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A data firm has found the WNBA outrage was largely manufactured
While the online fight over transgender athletes in the WNBA over the summer was loud, it turns out it was largely fake.
According to a report shared exclusively with Rolling Stone, the data firm GUDEA analyzed 188,631 posts about transgender athletes in the WNBA from July 20 to August 12, and found that nearly all online discussion of transgender athletes in the WNBA took place on X and was driven by a small number of high-engagement posts.
A data firm found that most of the online discourse about transgender athletes in the WNBA only came from a handful of accounts on X
Nearly 99% of it was on X, with the firm saying a handful of high-engagement posts drove a majority of the conversation.
“If you take out the eight top posts, this [narrative] didn’t happen,” GUDEA founder Keith Presley said, according to Rolling Stone.
GUDEA also found that a small share of “non-typical” accounts, such as influencers, pundits, and aggregators, played an outsized role — the report puts that group at roughly 3.5% of accounts, and the firm says they have the strongest incentive to drive engagement and monetize the topic on X.
The latest transgender discourse was sparked by a July ESPN profile on Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, who made comments about biological males competing in girls’ sports.
Separately, former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom declared for the 2027 WNBA Draft and confronted Natasha Cloud at a game. Royce White, who had a cup of coffee in the NBA but never played in an actual game due to his mental issues, also joined Kanter in the grift.
As for the league itself, there are no known transgender players currently in the WNBA, and only two nonbinary players have ever played in it, per ESPN’s Katie Barnes.
GUDEA’s researchers cautioned that the data doesn’t prove people don’t care about the issue offline. Instead, they argue the online debate was amplified for engagement and profit.
It certainly tracks with anecdotal evidence: while the WNBA debate raged online, did you ever meet anyone who *actually* cared about it? Even Fox News puppet Jesse Watters struggled to keep his poker face while discussing the topic.
Interesting take from Watters as Fox has been pushing WNBA segments across on their shows:
This is week three of covering the WNBA. We get paid to have an opinion about everything. This is something that I don’t care about. Someone wore a t-shirt at a WNBA game? This isn’t a news story. We don’t even cover the NBA. Why are we covering the WNBA?
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 3, 2026
The 2026 WNBA Finals — which is a best-of-seven series — between the Golden State Valkyries and the Atlanta Dream will tip off on Saturday, October 17 at 3:30 p.m. EST.