The WNBA apparently needs “weeks and months” to figure out whether biological males should be eligible to play in a professional basketball league for women.
Five years ago, the league didn’t seem nearly as confused.
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A resurfaced June 2021 post from the WNBA’s official X (formerly Twitter) account, which was also shared on Facebook, celebrated Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller, two males who competed in girls’ high school track in Connecticut and were at the center of a major legal fight after beating female athletes in championship events.
“Our first #WCW of #WNBAPride goes out to Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller,” the WNBA wrote.
Yes, the Women’s National Basketball Association used its first “Woman Crush Wednesday” of Pride Month to celebrate two males.
“We see you. We support you and all of the other trans athletes just trying to compete in the sports they love,” the league added.
The post remains live on X and the same message is still posted on the WNBA’s official Facebook account.
The WNBA knew who it was celebrating. Yearwood and Miller had already become nationally known for winning girls’ track titles and finishing ahead of female athletes in Connecticut.
Those girls had names, too.
Selina Soule. Chelsea Mitchell. Alanna Smith. Ashley Nicoletti.
Funny, the WNBA’s post didn’t mention them.
Yearwood began competing in girls’ track in 2017 under Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference rules and won the Class M state championship in both the 100- and 200-meter events that year. A federal district court ruling recounting the plaintiffs’ allegations says Yearwood’s advancement to the State Open displaced Chelsea Mitchell, a female, from qualifying.
Miller began competing in girls’ track the following year. At the 2018 Outdoor State Open, Miller and Yearwood finished first and second in the girls’ 100 meters. The court noted that Mitchell would have finished second statewide without their participation. Miller also won the 200 meters.
Then came 2019.
At the State Indoor Open, Miller and Yearwood finished first and second in both the preliminary and final 55-meter races. According to the court record, Mitchell would have won the final without them and Soule would have advanced to the next stage of competition. Later that spring, Miller won another state championship over Mitchell, while Miller also won the State Open 200-meter final ahead of Smith.
Nicoletti was affected, too. The plaintiffs sought revisions to 2019 race results that included events where Miller and Yearwood finished ahead of Nicoletti, along with numerous races where one or both finished ahead of Soule, Mitchell and Smith.
By the time the WNBA posted its support in 2021, there was no mystery about the controversy surrounding Yearwood and Miller. The post itself points to one reason why: the league credited Athlete Ally, an organization that had already honored both athletes at its 2019 Action Awards.
Athlete Ally’s announcement specifically noted that Yearwood had won the 100- and 200-meter dashes and that Miller had won the State Open 200-meter title for the second consecutive year. It also referenced the legal effort challenging their participation in girls’ track.
And guess who Athlete Ally listed among the supporters of those 2019 awards?
The NBA and WNBA.
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Two years later, the WNBA officially partnered with Athlete Ally for Pride Month. A league press release said one of the WNBA/WNBPA Social Justice Council’s priorities was LGBTQ advocacy “with a focus on trans rights,” and the league announced that Athlete Ally would conduct educational sessions for WNBA teams on “trans inclusivity.”
The WNBA was clearly on board with male participation in girls’ and women’s sports.
Meanwhile, the girls who actually raced Yearwood and Miller were the ones dealing with the consequences.
Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Soule, Mitchell, Smith and Nicoletti in their lawsuit against Connecticut officials, has published extensive accounts of what those girls say they lost while competing against males.
Mitchell was one of the best female sprinters in Connecticut. In 2019, she said she was “ranked the fastest biological female in the state of Connecticut,” yet she had to repeatedly watch championship honors go to male competitors.
“When I have to compete against a transgender athlete, I just feel completely defeated before I even run the race,” Mitchell said.
Think about that for a second.
Mitchell was fast enough to win state championships. In several championship races, she was the fastest female on the track, yet the title still went to a male competitor.
Soule described realizing the problem almost immediately when she first raced against a male athlete as a freshman.
“I knew right then and there that some girls will be missing out on great opportunities to succeed, and that women could be completely eradicated from their own sports,” she said.
In the 2019 indoor State Open, Miller and Yearwood took the top two spots while Soule missed advancing.
The consequences went beyond titles and qualifying spots. For Ashley Nicoletti, simply lining up against a male competitor changed how she viewed the race before it even started.
“I felt nervous even at the thought of such an unfair race,” Nicoletti told ADF. “I knew I had a chance against other girls, but not against a male athlete.”
Those were the girls losing titles and opportunities while the WNBA was backing athletes like Yearwood and Miller.
Mitchell lost championship recognition; Soule lost an opportunity to advance; and, Nicoletti described knowing before the race even started that she couldn’t fairly compete.
Yet the WNBA’s message to Yearwood and Miller was: “We see you. We support you.”
Where was that support for the girls who actually lost to them?
And then there’s Alanna Smith.
Miller finished ahead of Smith in championship competition, including winning the 200-meter final at the 2019 State Open. ADF recounts a conversation between Smith and her mother on the way to a meet in New York City. Her mother asked what her strategy was going to be that day.
Smith’s response?
“Mom, it really doesn’t matter, because I’m running against the boys today.”
Fast-forward five years, and that certainty is gone. Male participation in women’s sports is now apparently a question requiring extended consultation.
On paper, the new collective bargaining agreement appears to provide a clear answer: “Only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.”
Except the 409-page agreement doesn’t define “woman,” and the league has repeatedly declined to tell OutKick/Fox News Digital whether a biological male who identifies as a woman would satisfy that requirement.
The issue escalated after former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White announced that they planned to enter the 2027 WNBA Draft, directly challenging the league’s undefined eligibility language.
The WNBA convened a task force this week amid pressure to answer the question. It emerged without a definition and said it would spend the coming “weeks and months” continuing discussions with league stakeholders.
But here’s the part that really tells the story.
A source familiar with the league and with Wednesday’s meeting told Fox News that the meeting “focused significantly on the hate and vitriol being directed at WNBA players online.”
So, amid mounting questions about who is eligible to compete in a women’s league, the WNBA spent a significant portion of its meeting discussing “hate and vitriol” directed at players online.
That’s the priority?
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The WNBA’s sudden concern about the tone of the conversation is pretty rich. Criticism of the league’s eligibility policy isn’t the same thing as hatred, and asking whether males should be eligible to compete against women isn’t “demeaning” anyone.
Four female athletes told the world that they were losing championships, advancement opportunities and recognition because they were being forced to compete against males. The WNBA didn’t issue a statement expressing concern for their well-being. It didn’t announce that it needed to engage stakeholders to make sure female athletes were being treated fairly.
It celebrated the males who beat them.
WNBA star Sophie Cunningham put the issue in plain terms, saying girls shouldn’t have to “go against biological men.”
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But the league still hasn’t said whether a biological male could be eligible to play in the WNBA.
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In 2021, while males Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller were taking titles and opportunities from girls, the WNBA publicly backed them.
“We see you. We support you.”
The girls they beat got a very different message.
