Dawn Staley Defends Trans Athlete Participation
regardless if her comments may offend some people — was asked about her position on transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.The question came from Dan Zaksheske, a reporter for OutKick, a website with a strong conservative viewpoint that markets itself as an “everyman” alternative to mainstream sports news outlets.“You just talked about what a massive weekend this is for women’s basketball, women’s sports in general,” Zaksheske said. “One of the major issues facing women’s sports now is the debate/discussion/topic about transgender athletes, biological men in women’s sports.
I was wondering if you could tell me your position on that issue.”“Damn, you got deep on me, didn’t you?” Staley responded after taking a long sip of water. “I’m on the opinion of, if you’re a woman, you should play.
If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion.”After a pause and no initial response from Zaksheske, Staley asked, “You want me to go deeper?”“Do you think transgender women should be able to participate?” Zaksheske asked.“That’s the question you want to ask, I’ll give you that.
Yes, yes. So now the barnstormer people are going to flood my timeline and be a distraction to me on one of the biggest days of our game, and I’m okay with that.
