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TRANS-FACE When Transgender Lives Become Someone Else’s Political Costume

TRANS-FACE

When Transgender Lives Become Someone Else’s Political Costume

The WNBA controversy isn't evidence that transgender women are pretending to be women. It may be evidence of something very different: people pretending to be transgender in order to ridicule transgender people.

By Paula Josephine Sadler

There is a profound difference between living an identity and putting one on long enough to make a political point.

There is a difference between a human life and a performance.

There is a difference between transition and theater.

And there is an enormous difference between a transgender woman who has spent years—or perhaps an entire lifetime—coming to terms with who she is and a man who announces that he is a woman specifically to make an argument about women's sports.

That distinction is getting lost in America's latest controversy over transgender people.

Former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White have announced intentions involving the WNBA, invoking transgender identity as part of their challenge to the league's eligibility rules.

The WNBA is now discussing the issue.

But before America turns this into another national referendum on transgender women, there is a rather extraordinary fact that needs to be stated:

This controversy was not created by a transgender woman trying to enter the WNBA.

It was created by men making a political point about transgender women.

That distinction changes everything.

Because whatever else this controversy may be, it should not be presented as evidence of how transgender women behave.

I believe it represents something else.

I call it trans-face.

What I Mean by “Trans-Face”

I am using this term to describe a very particular phenomenon:

the temporary performance or appropriation of transgender identity by someone who does not appear to be describing an enduring transgender identity, but instead invokes that identity as satire, protest, provocation or political argument.

It is gender identity transformed into theater.

The person does not appear to be saying:

“This is who I have discovered myself to be.”

The message instead becomes:

“Look how ridiculous this is. If transgender women can say they are women, then so can I.”

And the transgender person becomes the punch line.

That matters.

Because the performer gets to walk away from the performance.

Transgender people do not.

A Costume Comes Off

One of the cruelest descriptions routinely directed toward transgender women is that we are merely “men in dresses.”

That our identities are costumes.

That our lives are performances.

That our womanhood disappears if somebody refuses to recognize it.

But a costume has a defining characteristic:

You take it off.

The actor eventually leaves the stage.

The clown washes off the makeup.

The drag performer removes the wig, costume and stage makeup after the show.

The Halloween costume goes back into the closet.

But transgender people wake up the next morning.

We go to work.

We buy groceries.

We visit our families.

We fall in love.

We pay our bills.

We go to church.

We go to doctors.

We grow older.

We sit in traffic.

We laugh.

We grieve.

We build careers.

We create families.

We bury people we love.

We look in the mirror.

And we continue living our lives.

For transgender people, gender identity is not something switched on when the television camera begins recording.

It follows us into every ordinary corner of human existence.

And for some transgender people, being recognized as transgender can carry real social consequences.

That is not performance.

That is lived experience.

But Medical Transition Cannot Be the Test

There is an important distinction that must be made here.

It would be tempting to respond to these basketball players by demanding:

Where are their hormone records?

Where are their doctors?

Where are their surgeries?

Where is their psychological treatment?

How long have they lived as women?

Some of those questions may be relevant to a sports organization's eligibility policy if that organization adopts medically based criteria.

But they should not become a universal test of whether someone is transgender.

Not every transgender woman undergoes surgery.

Not every transgender person takes hormones.

Not everyone can medically transition.

Some people have health considerations that prevent particular treatments.

Some cannot afford them.

Some live in places where obtaining gender-affirming healthcare is difficult.

Some simply do not want particular procedures.

Gender-affirming care itself can include social, psychological, behavioral and medical interventions. Medical transition is therefore one possible component of transition—not the definition of transgender existence.

That distinction is extremely important.

We should not respond to someone caricaturing transgender identity by accidentally creating a new rule under which transgender people must produce medical documentation before their identities are treated as legitimate.

We do not need to do that.

The men's own public framing gives us something far more relevant to examine:

Why are they invoking transgender identity?

That is the question.

Identity Versus Eligibility

Another distinction desperately needed in this debate is the difference between identity and athletic eligibility.

They are not identical questions.

Someone can genuinely be a transgender woman while an athletic organization separately determines that she does or does not satisfy that organization's eligibility requirements.

Recognizing someone's humanity does not require abandoning sporting regulations.

Likewise, establishing sporting regulations does not require humiliating transgender people.

Sports already contain enormous numbers of eligibility requirements.

Age.

Weight class.

Drug testing.

Professional status.

Residency.

Citizenship in international competition.

Academic eligibility.

Roster requirements.

Medical clearances.

Qualification times.

League-specific requirements.

Nobody argues that because a person identifies as a basketball player, the NBA is obligated to put that person on a roster.

Professional sport is inherently selective.

So the serious question is not:

“Can anyone who says ‘I am a woman’ automatically play in the WNBA?”

Of course professional eligibility involves considerably more than that.

The serious question is:

What eligibility standards should a women's professional basketball league establish, and how should those standards treat transgender athletes?

That is a legitimate debate.

It deserves evidence.

It deserves medicine.

It deserves sports science.

It deserves participation from women athletes.

It deserves participation from transgender athletes.

It deserves lawyers, physicians, researchers, league officials and players.

What it does not require is turning transgender identity into a joke.

The WNBA Has a Real Policy Question to Answer

The WNBA's collective bargaining language reportedly provides that only women are eligible to play in the league, while the current controversy has raised questions about how precisely that provision should be interpreted.

Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has said the league is continuing discussions concerning transgender participation and emphasizing fair competition and the integrity of the game.

Good.

That is exactly what a professional sports organization should do.

Establish a policy.

Define eligibility.

Explain it.

Apply it consistently.

And revise it when legitimate evidence requires revision.

Different sporting organizations have already reached different conclusions.

The NCAA, for example, changed its transgender participation policy in February 2025. Under its current policy, athletes assigned male at birth may not compete on NCAA women's teams, although they may practice with women's teams under specified circumstances.

That illustrates an important point:

There is no requirement that every sporting organization answer this question identically.

Professional basketball can consider the physical demands of professional basketball.

Track and field can consider its events.

Swimming can consider swimming.

Combat sports can consider safety and weight classes.

Youth athletics raises different developmental considerations.

Recreational athletics raises still others.

The transgender-sports discussion becomes intellectually dishonest when every situation—from a ten-year-old playing recreational soccer to an Olympic weightlifter to a WNBA professional—is treated as though it presents precisely the same scientific and ethical question.

It doesn't.

The Manufactured Hypothetical

There is another reason this particular stunt troubles me.

For years, transgender opponents have presented a hypothetical:

“What stops a man from waking up tomorrow, declaring himself a woman and entering women's sports?”

Now men appear to be deliberately performing versions of that hypothetical.

But think carefully about what that proves.

If I predict that people will abuse a rule and then I deliberately abuse the rule to prove my prediction, I have demonstrated that I am willing to abuse the rule.

I have not demonstrated that the population I was warning everyone about routinely behaves that way.

That is an enormous logical distinction.

Suppose someone opposed disability accommodations and said:

“Anybody can pretend to have a disability.”

Then that person acquired a wheelchair, pretended to be disabled and attempted to exploit accommodations.

Would that prove disabled people were fraudulent?

No.

It would prove that somebody trying to discredit disability accommodations was willing to impersonate a disabled person.

The same reasoning applies here.

If men deliberately claim transgender identity to demonstrate that men can claim transgender identity, they have created the very example they claim to fear.

They haven't established that transgender women are doing it.

Where Are the Transgender Women?

This is perhaps the most important investigative question.

Before declaring transgender participation an emergency for professional women's basketball, ask:

How many transgender women are currently playing in the WNBA?

How many are currently attempting to enter the league?

How many are projected to be selected in the next draft?

How many documented cases exist of cisgender men fraudulently claiming transgender identities in order to establish professional careers in women's basketball?

Those numbers matter.

Policy can address theoretical possibilities.

But public fear should be proportional to actual evidence.

A hypothetical is not a statistic.

A viral social-media clip is not epidemiology.

A political stunt is not demographic evidence.

And two former male professional basketball players deliberately creating a controversy should not suddenly be counted as evidence that transgender women are invading professional basketball.

The WNBA Already Has a History More Complicated Than This Debate Suggests

The WNBA's history also demonstrates why simplistic slogans do not work.

Former WNBA player Layshia Clarendon publicly identified as transgender and nonbinary and played a long professional career before retiring in 2024.

That history matters because it reminds us that transgender and gender-diverse people are not merely theoretical figures invented by political campaigns.

They are actual people.

Actual athletes.

Actual coworkers.

Actual Americans.

Clarendon's existence does not automatically answer every eligibility question concerning every transgender athlete.

Nor should it.

But it demonstrates the difference between an actual human life and a manufactured hypothetical.


What Science Actually Says About Gender Identity

Another problem with this debate is that both sides sometimes make scientific claims stronger than the evidence allows.

One side says:

“Gender identity is entirely imaginary.”

Another sometimes responds:

“Science has proven transgender women literally have female brains.”

Neither formulation adequately describes the research.

Human brains are extraordinarily complicated.

Researchers have studied possible relationships among gender identity, genetics, prenatal hormone exposure, brain structure, functional connectivity and neurodevelopment.

Some neuroimaging research has found group-level differences involving transgender populations.

Other studies have found patterns that do not fit neatly into either a typical male or female category.

Hormone therapy itself can also produce measurable neurological changes.

But none of this means scientists can place someone into an MRI machine and diagnose that person's gender identity.

There is no established “transgender brain scan.”

There is no single hypothalamic structure that functions as a gender identity switch.

There is no laboratory test that says:

Woman.

Man.

Transgender.

Human neurological variation is considerably more complicated.

This does not undermine transgender identity.

It simply means we should respect the limits of scientific knowledge.

Sex, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Are Not the Same Thing

Another source of confusion is the tendency to collapse biological sex, gender identity and sexual orientation into a single concept.

They are related to human sexuality and development, but they describe different things.

Sex refers to a collection of biological characteristics.

Gender identity refers to a person's internal sense of gender.

Sexual orientation concerns patterns of romantic or sexual attraction.

A transgender woman may be attracted to men.

Or women.

Or both.

Or neither.

A transgender man may be gay.

Straight.

Bisexual.

Asexual.

The existence of transgender identity therefore cannot be explained simply by sexual attraction.

Likewise, the neuroscience of sexual orientation should not automatically be presented as the neuroscience of gender identity.

They overlap in some research areas, but they are not interchangeable phenomena.

Precision matters.

Especially when discussing science.

What Hormone Therapy Actually Does

Hormone therapy is relevant to the sports discussion for another reason.

Hormones are biologically powerful.

Feminizing hormone therapy can affect muscle mass, fat distribution, skin, breast development, sexual function and many other physiological systems.

Research has also documented changes in brain structure and connectivity associated with hormone treatment.

But this produces another question:

How much does hormone therapy alter characteristics relevant to athletic performance?

That question deserves sport-specific scientific investigation.

Some characteristics influenced by testosterone can change substantially after suppression.

Others may persist to varying degrees depending on age, puberty, training history, sport and individual physiology.

This is exactly why serious sports policy cannot be written from memes.

Nor should advocates on either side pretend every scientific question has already been settled.

Science advances through evidence.

Sports policy should too.

Protecting Women's Sports Is a Legitimate Goal

I want to state this without qualification:

Women's sports matter.

Women fought extraordinarily hard for sporting opportunities.

They fought for funding.

Facilities.

Scholarships.

Media attention.

Professional leagues.

Equal opportunities.

Recognition.

Respect.

The WNBA itself represents decades of that struggle.

Protecting women's athletic opportunities is therefore a legitimate social objective.

Transgender inclusion should not require pretending biological differences relevant to athletics do not exist.

But protecting women's sports also does not require pretending transgender women are monsters, predators, infiltrators or men wearing costumes.

We should be intellectually capable of holding two thoughts simultaneously:

Women's sporting categories deserve thoughtful protection.

And:

Transgender people deserve dignity.

Those principles are not mutually exclusive.

Women Should Not Be Props Either

There is another dimension to this controversy that should bother people across the political spectrum.

The WNBA itself is being turned into a stage for somebody else's political performance.

Women built this league.

Women play in this league.

Women coach in this league.

Women fought for professional basketball to be taken seriously.

Yet once again, women's sports risk becoming a battlefield upon which men conduct ideological warfare.

That isn't necessarily protecting women.

Sometimes it is simply using women.

Women's sports deserve policies based on the interests of female athletes—not perpetual political theater designed primarily for social-media engagement.

Women are not props.

Neither are transgender people.

Why I Call This Psychological and Spiritual Harm

Some people will respond:

“It's only a joke.”

But humiliation can have consequences even when presented as comedy.

Dehumanization often begins with caricature.

A group becomes reduced to a stereotype.

The stereotype becomes entertainment.

The entertainment becomes conventional wisdom.

And eventually people stop seeing individual human beings at all.

For transgender people, the caricature is familiar:

The ridiculous man in a dress.

The predator in the bathroom.

The cheater in women's sports.

The confused child.

The mentally unstable adult.

The sexual deviant.

The attention seeker.

The groomer.

Once those images become culturally dominant, an actual transgender person has to walk into the world carrying the weight of stereotypes created by people she has never met.

That is psychological harm.

It is social harm.

And I would argue that it can become spiritual harm because it attacks one of the most fundamental dimensions of human existence:

the dignity of being recognized as a human being rather than a caricature.

The Reputation Damage Is Real

Imagine being a transgender woman who has spent twenty years living quietly.

You transitioned years ago.

You work.

You have friends.

Perhaps you are married.

Perhaps you have children.

Perhaps you volunteer.

Perhaps you worship.

Perhaps your neighbors don't even know your history.

Then someone with millions of followers announces:

“I identify as a woman now. Put me on the women's team.”

Millions laugh.

The joke isn't actually about that man.

He returns to his life.

The joke lands on you.

Because the audience has just been encouraged to associate transgender identity with absurdity.

Suddenly you are once again asked:

“What is a woman?”

“Can I identify as a toaster?”

“Can I identify as six years old?”

“Can I just say I'm a woman and walk into the locker room?”

You are forced to defend yourself against hypothetical behavior you never engaged in.

That is one reason these stunts are not harmless.

The person creating the caricature walks away.

The people caricatured remain.

“Woman-Face” and the Accusation Against Transgender Women

Some critics of transgender women have used terms such as “woman-face” to suggest transgender womanhood itself is an imitation of women.

I reject that analogy.

The distinction is lived identity.

A transgender woman is not typically adopting womanhood for an afternoon in order to mock women.

She is attempting to live authentically according to an enduring gender identity.

Transition may cost her relationships.

Employment.

Family acceptance.

Money.

Safety.

Medical expenses.

Social standing.

Religious community.

And sometimes much more.

Whatever someone believes philosophically about sex and gender, that is fundamentally different from putting on an identity precisely because you intend the identity itself to be the joke.

That is why I distinguish transition from what I am calling trans-face.

Transition is an attempt to live authentically.

Trans-face is an attempt to make transgender identity perform someone else's argument.

The Litmus Test Should Be Good Faith

We should be extremely cautious about establishing government or social tests for determining who is “trans enough.”

Instead, sporting organizations should establish objective eligibility requirements appropriate to their competitions.

And when someone invokes transgender status, context and good faith matter.

Does the person consistently describe themselves that way?

Is this an enduring identity?

Or has the identity appeared exclusively in connection with a political stunt?

Has the person explicitly described the declaration as a challenge to transgender policy?

Those questions do not require inspecting someone's genitals.

They do not require publishing medical records.

They do not require policing femininity.

They simply require taking people seriously enough to listen to what they themselves are saying.

The Great Irony

There is a profound irony here.

Some of the same people who argue that transgender identity is merely performance are now performing transgender identity.

They say transgender women are pretending.

Then they pretend to be transgender women to demonstrate how pretending supposedly works.

And somehow the behavior of the people deliberately pretending is then offered as evidence against the people they accuse of pretending.

That logic collapses upon examination.

If anything, the stunt demonstrates the difference between transgender identity and parody.

The parody has an audience.

An objective.

A beginning.

And eventually an end.

The transgender person's life continues.

What Would Responsible WNBA Policy Look Like?

The WNBA should resolve the ambiguity.

It should consult players.

Medical experts.

Sports scientists.

Legal experts.

Transgender athletes.

Women's-sports advocates.

League executives.

And other relevant stakeholders.

Then it should publish clear eligibility standards.

Those standards might consider sex-based criteria.

They might consider hormonal criteria.

They might consider physiological characteristics relevant to elite basketball.

They might adopt some combination.

Or the league may ultimately conclude that its women's category should be defined exclusively by a particular sex-based criterion.

Whatever conclusion it reaches should be transparent, evidence-based and consistently enforced.

Then there is no stunt.

There is simply a rule.

And everybody knows what it is.

We Don't Need Humiliation to Have This Conversation

Perhaps this is what frustrates me most.

We actually need a national conversation about transgender participation in sports.

It is a complicated subject.

There are legitimate interests on multiple sides.

There are scientific uncertainties.

There are philosophical disagreements.

There are questions involving civil rights, sex discrimination, competitive fairness, inclusion and the meaning of sporting categories.

Those questions deserve adults in the room.

Instead, we repeatedly receive memes.

Insults.

Caricatures.

Viral videos.

Bathroom jokes.

Men in dresses.

Social-media challenges.

And endless attempts to produce the most humiliating possible image of transgender people.

That isn't inquiry.

It is spectacle.

Ask Better Questions

Instead of asking:

“Can a man just say he's a woman?”

Ask:

What constitutes a persistent gender identity?

Instead of asking:

“Are transgender women real women?”

Ask:

What are we trying to accomplish with a particular sex- or gender-based classification?

Instead of asking:

“Should trans women be allowed in women's sports?”

Ask:

Which sport, which level of competition, which physiological variables and which eligibility standards?

Instead of asking:

“What is a woman?”

Perhaps occasionally ask:

How should human beings treat one another when we profoundly disagree?

Those questions might actually get us somewhere.

What Is a Woman?

Matt Walsh famously made the question part of contemporary political culture:

“What is a woman?”

It is certainly a question society is entitled to discuss.

But perhaps the question is incomplete.

What is a man?

What is sex?

What is gender?

What is identity?

What is fairness?

What is dignity?

What is cruelty?

What is truth?

And ultimately:

What is a human being?

Because if our definitions of man and woman become so consuming that we forget the human being standing before us, our definitions have not made us wiser.

They have merely made us better at categorizing one another.

There Is a Person Behind the Word “Transgender”

Transgender people are an extraordinarily small part of the population.

Yet enormous amounts of political energy are now devoted to discussing us.

Bathrooms.

Sports.

Passports.

Schools.

Pronouns.

Healthcare.

Military service.

Books.

Drag shows.

Identification documents.

Every few weeks, another transgender controversy becomes national news.

Meanwhile, transgender people still have ordinary lives to live.

Most are not professional athletes.

Most are not activists.

Most will never appear on television.

Most are simply trying to get through the day.

That is the person I want people to remember when another viral stunt appears on their screen.

There is an actual human being behind the word.

Debate Sports. Don't Manufacture Transgender Villains.

If someone believes transgender women should not compete in the WNBA, make the argument.

Present the physiological evidence.

Propose an eligibility rule.

Defend it.

Allow others to challenge it.

Revise it if better evidence emerges.

That is how serious public policy works.

But do not manufacture a caricature of a transgender woman and then point at your own caricature as proof that transgender women are ridiculous.

That isn't evidence.

That is propaganda by performance.

And transgender people should recognize it for what it is.

Trans-Face

That brings me back to the word.

Trans-face.

I am not proposing it as a medical diagnosis.

I am not claiming every joke involving gender belongs under it.

I am using it to describe something specific:

the deliberate temporary appropriation of transgender identity for ridicule, political theater or provocation by someone whose stated purpose is the performance itself rather than living an enduring transgender identity.

The crucial distinction is not clothing.

It isn't makeup.

It isn't masculinity or femininity.

It isn't whether someone “passes.”

And it certainly isn't whether someone has undergone surgery.

The distinction is purpose and lived identity.

A transgender woman who doesn't pass is still transgender.

A transgender woman who never undergoes surgery can still be transgender.

A transgender woman who cannot take estrogen can still be transgender.

A masculine transgender woman can still be transgender.

A transgender person does not owe strangers medical evidence before deserving dignity.

But somebody who invokes transgender identity explicitly as a device to ridicule transgender recognition is doing something fundamentally different.

That is what I mean by trans-face.

When the Cameras Turn Off

Eventually this controversy will disappear.

There will be another headline.

Another outrage.

Another viral video.

Another election.

Another culture-war controversy.

The cameras will move somewhere else.

And the people who participated in this stunt will continue with their lives.

So will transgender people.

Except transgender people will continue carrying an identity that someone else was able to borrow temporarily.

We cannot put it back in the wardrobe.

We cannot announce that the performance is over.

We cannot tell society:

“Never mind. I don't identify this way anymore. I was only making a point.”

This is our life.

That is the distinction I wish America would understand.

A costume can be removed.

A performance has an ending.

A political stunt eventually runs out of headlines.

But a human life continues.

I am not asking everyone to agree about transgender participation in every sport.

I am not asking anyone to abandon women's rights.

I am not asking sports organizations to ignore biology.

I am asking for something considerably simpler.

Debate us without dehumanizing us.

Study the science without turning us into specimens.

Protect women's sports without turning transgender women into monsters.

Write eligibility rules without creating caricatures.

Disagree with us without making our existence a joke.

And remember that long after the political theater ends, the people being portrayed on that stage still have to live in the world the performance helped create.

Transgender lives are not costumes.

Transgender people are not punch lines.

Women are not political props.

And human dignity should never become collateral damage in somebody else's culture war.


THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE HEADLINES

What We Actually Know About Sex, Gender, the Brain, Hormones and Athletic Performance

Before discussing transgender athletes, we have to acknowledge something that frequently disappears from political arguments:

Human biology is complicated.

That does not mean biological sex is imaginary.

It does not mean physical differences between males and females are irrelevant to athletics.

And it does not mean every question surrounding transgender participation in women's sports has been scientifically resolved.

It means precisely the opposite.

This subject deserves more scientific seriousness than slogans such as “biology is irrelevant” or “a transgender woman is simply a man who decided to become a woman.”

Neither adequately explains what researchers are studying.

Gender Identity Is Not Simply a Decision

One of the central assumptions behind stunts involving someone suddenly announcing “I identify as a woman” is that transgender identity operates essentially like making a declaration.

That is not how major medical organizations understand gender identity.

The Endocrine Society has stated that scientific evidence points toward a durable biological element underlying gender identity while acknowledging that researchers do not yet completely understand the mechanisms responsible for it.

That distinction is critical.

Science does not tell us:

“We have discovered the transgender gene.”

It does not tell us:

“We can scan someone's brain and determine their gender.”

It does not tell us:

“This section of the hypothalamus proves someone is a woman.”

Science is considerably more cautious than that.

What the evidence does challenge is the simplistic idea that enduring gender identity is something externally imposed upon a person or casually selected on a whim.

That distinction goes directly to the heart of this WNBA controversy.

There is an enormous difference between experiencing a persistent gender identity and deliberately announcing an identity for the stated purpose of testing a policy.

What Does the Brain Research Actually Show?

Researchers have investigated whether gender identity has measurable neurological correlates.

A systematic review of human neuroimaging research examined 39 studies concerning gender identity.

Researchers found a complicated picture.

Some neuroanatomical, functional and metabolic characteristics among transgender participants resembled patterns associated with their experienced gender.

Many other characteristics continued to resemble those associated with their sex assigned at birth.

There was substantial variation.

That means headlines claiming scientists have discovered a simple “female brain in a male body” are too simplistic.

But the opposite claim—that neuroscience provides absolutely no evidence worth investigating regarding gender identity—is also too sweeping.

What we are seeing is a developing field attempting to understand how identity emerges from an extraordinarily complex human brain.

The scientifically responsible conclusion is therefore:

Gender identity appears to have biological and neurodevelopmental dimensions, but there is no single neurological marker that determines an individual's gender identity.

That is fascinating.

It is also humbling.

Human beings are more complicated than political slogans.

The Hypothalamus, Limbic System and Human Identity

The hypothalamus and limbic system are relevant to research concerning sex, hormones, reproduction, emotion, motivation and sexual behavior.

But we should resist transforming these structures into a mythical “gender center.”

The hypothalamus performs numerous functions.

The amygdala performs numerous functions.

The thalamus, hippocampus, cortical networks and reward pathways interact with enormous numbers of processes.

Human sexuality, identity, attraction and behavior emerge from interacting biological systems rather than a single neurological switch.

Sexual orientation and gender identity must also not be conflated.

Sexual orientation concerns attraction.

Gender identity concerns one's experienced gender.

A transgender woman can be heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual, asexual or have another sexual orientation.

A transgender man can likewise have any sexual orientation.

The biology underlying these phenomena may intersect in certain developmental systems, but they are not the same phenomenon.

Male and Female Brains: More Overlap Than Political Rhetoric Suggests

There are average sex-associated differences in aspects of human neuroanatomy.

Average total brain volume, cortical characteristics and some regional measurements can differ between male and female populations.

But enormous overlap exists.

Brain size does not determine intelligence.

A large brain is not a “more male” mind.

A thicker cortex does not make someone “more female.”

And scientists cannot examine an individual MRI and reliably reconstruct that person's personality, sexual orientation or gender identity from these broad population averages.

This matters because neither political side should weaponize neuroscience.

Transgender dignity does not require proving transgender women possess categorically “female brains.”

And opposition to transgender participation in a particular sporting category cannot establish that gender identity itself is fictional.

These are different scientific questions.

What Estrogen and Testosterone Suppression Actually Change

Hormones are enormously powerful biological signaling molecules.

Feminizing gender-affirming hormone therapy commonly involves estrogen and, depending upon the individual and treatment plan, suppression of testosterone.

Over time, treatment can affect:

• body-fat distribution• muscle mass• skin characteristics• breast development• sexual function• hemoglobin and hematocrit• aspects of metabolism• aspects of brain structure and functional connectivity

These are measurable biological effects.

Hormonal transition is therefore not imaginary.

The body responds biologically.

But this brings us directly to the legitimate sports question.

What Happens to Athletic Characteristics?

A systematic review examining feminizing hormone therapy found significant decreases in several characteristics relevant to athletic performance.

Hemoglobin and hematocrit declined relatively rapidly and reached ranges comparable to cisgender women in the reviewed studies.

Lean body mass decreased.

Muscle area decreased.

Strength decreased.

But—and this is extremely important—some average differences in lean body mass, muscle area and strength remained after extended hormone therapy in the studies reviewed.

The researchers also emphasized major limitations.

Much of the evidence involved transgender women who were not competitive athletes.

Samples were relatively small.

Long-term evidence was limited.

Different sports reward different physiological characteristics.

And an elite athlete who has trained for years cannot automatically be compared with an average person participating in a clinical study.

Consequently, neither side should pretend that this research proves everything.

It does establish something important:

Hormone therapy meaningfully changes physiology, but exactly how those changes translate into competitive advantage or disadvantage depends upon the characteristic, duration of treatment, individual athlete and sport being examined.

That is precisely why sporting organizations need sport-specific evidence.

Biology Matters — And So Does Intellectual Honesty

Acknowledging physiological differences is not an attack on transgender people.

Pretending there are no biological considerations in elite sport does transgender advocacy no favors.

But exaggerating those differences into claims that every transgender woman possesses an overwhelming advantage in every conceivable sport is equally unsound.

Basketball is not weightlifting.

Weightlifting is not archery.

Archery is not distance running.

Distance running is not swimming.

Swimming is not gymnastics.

And professional athletics is not children's recreational sports.

The relevant physiological characteristics and competitive consequences differ.

Policies should reflect those realities.

IDENTITY IS NOT ELIGIBILITY

This distinction deserves to be written in enormous letters:

BEING A TRANSGENDER WOMAN AND BEING ELIGIBLE FOR A PARTICULAR WOMEN'S SPORTING COMPETITION ARE TWO DIFFERENT QUESTIONS.

A sporting organization can recognize someone's transgender identity while determining that the athlete does not satisfy its competitive eligibility requirements.

That does not automatically invalidate the athlete's identity.

The NCAA demonstrates exactly how an organization can separate these issues.

Since February 6, 2025, NCAA policy has restricted competition on women's teams to athletes assigned female at birth. Athletes assigned male at birth may practice with women's teams under the policy but may not compete on them.

One may support that policy.

One may oppose it.

One may believe it should be modified.

But it demonstrates something extremely important:

Sports organizations can write rules.

We do not need social-media stunts to determine eligibility.

We need clearly defined standards.

The WNBA can do the same through its collectively bargained process.

And, according to Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, that discussion is now occurring.

EVIDENCE & SOURCES

A Reader's Guide to the Research Behind This Essay

Readers should be able to distinguish my opinions and theological convictions from empirical claims.

These are some of the principal sources underlying this discussion.

The Current WNBA Controversy

The Associated Press reported in August 2026 that WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert informed teams that transgender-athlete participation would receive further discussion.

The league's collective bargaining agreement states that only women are eligible to play in the WNBA but does not provide more specific language concerning gender identity or sex assigned at birth.

The same reporting documented that former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White declared themselves eligible for the WNBA Draft while saying they identify as women.

Importantly, the WNBA Players Association responded that it would defend women's sports while rejecting hatred, abuse and demonization of transgender people and refusing to allow players to become political pawns.

That distinction is very close to the argument of this essay:

Women's sports can be protected without transgender people being dehumanized.

NCAA Policy

The NCAA's policy effective February 6, 2025 restricts women's competition to athletes assigned female at birth.

The policy separately defines sex assigned at birth, gender identity and transgender identity.

Whatever one's opinion of the policy itself, its existence demonstrates that athletic organizations can establish objective participation standards rather than relying upon caricatures or political stunts.

Endocrine Society — Gender Identity

The Endocrine Society states that considerable scientific evidence supports a durable biological element underlying gender identity while also acknowledging that its precise biological mechanisms remain incompletely understood.

It further states that being transgender is not itself a mental-health disorder.

That is a much more sophisticated scientific position than either “gender has absolutely nothing to do with biology” or “transgender people simply decide to become another gender.”

Neuroimaging Research

A systematic review examining 39 gender-identity neuroimaging studies found a complex mixture of findings.

Some characteristics among transgender subjects resembled those associated with experienced gender, while many continued to resemble those associated with natal sex.

The evidence therefore does not establish a simple diagnostic male/female/transgender brain test.

It does, however, demonstrate why scientists continue investigating neurobiological dimensions of gender identity.

Hormone Therapy and Athletic Physiology

A systematic review published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine examined changes in hemoglobin, lean body mass, muscle area and strength among transgender women receiving testosterone-suppressing hormone therapy.

The review found meaningful reductions across these measures, with hemoglobin changing particularly rapidly.

It also found that some measures involving muscle and strength remained higher on average than those of cisgender women after extended treatment in the studies reviewed.

The researchers emphasized important limitations, including limited long-term data and the fact that much of the research involved non-athletes.

This evidence should neither be ignored nor exaggerated.

It should be studied.

That is what science requires.

THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION

When Mockery Becomes an Attack Upon Human Dignity

There is another dimension of this controversy that science cannot measure.

For me, it is spiritual.

I believe what we are witnessing when transgender identity is deliberately appropriated for ridicule is more than political theater.

It can become a spiritual attack upon transgender people.

I do not use the word “spiritual” to claim that everyone must share my religion or theology.

I use it because human dignity reaches deeper than politics.

There is something sacred about a human being discovering who they are.

There is something sacred about becoming honest.

There is something sacred about living authentically despite fear.

And there is something spiritually destructive about taking another person's deepest understanding of self and turning it into a costume designed to produce laughter.

Gender Identity Is Sacred

Within the theology and spiritual tradition of Universal Rainbow Faith, we affirm something unequivocally:

Gender identity is sacred.

Transgender people are sacred.

Nonbinary people are sacred.

Intersex people are sacred.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer people are sacred.

Cisgender people are sacred.

Women are sacred.

Men are sacred.

Every human being carries inherent spiritual worth.

No surgery creates that sacredness.

No chromosome eliminates it.

No government grants it.

No politician can repeal it.

No religious institution owns it.

And no sporting organization determines it.

Our sacred worth precedes all of those things.

Within Universal Rainbow Faith, the diversity of humanity is not evidence that creation has failed.

Diversity is part of creation.

The rainbow itself teaches this.

Its beauty does not come from forcing every wavelength into a single color.

Its beauty comes from difference existing within unity.

The Rainbow Light of Love

Universal Rainbow Faith speaks of Activating the Rainbow Light of Love.

That principle requires more than tolerance.

It requires recognizing sacred worth in people whose lives may be completely different from our own.

To activate the Rainbow Light of Love means looking beyond categories long enough to encounter the soul standing before us.

Before transgender.

Before cisgender.

Before Republican.

Before Democrat.

Before Christian.

Before atheist.

Before conservative.

Before progressive.

There is a human being.

There is consciousness.

There is experience.

There is a story.

There is suffering.

There is hope.

There is love.

There is life.

And that life deserves reverence.

When Identity Becomes Someone Else's Costume

That is why the spiritual distinction between transition and trans-face matters so deeply to me.

Transition can be an extraordinarily profound journey toward authenticity.

For some people it involves years of questioning.

Prayer.

Fear.

Therapy.

Medical consultation.

Family conversations.

Loss.

Discovery.

Grief.

Liberation.

Hormones.

Surgery.

Or none of those medical interventions at all.

Every journey is different.

But beneath those differences can be a fundamental spiritual question:

Can I live truthfully as myself?

Now compare that with deliberately announcing a transgender identity as a temporary device for making a political argument.

One seeks authenticity.

The other uses someone else's authenticity as theater.

That is why I regard deliberate mockery of transgender identity as spiritually harmful.

It takes something sacred in another human being and makes it disposable.

You Do Not Have to Understand Someone to Respect Their Sacredness

This principle extends far beyond transgender people.

I do not have to completely understand another person's experience to recognize that person's humanity.

I do not have to practice another person's religion to respect its sacred objects.

I do not have to understand another culture completely before knowing that deliberately humiliating it can cause harm.

Likewise, someone does not have to understand what it feels like to be transgender to recognize that transgender identity represents something profoundly important to the person living it.

You can ask questions.

You can disagree about public policy.

You can debate sports eligibility.

You can hold different philosophical understandings of sex and gender.

None of that requires mockery.

Disagreement does not require dehumanization.

A Spiritual Attack Does Not Require a Supernatural Explanation

When I describe something as a spiritual attack, I am not necessarily describing demons, supernatural forces or some invisible entity attacking transgender people.

I am talking about an assault upon human spirit.

Upon dignity.

Upon identity.

Upon hope.

Upon belonging.

Upon someone's sense that there is a place in this world for them.

Repeatedly telling a population that its members are jokes, frauds, predators, freaks, costumes or political problems can wound the human spirit.

When society laughs at someone's identity often enough, some people begin wondering whether they deserve to exist openly at all.

That is spiritual injury.

And a spiritual community should oppose it.

Sacred Does Not Mean Beyond Question

Calling gender identity sacred does not mean every policy question involving gender is forbidden.

That would itself become intellectually dishonest.

Women's sports matter.

Fair competition matters.

Privacy matters.

Safety matters.

Children deserve thoughtful care.

Medical ethics matter.

Biology matters.

Evidence matters.

And transgender people matter.

Universal Rainbow Faith does not need to declare every complicated policy question solved in order to affirm the sacredness of transgender people.

We can debate the rules without debating someone's worth.

We can study physiology without reducing a person to anatomy.

We can acknowledge biological realities without using biology as a weapon.

We can disagree without humiliating.

That is spiritual maturity.

No Human Being Should Become a Punch Line

Perhaps the deepest problem with trans-face is therefore not simply that it misrepresents transgender people.

It transforms someone's humanity into entertainment.

The transgender woman watching at home sees someone temporarily adopting the identity she may have struggled for decades to accept.

The performer receives attention.

The audience laughs.

The political point is made.

Then everyone goes home.

But she remains transgender.

That is why the costume metaphor is so important.

The performer can remove the costume.

She cannot remove her life.

THE UNIVERSAL RAINBOW FAITH AFFIRMATION OF GENDER DIGNITY

Within Universal Rainbow Faith, we affirm:

Gender identity is sacred.

Human identity deserves dignity.

Transgender people are not mistakes.

Women are not political props.

Transgender women are not political props.

No human being's identity should be appropriated for humiliation.

Science should be pursued honestly.

Women's rights should be respected.

Transgender rights should be respected.

Disagreement must never become permission for cruelty.

And above everything:

Love must remain greater than fear.

Our calling is not to make everyone identical.

Our calling is to recognize the sacred light within people who are different.

That is the Rainbow Light.

And whenever a human being is reduced to a caricature, mocked for existing, or transformed into a political prop, our responsibility is not merely to defend an ideology.

It is to restore humanity to the conversation.

THE QUESTION BENEATH ALL THE OTHER QUESTIONS

America keeps asking:

What is a woman?

Perhaps we need another question.

What does it mean to treat a woman as sacred?

And another:

What does it mean to treat a transgender person as sacred?

And ultimately:

What does it mean to recognize the sacredness of another human being?

Because we can spend the next hundred years arguing about definitions.

Science will continue discovering things.

Language will evolve.

Sports organizations will rewrite policies.

Courts will issue decisions.

Governments will change.

Religions will continue debating theology.

But one principle does not require another hundred years of research:

Human beings should not have to earn the right to be treated with dignity.

That includes transgender human beings.

So debate the WNBA policy.

Debate physiology.

Debate hormones.

Debate eligibility.

Debate sex and gender.

Conduct the studies.

Write the rules.

Challenge those rules.

Change them when evidence requires it.

But do not turn human beings into costumes.

Do not manufacture caricatures and then blame the people being caricatured.

Do not transform another person's journey toward authenticity into your instrument of ridicule.

Because within Universal Rainbow Faith, that journey is sacred.

The person making that journey is sacred.

And when someone attacks the dignity of another human being, our answer should not be greater hatred.

Our answer must be greater truth.

Greater compassion.

Greater courage.

And greater love.

Activate the Rainbow Light of Love.


Sources and Further Reading

The research and reporting informing this article draw from medical, scientific, athletic, and journalistic sources. Readers interested in exploring the underlying evidence and policies in greater depth are encouraged to review the Endocrine Society’s statement on transgender health; the systematic review of neuroimaging research concerning transgender people indexed by PubMed; the British Journal of Sports Medicine systematic review examining gender-affirming hormone therapy and performance-related physiology; and the NCAA’s transgender student-athlete participation policy.

The immediate news context for this article comes from Associated Press reporting on the controversy involving former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White and the WNBA. That reporting discusses the WNBA collective bargaining agreement’s eligibility language, the public declarations made by Freedom and White concerning the WNBA, and the WNBPA’s response—which sought to defend women’s professional basketball while also rejecting the demonization of transgender people.

These sources are provided so readers can distinguish among several issues that are too often collapsed into a single political argument: the medical and scientific literature concerning transgender people, the physiological effects of gender-affirming hormone therapy, policies governing athletic eligibility, and the separate question of how transgender people should be treated in public discourse. Whatever conclusions readers reach about sports policy, those disagreements should be informed by evidence rather than caricature, ridicule, or dehumanization.

© 2026 Paula Josephine Sadler. All Rights Reserved.


Read the Letters: A Call for Accountability, Dialogue and Healing

I have included below four letters in PDF format that grew directly from the issues examined in this article. I have written personally to Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White about their public actions and the harm I believe comes from using transgender identity as a political stunt. I have also written to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, asking the WNBA to protect the dignity of women athletes while refusing the dehumanization of transgender people, and to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, asking the NBA to use its extraordinary influence to encourage responsible public discourse, accountability and respect for human dignity.

These letters are not an attempt to silence disagreement about transgender participation in women's sports. Difficult questions about eligibility, biology, competitive fairness and league policy can and should be discussed seriously. My argument is that disagreement never requires humiliation. Women should not become political props, and transgender people should not become costumes, caricatures or punch lines.

I invite you to read all four letters, download and share the PDFs, and join the conversation. Share this article with others. Discuss it with your family, friends, faith communities, athletes and community leaders. Leave a thoughtful comment—even if you disagree with me. What we need is not more ridicule or dehumanization, but serious conversation grounded in evidence, empathy and recognition of our common humanity.

If these letters reach the people to whom they are addressed, I hope they will respond. More importantly, I hope they will listen.

Read. Share. Comment. Discuss.

And wherever you stand on the politics of this issue, please remember the human beings living behind the headlines.

The stunt ends. Our lives do not.

— Reverend Paula Josephine SadlerFounding Minister & PresidentUniversal Rainbow FaithActivating the Rainbow Light of Love







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