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NBA champion Matt Barnes has weighed in on the line of transgender athletes and says trans women are not allowed to participate in women’s leagues.
The former basketball player, 42, said he supports the transgender community and that people can be who they want to be – but there is no place for transgender players to compete against women in the WNBA.
Barnes cited transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who in March became the first transgender woman to claim a national title in swimming, as an example of how the “whole dynamic” of sport would change if transgender athletes were allowed to participate in women’s sports.
A wave of doctors has suggested that Thomas — and other trans-female athletes — will always have an unfair advantage in some sports because they can’t undo puberty when their biological male bodies are flooded with testosterone.
When asked about the potential for transgender women to play in the WNBA, Barnes went on to say: Vlad TV: ‘I do not like it. Whatever you were born with, I feel like you should be playing in that space.
‘You know, I’m pro take your pick, you do you, but sport is different. Sport is a different beast.’
He added: ‘If you were born a woman, you should play women’s sports, and if you were born a man, you should play men’s sports. But if you want to do what you want with your life, I respect that, but I think the sport is a little different.’
NBA champion Matt Barnes (pictured) weighed in on line of transgender athletes and says trans women are not allowed to compete in women’s leagues
Barnes pointed to transgender swimmer Lia Thomas (pictured), who became the first transgender woman to claim a national title in swimming in March, as an example of how the “whole dynamics” of sport would change if transgender athletes were allowed to participate in women’s swimming. sport-
Barnes said that if a transgender player, who was born male, were to compete against women in the WNBA, it would “change the whole dynamic of the game.”
He added: “I respect any personal decision a person might make, but when it comes to sports, I think crossing that line is a line that shouldn’t be crossed.”
Referring to Thomas, the transgender swimmer who won the women’s 500-meter freestyle at the NCAA Championships, Barnes said she had an advantage because she was born male.
After high school, Thomas earned a spot on Penn’s men’s swim team. But by her second year, she struggled with deep depression and suicidal thoughts.
At the end of her sophomore year, she began hormone replacement therapy.
Barnes said that if a transgender player, who was born male, were to compete against women in the WNBA, it would “change the whole dynamic of the game.”
Thomas began swimming on the Penn women’s swim team early in her senior year, following the NCAA guidelines in effect at the time athletes were required to complete a year of hormone replacement therapy to switch genders.
Criticism of Thomas grew as she achieved much more swimming success competing against women than before.
Transgender athletes have now become a prominent political target, with many conservative states enacting laws requiring high school athletes to compete as the gender they were assigned at birth.
Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed a proclamation declaring NCAA runner-up Florida-born Emma Weyant the true winner of the women’s 500 title.
The NCAA has changed the eligibility guidelines for transgender people to allow any sport to follow the rules set by each sport’s national governing body.
But Thomas said it’s not fair to prevent transgender people from participating in sports, or to limit them to only competing against each other.
“Besides not allowing the full athletic experience, that’s incredibly annoying for transgender people who already face immense discrimination in other parts of our lives,” Thomas said.
Referring to Thomas, the transgender swimmer who won the women’s 500-meter freestyle at the NCAA Championships, Barnes said she had an advantage because she was born male.
University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas reacts after a tie for fifth place in the 200 Freestyle Finals at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 18.
Thomas (pictured in 2017) previously competed on the men’s team and began hormone therapy in 2019-2020. The pandemic gave her a break from sports and she continued with menopausal therapy
In June, the swimming board, FINA, banned all transgender women from elite competitions if they did not begin medical treatment to suppress testosterone production before the onset of puberty or at age 12, whichever comes later.
USA Swimming introduced its own policies earlier this year, figuring it would eventually follow FINA’s lead, but this week said it would take time to see how FINA’s policies affect its own.
The FINA decision made the national swimming federations scramble.
The NCAA, which regulates college sports, had sought clarification from USA Swimming over transgender swimmer Thomas, who competed on Penn’s women’s team.
USA Swimming has established a policy to demonstrate that an athlete has maintained a testosterone level of less than 5 nanomoles per liter for a minimum period of 36 months.
But the NCAA decided not to pass that rule immediately, which would prevent Thomas from qualifying for the National Championships in March, where she won the 500-meter individual title.
When it released its policy, USA Swimming said it would remain in effect until FINA adopted its own policy. In a statement Wednesday, USA Swimming said it would “take our time now to understand the impact of this international standard on our existing policies.”
Thomas has said she would like to pursue the Olympics; if she does, her time would probably put her in the mix to at least earn a spot in the Olympic trials for the 2024 Games in Paris.
The International Rugby League has also barred transgender women from women’s competitions until more studies allow the sport’s regulators to come up with cohesive inclusion policies.
And the International Cycling Union updated its eligibility rules for transgender athletes in June; it extended the period during which transgender athletes on women’s teams have to lower their testosterone levels to two years instead of one.
FIFA, which runs football, said it is “currently reviewing gender equality rules in consultation with expert stakeholders.”
Individual sports are leading the way as the International Olympic Committee framework introduced last November and went into effect in March put all sports in charge of their own rules regarding testosterone.
It replaced an IOC policy that had allowed transgender women who had been on hormone replacement therapy for at least 12 months to compete against other women in the Olympics.