuse her of the notion it is anything but fair – or safe – for a male identifying as a female to join women’s sports.
“A lot of my basketball sisters feel differently but trans women do not belong in women’s sports,” Whiting wrote on X.
“It’s not fair nor safe for biological women. There has to be another solution for trans women to be able to compete athletically besides having them compete against biological women.”
A lot of my basketball sisters feel differently but trans women do not belong in women’s sports. It’s not fair nor safe for biological women. There has to be another solution for trans women to be able to compete athletically besides having them compete against biological women.
— Val Whiting (@iamcoachval) April 7, 2024
Fox Sports notes Whiting played in the American Basketball League and Women’s National Basketball League before the WNBA took off.
She then played for the Detroit Shock and the Minnesota Lynx around the same time as Staley, Fox sports added.
File/30 Jul 2001/ Val Whiting #52 of the Minnesota Lynx passes the ball during the game against the Los Angeles Sparks at the STAPLES Center in Los Angeles, California. (Eliot Schechter /Allsport via Getty)
Whiting’s stated commitment to women’s sports being purely for women and not men came as the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) approved a measure on Monday that would block any male identifying as a female from infiltrating women’s sports, as Breitbart News reported.
The NAIA Council of Presidents passed the historic act without opposition by a vote of 20-0. The new ban on transgender athletes replaces the old ban, which only covered postseason competition.
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