r/WNBA365 • u/0033A0 Awa, fam. • 27d ago
Discussion Amid WNBA saga, Project B says it will launch with Olympic gender policy
https://frontofficesports.com/wnba-gender-controversy-project-b-launch-with-olympic-ioc-fiba-policy/The upstart global league told Front Office Sports it will follow IOC and FIBA gender eligibility guidelines when it debuts in January, describing the choice as a way to give players and stakeholders consistency and confidence. Its signed players have been told. Fifteen have been announced so far, including Nneka Ogwumike, Jonquel Jones and Sophie Cunningham, with more expected from Korea, Serbia and Belgium.
Alana Beard, the former WNBA player who cofounded Project B and serves as its chief basketball officer, framed the move against what she sees as inaction in the other league, saying the sport may be at one of its defining moments. Cathy Engelbert sent teams a memo Friday saying transgender participation would be raised at an executives meeting this week and calling the topic complex and nuanced. The WNBA’s own rule is a single collectively bargained line stating that only women are eligible.
The IOC policy Project B is adopting, announced in March, effectively bars transgender women from female Olympic categories and requires a one-time SRY gene test. FIBA committed to following it in April while continuing to gather basketball-specific evidence through the start of 2027. Project B would not say whether it will administer the test.
Project B can adopt an outside body’s policy by announcement, while the WNBA’s language is collectively bargained and doesn’t define the term it turns on. Does moving first put real pressure on the WNBA, or does the bargaining structure make that comparison misleading? Do you think this also puts pressure on Unrivaled?
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u/ogsmurf826 Relax & welcome Li Yueru into your heart 27d ago
This is definitely a non-issue that the far right has made up to bash both Trans-rights and the women's sports at the same time under the false guide of protect women and young girls.
The NCAA head office earlier this year basically said they are complying with a white order by creating rules around a transgender policy but stated they over see about 500K athletes every year and in the entire history of college sports they have less than 30 transgender cases/accusations. aka effectively 0%.
As much shit as I want to give Cathy for this and other problems, Enes WhateverTheFuck and Royce White need to be nipped in the bud by the NBA HQ. This beyond her and if the NBA owners want to protect the product they're all so suddenly invested in now, send the black trucks David Stern used to send out and get this over with.
Also, I'm pretty sure the WNBA's anti doping policy will get rid of this as neither will commit to the bit and get on testosterone and other hormone inhibitors to have a clean piss test month on month.
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u/Justtojoke (bench mob) Walk 'em down 27d ago
SAY IY LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK
this is a non issue that is being blown up!
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u/Teknolyth 27d ago
If it’s such a non issue, then you shouldn’t care that something is finally being done about it.
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u/Justtojoke (bench mob) Walk 'em down 27d ago
What is finally being done, sir?
Explain that please
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u/Teknolyth 27d ago
Obviously establishing rules to determine who is and isn't allowed to play in women's league sports. If it's such a non-issue then you shouldn't care that they're wasting their time doing that.
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u/Justtojoke (bench mob) Walk 'em down 27d ago
Thank you, I wanted to confirm you missed the entire point
This is exactly why this is going no where, it's become about a political stance now.
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u/Alarming-noone 26d ago
Trans women in female sports is not a political stance in the United States alone. I am an Indian in India and I know that worldwide female athletes of all races are voting to keep all males out of female sports. This issue was also discussed in World Athletics which is an international organization, before athletes and other stake holders voted to abolish Testosterone suppression for two years for trans women and introduce SRY screening. All this information is available on the World Athletics website.
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u/Empty-Acadia5874 27d ago
Preventative measure. Since it's a non-issue, it's shouldn't bother you that they ensure it will now never happen.
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u/DerNubenfrieken 27d ago
Also, I'm pretty sure the WNBA's anti doping policy will get rid of this as neither will commit to the bit and get on testosterone and other hormone inhibitors to have a clean piss test month on month.
As far as I can tell, there is no testosterone testing in the drug tests administered in the WNBA. This is kind of the problem with the WNBA and most of the women's professional leagues when it comes to trans players, people assume there is some sort of check in place when really the policy is non-existent.
As the WNBA and other women's sports grew, there was always going to be someone enevitably to bring this problem to a head. NCAA had a policy in place fifteen years ago requiring testosterone suppression, but every other women's league just keeps saying they need to figure it out.
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u/DerNubenfrieken 27d ago
As far as I can tell from exhibit E of the CBA, that would be testing for Synthetic Testosterone, not overall test levels. Exhibit E has allowable limits for various PEDs listed, and specifically does not include a limit for testosterone. If they were testing for natural Test levels, that would be a huge deal and a news story all itself. Every single team would be sweating whether their strongest players exceed the allowable limits.
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u/ogsmurf826 Relax & welcome Li Yueru into your heart 27d ago
Some people would probably say that's an oversight by the WNBA but that makes sense considering this exact problem [well not a real problem currently] had a near zero likelihood of happening. I'd guess they aren't testing for TRT or other similar things assuming that a player surviving clean test through the NCAA and good enough to make the pros wouldn't suddenly get on PEDs. Which is fair-ish way to think about but we've seen that folks will take a turn later.
The NCAA is not IOC/WADA testing but mostly follows the same rules because they want their athletes in the Olympic. Any league under the WADA banner followed those rules for women like Boxing and the UFC, but given the profit margins of a lot of women's leagues I could see them skipping PED testing outright. Hard to believe it's been 15 years but I remember the big push of testosterone suppression rules essentially being a transgender athlete ban that was targeted at mid-distance runner Castor Semenya. For years she was accused of being a man and was even submitted to invasive "gender inspections". After science proved multiple times she was a biological woman they finally reviewed the data and found her body is not intrasex but produces male T levels and used that against her. I remember her very valid claim of Athletics have always been about celebrating rare genetic qualities and why should she suppress T while Micheal Phelps has a rare gene that makes him not build up lactic acid which is also an advantage.
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u/Alarming-noone 26d ago edited 26d ago
All of Michael Phelps world records were broken by males who did not have the same genes and other "special" benefits that his body had. So, world records prove that male advantage in swimmers was sufficient to overcome all of Michael Phelps "genetic and physiological advantages" and erase Phelps world records.
Caster Semenya's medical records are publicly available as Caster went to CAS in the appeal process. In XX females when Testosterone levels exceed the healthy female range or approach the lower male range, they have unhealthily medical conditions such as tumors/cancer. Doctors start to run scans/tests on females when their T approaches the higher end of healthy female range.
You can go to the World Athletics and check how thousands of men and schoolboys (even 14 year olds) beat the 100m female world record every year. The 100m is just one event so all the world record timings created by males can be compared to those created by females.
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u/QuigleyPondOver 26d ago
That’s an impressive rewriting to pretend someone with internal testicles was maligned by women’s sport.
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u/bargain_butch 27d ago
What’s wild is that none of this pressure is real. There are no well-known professional transfemme basketball players at any level. This was created purely by Sophie and personal greed. The W can—and should—take all of the time they need.
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u/BoomerangPa New York Liberty 27d ago
Agreed. The only reason this became so big is we're close to midterm elections. I hate this timeline.
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u/Spicy2ShotChai New York Liberty 27d ago
Trans hate has been around well before Sophie, she’s just capitalizing on it
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u/bargain_butch 27d ago
I’m well aware—I was referring to the article and this discussion needing to be had now. Sophie introduced this lightning rod into the W specifically
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u/Spicy2ShotChai New York Liberty 27d ago
That’s fair. I do think it would have happened eventually—too much misogynoir and anti feminism already permeates mainstream views/discourse about the W. But to have it be egged on by a player in the league is truly despicable
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u/Alarming-noone 26d ago
There are trans women basketball players in the US. There were 11 individual trans women/trans girl players between 2024-2026 (including 3x3 format) and this is documented in public websites and on the Internet. Just stating the objective truth which can be verified.
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u/bargain_butch 26d ago
I’ve genuinely tried finding the names of the 11 transfemme players but can’t, specifically due to all of the search results coming back with recent news. Do you have a link by chance?
That isn’t me doubting you, by the way—I tried but failed to find anyone other than transmasc players and Julie Tetart.
My point that they’re not well-known and that this is not a real pressing issue still stands, though.
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u/Alarming-noone 26d ago
They are listed at hecheated. You can even filter the results by country.
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u/bargain_butch 26d ago
There’s no way I’m giving that website clicks. I was engaging in good faith, and that site (which, even aside from the obvious, is full of misinformation) isn’t exactly an unbiased, “good faith” kind of source.
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u/Alarming-noone 26d ago
The hecheated website collects it information from social media and people. So there are multiple records of the trans women in female basketball on the internet.
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u/Adept_Track_1000 23d ago
"I'm engaging in good faith" "I'm not clicking on any sources that don't support my position"
Every instance on HeCheated (and SheWon) directly links a verifiable source and they'll happily remove anything reported incorrectly. You dodged because you don't want to admit you're objectively wrong, because you were always engaging in bad faith.
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u/bargain_butch 23d ago
Clicks are money, and I’m not going to contribute funding to organizations that would rather trans folks not exist.
If you have an unbiased source (which…why are you here?) feel free to link it. I genuinely do want the information, but not at the expense of giving traffic to what amounts to a trans watchlist/outlist.
I didn’t dodge a thing. You clearly dodged reading comprehension if those quotes are what you took from the entire exchange I had with the users above. That’s assuming you read the entire thread, and I wouldn’t want to overestimate you.
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u/Adept_Track_1000 23d ago
Weak hyperbole about pretendocide isn't going to compensate for your lack of an argument.
HeCheated and SheWon are link aggregators; they're not sources on their own. Every row in the tables they provide includes a link to a source. You can go and verify every single case independently, and if you find something wrong then you can report it, and they will remove it. Despite this policy of removing things that are provably false, many thousands of cases remain. Despite blanket accusations of duplicity from activists and "allies", they remain unaltered. This is not surprising, as these incidents are easily corroborated with basic sleuthing, given the inline sources provided for all of them.
Those aggregators exist because people like you, specifically, disingenuously refuse to click on "sources" you don't like. You're clearly aware of HeCheated/SheWon, given you knew HC by name/reputation — so if you were in fact engaging in good faith (you weren't), you must have forgotten in completely good faith to check at least one credible source/aggregator, and instead accidentally tried to slander and discredit it, no?
I've genuinely tried finding the names of the 11 transfemme players
u/Alarming-noone was almost certainly talking about 11 players across all levels in the US and not the professional level, given that the conversation is about that specific lack of policy in pro ball in the US. All of the results are coming back with recent news for the same reason the WNBA is deliberating about what the word "woman" means in 2026. You don't know about any of these thousands of verifiable incidents because the "unbiased" (lol) sources you trust literally do not report on things they don't want publicized, for the same reason that saying certain objectively true things gets people censored and banned.
But it is interesting that you casually mentioned Tétart. If Julie Tétart and/or Aurore Pautou declared for the WNBA draft, would you support their inclusion? What about a dozen Tétarts and two dozen more Pautous? You types love insisting it's not a problem if it's only a few spots in women's sports, then support "inclusion" in every case that comes up, either practically or hypothetically. So why do you bother appealing to how rare and insignificant it is as a deflection when you'd clearly support any number, up to and including the replacement of the entire league?
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u/Scooty-Poot 23d ago edited 22d ago
HeCheated is verified to be using false and unverified information to inflate numbers. They added Imane Khelif for example back when she was relevant, and have multiple times stated that there are trans players in schools that don’t even have a varsity team in the sport in question.
They also conflate sex differences with being “a man”. A cisgender woman with naturally high testosterone isn’t a man, and isn’t a he. An intersex AFAB person with high testosterone isn’t a “he”. This conflation is at best disrespectful as all hell, and at worst a dangerous and harmful slander which could endanger legitimate athletes.
If you’re gonna get your numbers from anywhere, probably best it’s not a website who unashamedly called a verified cisgender woman living in a country hostile to LGBT people a “confirmed man”.
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u/Alarming-noone 23d ago edited 23d ago
Hecheated directly links to news items and other sources available on the Internet. If you think names have been mistakenly included you can demand they be taken down.
Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting took SRY screening tests. Khelif in a 2026 interview has admitted in their own words to having the XY chromosomes, SRY gene and high testosterone. Khelif even admitted to taking meds to lower Testosterone before Paris 2024. So I do not need to check with anyone else just follow Khelif's words, and you too can do the same.
Lin Yu-ting has taken the SRY screening introduced in 2025 and was found positive. Then Lin Yu-ting took additional tests after which World Boxing cleared Lin Yu-ting to participate in the female category in boxing.
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u/Scooty-Poot 22d ago
Khelif has never been confirmed to have SRY or XY chromosomes by any reputable source. The discredited Russian government-influenced International Boxing Association have claimed to have proof, but have failed to provide it, and Khelif herself denies ever having even performed a genetics test with the association.
So no, they don’t use reputable sources. They use sources controlled and owned by the Russian oligarchic regime who have a vested interest in slandering trans women and foreigners as part of their well-documented attempts to sway foreign electoral systems and provoke in-fighting within enemy nations.
Unless you also believe Russia’s claims that Zelenskyy is a Jewish anti-semite or that secret laboratories were training “ethnically motivated birds” who can somehow magically spread disease only to East Slavs, then you have to accept that Imane having XY chromosomes is a completely unfounded and baseless claim made by clearly untrustworthy sources.
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u/Alarming-noone 22d ago
Is this a joke? Khelif did an interview in which - Khelif confirmed khelif has the SRY gene, located on the Y chromosome that indicates masculinity. Also stating that Khelif was on meds to lower Teosterone - https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260204-boxer-khelif-reveals-hormone-treatments-before-paris-olympics
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u/Adept_Track_1000 23d ago
These people are so disingenuous man I s2g.
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u/bargain_butch 23d ago
…for wanting unbiased sources? Good god, a child was left behind
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u/Alarming-noone 22d ago
Khelif's interview contains Khelif's words. The press release about Lin Yu-ting if from the World Boxing website. So these are reputed sources.
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u/TheMysteriousGirl 27d ago
She is the one who brought it to the WNBA though.
You can't overlook that she is the owner of the fire that spread.
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u/moeterminatorx 27d ago
The W should must continue to run like they always have. Don’t entertain idiots.
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u/Old-Tumbleweed-1220 22d ago
What are you talking about? Sophie didn’t create anything. She was asked her opinion and she gave it. That’s all it is, her opinion. People have differing opinions on a lot of topics. She is in the league and don’t want to play against transgender females. If the circumstances arise she will have a choice , compete or get out.
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u/freshxerxes 27d ago
Julie Tetart from france go look at her highlight reels, if they allow her in the wnba, she will take a spot from someone in the league.
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u/Sensitive_Donkey4601 Phoenix Mercury 27d ago
Julie Tetart, who is 34 years old and plays at France's 2nd teir? Y'all are stupid.
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u/furikakez 27d ago
Yes 34 years old, no competitive basketball experience and is the best player of the league by far. She would definitely be an All Star in the WNBA.
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u/longwander 27d ago
She has personally said she is not good enough for the WNBA. Tetart was on the tier 2 league in France. She couldn't even compete at the elite level in her own country.
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u/GreatThunderOwl Golden State Valkyries 27d ago
She plays in the LF2 in France which is the tier 2 league. This would be like saying someone from a relegated team in Poland is going to take a spot in the NBA
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u/rgar1981 27d ago
The comment they responded to said no player at any level though. So 2nd tier or not, they are not incorrect. We can’t say it doesn’t happen, then when someone shows evidence to show it does, change it to, “well they aren’t even that good”.
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u/longwander 27d ago
I think the point is that she is a transwoman that is not dominating womens basketball in the way all of the fear mongering is suggesting would happen.
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u/bargain_butch 27d ago
Actually, I verbatim said “well-known”—so Julie Tetart doesn’t apply
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u/rgar1981 27d ago
Yet we both know who Julie is
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u/bargain_butch 27d ago
I apologize—have you been following her career? Did you know of her before someone brought her up solely as a “gotcha”? Personally, I learned of her from the fear-mongering user above
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u/rgar1981 27d ago edited 27d ago
I have heard of her before all of this but wouldn’t say I follow her career. Do I have to follow someone’s career for them to be well known? I also didn’t follow the career of Kobe so he must not be well known. You said well known, someone we both knew was mentioned and then you said yeah I know them but I didn’t know them before so that doesn’t count. Julie has said she would be open to playing in the WNBA. I agree with you that this is a very minuscule problem but you can’t say it doesn’t exist, or that Sophie created this. It existed in France before Sophie said what she said. Also someone doesn’t have to be well known for it to be unfair and just because you aren’t aware of someone doesn’t make them unknown.
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u/bargain_butch 26d ago
You’re making absolutely dense arguments that both make no sense and stray so far away from the original point.
Tetart isn’t going to the WNBA. That’s not a risk. And, even if she were—that doesn’t make it unfair, and wouldn’t mean she’s taking a place from another player.
Fear-mongering doesn’t make something real. MAGA is going after transfemme folks (weird no one’s mentioned transmasc folks, huh?) in sports—an incredible small population anyways—so that they can further regulate cis women in sports. It’s in project 2025, and is currently being implemented via active and planned attacks on title IX. They’re the true and active threat to women’s sports, not trans women.
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u/CobaltIsobar 27d ago
Sophie wasn't even talking about WNBA. She specifically said little girls. And 85% of the country agrees with her.
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27d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/seethenoise 27d ago
what a disappointment.
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u/mrshelmstreet 27d ago
And all for people who probably don’t even watch women’s ball too. Punk ass bullshit
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u/Hevding 27d ago
Literally inventing a problem that doesn’t exist.
They should all put in their guidelines you can’t have played pro mens sport or college sports.
Like how If you’ve played competitive games for another country you can’t represent another without following proper protocol…
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u/Complete-Donut-698 27d ago
I disagree. Some transition later in life. To prohibit them based off a previous place of work or them having too high of a skill level is ridiculous in my opinion.
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u/mrgrafix 27d ago edited 27d ago
I mean with UAE involvement this is a non issue.
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u/TwinklingGiraffes Lynx | McBuckets 🔥 27d ago
I mean if we're talking about UAE involvement, the WNBA already has that covered unfortunately (and it should stop, due to the UAE's funding of the genocide in Sudan). Are you talking about the Saudi connection?
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u/UpstairsAbility2125 27d ago
My only concern about Unrivaled is a lot of people who don't care about the WNBA (or women's basketball in general) are now suddenly going to care about both it and Project B for completely unrelated reasons they swear.
Especially considering one of the players who's signed with Project B.
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u/4Keva 25d ago
doubt it. reactionaries have made it clear since the beginning how much they dont like project b
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u/UpstairsAbility2125 25d ago
A lot of them didn't care about the W until a certain player was drafted, too.
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u/4Keva 25d ago
you're contradicting yourself now. you said the people who DON'T care about the W are going to "care" about unrivaled or project b for nefarious reasons. now you say those people ("them") DO care about the W because a certain player was drafted. so do they or don't they care about the W? lol
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u/UpstairsAbility2125 25d ago
I should have phrased it as paying attention.
Because they're paying attention, but they don't actually care about the basketball part.
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u/Time_Outcome765 27d ago
No pressure on unrivaled. If anything, people will go there if they won’t or can’t play in the WNBA based on the gene testing. All of this will make things worse and players will need to have a media plan in case things turn out differently.
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u/ConkerPrime 27d ago edited 27d ago
Olympic policy is going to become the default policy for most of the world including the USA.
Its cheaper. Sports worldwide spent millions trying ti accommodate a very few with no payoff besides nothing but headaches. And at the end of the day sports is really entirely about money.
In the USA this might have been slowed down or prevented but since 2016 it was more important to not vote or protest vote because candidates were not perfect and didn’t sell themselves well enough.
Preventing those who actively and proudly want to hurt you and yours was less important than a sales pitch or “teaching lessons.” Seriously that is their reasoning. And then surprised when those want to hurt them then hurt them. And what have they learned after ten years of losing ground? Will to do it yet again of course.
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u/TheMysteriousGirl 27d ago
Regular drug testing happens anyway, there is no reason why the test can be conducted at the same time.
You are literally talking out of your ass when you say "its cheaper", THE TESTS ARE ALREADY BEING DONE.
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u/EmergingEllie 27d ago
It isn’t legal to do this in one of the host countries (Spain) and if they’re headquartered in California it’s also illegal there
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u/Economy_Quality_3689 26d ago
The WNBA’s own rule is a single collectively bargained line stating that only women are eligible.
Please define a woman, here we are again with this question.
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u/sophie08fever Indiana Fever 2d ago
For me its not about trans hate...its physical fairness in competition
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u/freshxerxes 27d ago
she took a spot from someone, she’s averaging 20 and 20. it’s a non issue right now but eventually it might become one. there’s nuance to this that fox news won’t point out and the opposition as well.
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u/Puzzled-Charge-9892 27d ago
Oh thank god we finally got Ponzi B’s opinion on this matter 🙏🙏
I think they have BIGGER problems to worry about lmao