The WNBA Confronts the "Little Shithead Problem"
The inevitable finally happens
In an internal meeting at the John Oliver show in 2015, I termed it the “Little Shithead Problem”: What if some asshole high school student — some maladjusted brat who is a walking argument for birth control — demands to use the girls’ bathroom just to fuck with his school administrators? It seemed like an important question; the answer is the difference between encouraging school administrators to accommodate transgender students and requiring them to accommodate any student on demand. My question went unanswered; more than a decade later, it is still largely unanswered. And now, two very-physically-large shitheads are publicly forcing the issue.
Ex-NBA players Royce White and Enes Kanter Freedom have declared themselves eligible for the WNBA draft. It’s a bit unclear what “declared” means in this context — they seem to be declaring for the draft in the exact same way that Michael Scott declared bankruptcy.
Both White and Freedom are trolling — neither is really pretending otherwise. They’re exploiting a controversy in the WNBA that began when a player said that she wanted to “[protect] young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go against biological men.” That sparked disagreement from some coaches and players, and the league quickly created a task force to clarify the league’s eligibility rules. This could be an “any publicity is good publicity” situation for the WNBA, except that much of the attention comes from right-wing culture warriors who wouldn’t go to a WNBA game if the Million Dollar Full Court Shot was replaced by the Million Dollar Two-Layups-Out-Of-Five.
The WNBA has been put in a tough spot by a belief — promoted by groups like the ACLU and GLAAD — that questioning a person’s gender identity is always and everywhere a form of bigotry. That view makes it hard for the WNBA to articulate reasons to exclude White and Freedom while maintaining their status as an LGBTETCETERA ally. The league has attempted to dismiss White and Freedom by denouncing “bad-faith efforts to use [transgender issues] to demean or marginalize others,” and the union representing WNBA players released a statement denouncing “bad actors”. But the fact that White and Freedom are bad actors is exactly the point. The problem with granting every trans woman access to all women’s spaces — without exception — is that it creates a loophole that can be exploited by men.
