WNBA Coach Refuses to Rule Out Men in Women’s Sports
“I would say though that I just don’t feel like exclusion is an answer, and I think that we need to have deeper, more layered conversations.”
Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White would not say whether biological males should be allowed to compete in the WNBA, insisting she was not sufficiently educated on the subject while declaring that she does not believe “exclusion is the answer.”
White was questioned before the Fever’s game against the Portland Fire on Friday, and when asked for her personal position on biological males participating in women’s sports, White responded:
Fever coach Stephanie White is asked her stance on males playing in women's sports.
"I wouldn't really say that I'm educated enough from a scientific standpoint. I don't ever believe that exclusion is the answer."
She then opens up on "frustration" over the debate being tied… pic.twitter.com/6hOLPSBYBf
— Jackson Thompson (@JackThompsonFOX) August 1, 2026
“I don’t know that I would say that I’m educated enough from a scientific standpoint. I don’t ever believe that exclusion is an answer. I just don’t.”
“I do think, you know, when we think about various levels of sport, various governing bodies of sport, and things that go into that, like I said, I’m not educated enough at the different levels. I know growing up I played with the boys all the time.”
The irony, of course, is that exclusion is the entire reason women’s sports have separate categories. Riley Gaines quickly dismantled White’s response.
“I don’t ever believe exclusion is the answer, I just don’t.”
Cool. So does she think Olympians shouldn't be excluded from Paralympics? 18 year olds shouldn't be excluded from 12u? Heavyweights shouldn't be excluded from featherweights?
Categories exist solely to exclude. https://t.co/iCuJr22Xmm
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) August 1, 2026
Gaines pointed to the categories separating Olympians from Paralympians, adults from youth athletes, and heavyweights from featherweights before delivering the obvious conclusion: “Categories exist solely to exclude.”
White was then asked directly whether she would welcome a biological male into the WNBA. She again declined to provide a clear answer.
“I don’t know, when we talk about biological male and scientifically where we are, I think it’s a totally different scenario. You know, as I said, I’m not educated enough in terms of transgender and transitioning to give you a smart answer.
I would say though that I just don’t feel like exclusion is an answer, and I think that we need to have deeper, more layered conversations.”
The reporter followed up by asking whether White would be comfortable having a biological male in the team’s locker room. White did not answer.
Another reporter shifted the conversation by asking whether the controversy had become a distraction for the Fever. White acknowledged some frustration but called the debate part of the league’s “growth edge,” a phrase that does a lot of work to avoid saying anything.
More questions came as White’s own player, Sophie Cunningham, continues to speak plainly about protecting women’s sports. Cunningham recently said that she wants to protect girls who should not have to share locker rooms or compete against biological males.
“I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
Supporters held a rally outside Portland’s Moda Center before Friday’s game, marking the second consecutive Fever road game featuring a demonstration backing Cunningham’s position. A similar rally was held in Seattle earlier in the week.
The suppression of dissent extended beyond the press conference itself. The Fever kept Caitlin Clark, who recorded the fourth triple-double of her career in Indiana’s fifth straight victory, away from reporters entirely. When a reporter attempted to ask players Aliyah Boston and Makayla Timpson about Cunningham’s position, the press conference was abruptly shut down. The Fever then removed that final exchange from the version uploaded to YouTube. Fox News Digital confirmed it has received no response from the team explaining why Clark was made unavailable.
White’s hedging comes weeks after the Supreme Court’s ruling affirming state laws that ban biological males from women’s sports, a legal and policy framework that already answers the question she claimed was too complex to address. White says she needs a more “layered” conversation. Gaines needed only four words: Categories exist solely to exclude.
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Comments
Given this idiot’s response disband the WNBA. There is no need for it. The women can play in the NBA. That is if they can make a team.
“You know, as I said, I’m not educated enough in terms of transgender and transitioning to give you a smart answer.”
—————
This is the WNBA’s equally moronic equivalent of then-Judge Brown-Jackson’s idiotic, “I’m not a biologist” evasion.
The good news is that the vile, stupid and evil Dhimmi-crat pukes, subversives and fifth columnists are religiously committed to advancing misogynist and predator trannies wretched cause.
This makes the Dhimmi-crats’ 2028 presidential campaign platform a similarly tone-deaf and doomed appeal to and promotion of, trannies, illegal alien criminals, domestic criminals and Hamasholes.
She looks like the broad standing in line in the bladder leaks commercials.
Fire her, and hire a man who can make up his mind.
The “main” they would hire would probably walk around the locker room with his lady-dick hanging out.
Ah yes, another cognitively challenged one.
Exclusion is always the answer. I have been educated on the various levels, and that is my layered response.
They should just get it over with and put LeBron in a tutu.
” she does not believe “exclusion is the answer.” Make this performing dyke play 30 minutes one on one against an NBA player. Then interview ‘her’.
Well, she’s a coach, so… that means she’s one of the ones who can’t.
Trap scenario for a coach there. I don’t like her answer, but I understand why she’s not going to take a side. She honestly doesn’t have the same luxuries as the players to speak her mind.
This world we have built where we value compliance over honesty is truly sad.
Thank you! Exactly what I was thinking!
Indeed a trap question, and she answered the way she did because of one thing —
— fear.
She knows what will happen to her if she says that women’s sports are for XX women, period. She’ll be mau-mau’d and run out of the WNBA. She won’t coach again at the pro or college level. She’ll be dragged through the mud and no one in the sport will defend her (if they do, then THEY will be mau-mau’d).
The coach is not JK Rowling. She can’t get away with it, and she’s afraid to try.
It’s fear.
“It’s fear.”
Great practice for life under DSA administrations.
Fear. Agreed. If they had a commissioner with “balls” it wouldn’t be a problem. It also shows how left wing the Sports Media is.
Frank G
p.s.: Miss ya at the home front Dr. Steve!
Hi Frank! I miss it too. My life is rather … complicated … right now, and I don’t have any bandwidth. You and the team are doing a great job!
She looks so happy and content with life…
Reminds me of the T-shirt I brought to your attention, Griz.
“I wish I didn’t have critical thinking skills. You all seem so happy.”
Well, there you go. Give her what I’ve been suggesting – have a pack of male collegiate B-ballers (identifying as “female,” of course) tryout for a single WNBA team. Either make the team sign them (they will be better than anyone already on the team) or make them dismiss them as males. Is the WNBA “exclusionary” or not? Does the WNBA realize that men have inherent advantages that make them better at most sports than most women? This exercise would answer those questions.
Actually just one NBA cast-off would be enough to ensure that the WNBA team would be unbeateable until the opponent hired one as well.
The LBGTXYZ crowd is truly sick! They try to pretend that trans are what they claim to be but cannot take that stupid idea to the next level. What does it require to be anything you want to be if science is not employed? Can I declare I am a preacher and get a tax break? Can I call myself a dog or cat and get treatment from a vet? What does non-binary mean when you have genitalia that determines what you are? What happens when a black person declares that they are white? Or vice versa? Does declaring ones self to be a woman require any alterations or can he just declare and remain looking like a man? This entire movement is nothing but a charade that used to be called a mental illness.
They claim to believe that “transitioning” makes a woman of a man and man of a woman. But they can’t explain why the latter aren’t competing in men’s sports.
On top of all that, when you finally get the money scraped together for gender transition surgery, why do they only give you two choices? Where are the other 55?
Yes, you can. Not that there are many tax breaks associated with it, but there is certainly no gatekeeping on who is a “preacher”.
A person who declares themselves a “preacher” may actually be a preacher! This is more than can be said about people who merely “identify” as something or other or those who have “transed.”
So passe… NBA & WNBA
The new cool…. XXNBA & XYNBA
Or just label them thugs and lesbians and call it a day.
See Don Imus.
Nappy headed hoes but that might have been a college team, Imus was one of the first to get cancelled or so I recall.
Very interesting that a female coach of female players in a female league (WNBA) which was created, designed and heavily subsidized by the male pro league (NBA) can’t make a simple unambiguous statement that female athletes should have a separate competitive league. Since she won’t nor will the like minded WNBA HQ, then the WNBA as a separate competitive league should immediately be disbanded and the players offered tryouts to NBA teams. I’m sure these female athletes would love to see how they measure up to the NBA on their on merits.
Is there anyone with enough money and courage to run a competition between a champion High School Boys Basketball team and any one of WNBA teams? Offer a million dollar prize to the winners – perhaps even put it on Pay-Per-View.
We know the outcome in soccer, and I’d expect similar in this case, but I’d pay to watch.
Didn’t someone make this offer?
No takers as I remember
Recall that the US women’s national soccer team played a Seattle area JV high school as a warm-up for the World Cup. The boys won, 5-0, and the women’s team coach said after the match that it was just what her team need to “toughen them up”.
High school boys BB team versus the Indiana Fever? I take the boys and the over on a 20 point spread.
The clown show “journalists” should ask Adam Silver and douche coaches like Steve Kerr the same question since the NBA foots the bill for the women’s charity league.
I would say the coach and the WNBA are cowards. I remember reading quite a number of years ago that the lesbian community was not in favor of trans women. Now they’re OK with it? Why? Who’s the bully here? Frankly, if it weren’t for ,
Caitlyn and Sophie, would we be having this discussion? They hold their own on the court. Haters hate outliers who are excellent.
My first thought on reading this is that she sounds like a certain Supreme Court Justice who can’t tell the difference between male and female because she isn’t a biologist.
Instead of asking her about “biological males”, just ask her about “men” without any qualification.
“Should men be allowed to compete in the WNBA?”
“What is your personal position on men participating in women’s sports?”
“Would you be comfortable having a man in the team’s locker room?”
No one asks these questions because they assume that the answer is obviously not. So they ask about “biological males” instead. Asking about plain ordinary men, who don’t pretend to be anything but men, puts the question in stark terms. Once she’s on record saying men have no place in women’s sports, then you start pressing on why these men are different.
Could it be that the WNBA believes it cannot be competitive in Pro basketball without male players?
Please, please, please. There are few things that would make the WNBA a more laughing stock than it already is at this point. The viewings might even increase. Anti lesbians would watch to see them get humiliated, pro trans folks would watch in support, and plenty of folks would watch for the sheer insanity of it all
The WNBA needs a spine.
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