WNBA says security wrongly told fans to cover shirts at Fever-Dream game

The WNBA has acknowledged that security personnel acted wrongly when they asked at least three fans to cover shirts carrying messages about transgender participation in women’s sports during Sunday’s game between the Atlanta Dream and Indiana Fever in Atlanta. According to reporting by the Associated Press published by The Guardian, the league addressed the incidents in a statement on Monday and said the fans should have been allowed to wear the shirts.

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Multiple outlets reported that two of the affected fans were wearing shirts from XX-XY Athletics, a brand that advocates limiting women’s and girls’ sports to people assigned female at birth. Another fan wore a shirt supporting transgender people. The Athletic reported that a fan in a “Protect Trans Kids” shirt appeared briefly on the State Farm Arena video board, while a person wearing a “Trans kids belong in sports” shirt appeared during the television broadcast.

The league subsequently informed the security workers involved that asking fans to conceal the messages was incorrect, The Guardian reported. The Dream said team personnel were not involved in the decisions made by WNBA security. In its own statement, the club said it aims to provide a safe and inclusive environment and that the security actions at the game did not meet that standard.

The episode comes amid wider debate about whether transgender women should be eligible to play in the WNBA. The Guardian reported that no transgender woman has played in the league. The WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement limits the competition to women but does not include more specific provisions addressing gender identity or sex assigned at birth. Players assigned female at birth have competed in the league and later identified as transgender or nonbinary.

Indiana guard Sophie Cunningham told ESPN in a profile published last month that she opposed transgender girls and women competing in girls’ and women’s sports. Her position was followed by small rallies and protests outside Fever games in Seattle and Portland, according to The Guardian. Seattle Storm minority owner Celeste Keaton later received a five-game ban after confronting two fans whose signs supported Cunningham.

The latest response draws a distinction between the league’s unresolved eligibility debate and spectators’ ability to display messages at games. The WNBA did not endorse either side’s shirts in the statement described by The Guardian; it said the intervention by its security staff should not have occurred. The Dream likewise focused its response on responsibility for the security decision and the standard it expects at its home games.