During her press conference on Saturday leading up to Sunday’s national title game matchup with the Iowa Hawkeyes, South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley made it pretty clear that she supported transgender athletes playing in women’s college basketball. But NBA star Chandler Parsons does not agree.
“I’m under the opinion of if you are a woman you should play,” Staley said in her press conference. “If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion. Do you want me to go deeper? Yes, so now the barnstorm of people are going to flood my timeline and be a distraction to me on one of the biggest days of our game. And I’m okay with that.”
But Chandler Parsons quickly made it pretty clear that he did not agree with Staley’s opinion, as he questioned her stance.
“so if Zach Edey wants to be a women, he can play against you next season?” Parsons said in a post on X, the social media website that was formerly known as Twitter.
Obviously, these comments from Parsons led to a lot of reactions on social media.
https://twitter.com/Natural_OneDurr/status/1776834450677973321
If you could identify as somebody that can still defend an inbound pass, you might still be in the league https://t.co/qEuoxqgszr
— Sheriff of Portland (@SheriffOfPDX) April 7, 2024
Chandler showing off that Florida education https://t.co/wZugFBtl0i
— Brett (@BLeez17) April 6, 2024
It really is insane how much traction this literal non issue is. There are almost zero MtF college or pro athletes, they have requirements to meet and the only credible studies/information on this topic suggests that 12+ months on estrogen effectively neutralizes the advantage. https://t.co/kUv7z5OmHg
— Jesse (@d0wnsideofme) April 7, 2024
Chandler Parsons is now 4Chandler Parsons https://t.co/ethn5sCqL1
— Robert Silverman (@BobSaietta) April 7, 2024
you are literally chandler parsons; if not even you were willing to try to bluff your way into pretending to be trans and playing in the wnba to stay relevant and paid that is proof that no one is actually doing that https://t.co/A49ByuJjLx
— not matt (@PanasonicDX4500) April 7, 2024
This is certainly an issue that’s going to continue to be a hotly debated issue in politics and sports.