Full disclosure: I have never watched a full WNBA game. I haven’t watched an NBA game in decades, either. Basketball never interested me, in part because I prefer and understand set-piece sports better than more fluid games like basketball, hockey, and soccer. I have seen enough of all of them, however, to know that the games change significantly when men play them as opposed to when women play them.
One sport I have watched over the years has been women’s tennis. I find the game changes to a much more interesting form with women; the matches have more tension as strategy replaces brute-force power. The men’s game is interesting too, but somehow less engaging, more clinical and somewhat less satisfying. The sports market seems to recognize this distinction too, as female tennis players make roughly equivalent money and achieve perhaps even more fame at the top echelon of the sport.
Tennis, therefore, is the one sports platform that perhaps best rewards the separate but equal dignity of men and women, and where the necessity of separate but equal competition is most obvious. (Figure skating and gymnastics would be two others.) Until now, though, the stars of women’s tennis have not spoken up much to protect access to fair competition for girls and women.
Sophie Cunningham’s choice to take a firm position on “trans” males encroaching on female sports – after having the issue thrust upon her by a sports reporter – has apparently shifted an Overton window sharply enough to change that situation. This week, two of its top stars spoke out in support of separate competition on the basis of biological reality. Neither of them looked comfortable doing so, but to their credit, they didn’t back down either.
Coco Gauff, the second-ranked American athlete in women’s tennis (4th worldwide), tried to soften the approach but still stuck the landing. She expressed support for the “trans community,” but drew the line at having men play women’s sports:
“I definitely support the trans community, but I also support the need of creating fairness in sport too.”
Tennis star Coco Gauff is weighing in on the fairness in women’s sports debate—and it’s receiving a very different reaction than Sophie Cunningham speaking out… despite… pic.twitter.com/VzGgJmwcgz
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) August 6, 2026
… despite it being “the same position.”
“By the way, this is the same position as Sophie. She’s saying she has respect for the trans community, but there are biological differences. It’s the same thing, just more words—but it’s literally the same position.”
In fact, it’s exactly the same position. Cunningham has also couched her position in respect for the “trans community,” a point that activists ignored in their rush to punish her and punish her fans. Respecting people who choose their own identity does not require women to surrender spaces to biological males, especially in athletic competition, where male participation would entirely change the games being played and eclipse females from any meaningful competition.
Gauff’s comments came shortly after the top-ranked women’s tennis player spoke up in solidarity with Cunningham and female athletes. Aryna Sabalenka addressed the issue more bluntly, discussing the “obvious” physiological advantages males have in sports competition and also declaring it an issue of fair competition for females:
World No. 1 tennis player Aryna Sabalenka isn’t holding back on the debate around biological men in women’s sports, calling the physical difference an issue of fairness.
“It’s obvious that biologically, right, the men are way stronger than women, so I feel like it would be not… pic.twitter.com/rdIBhuHkh4
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) August 5, 2026
“It’s obvious that biologically, right, the men are way stronger than women, so I feel like it would be not really fair for the woman to compete against biological men.”
And while tennis legend Martina Navratilova hasn’t competed in decades, she also spoke up this week directly in defense of Cunningham. Navratilova is hardly a conservative in any sense, but she understands both the sport and biological reality:
Sophie is not ANTI-TRANS- rather she is PRO-WOMEN!!!
Wrong headline! https://t.co/GtvqGqmRby— Martina Navratilova (@Martina) August 2, 2026
Perhaps because of the nature of the sport, women’s tennis stars have been a reality check on the nihilist impulse to ignore biological reality in sports. Six years ago, then-top-ranked male tennis player Andy Murray offered now-legend Serena Williams an exhibition match just for fun. Williams was amused but said, “Andy, seriously, are you kidding me?”
But on the Late Show with David Letterman, Serena mentioned it was never going to happen. “Actually it’s funny, because Andy Murray, he’s been joking about myself and him playing a match. I’m like, ‘Andy, seriously, are you kidding me?’ For me, men’s tennis and women’s tennis are completely, almost, two separate sports,” Serena Williams said.
“If I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose 6-0, 6-0 in five to six minutes, maybe 10 minutes. No, it’s true. It’s a completely different sport. The men are a lot faster and they serve harder, they hit harder, it’s just a different game.”
It’s a different game for men than it is for women. That’s true in every sports competition imaginable, from basketball to volleyball. The biological advantages that males have would not just change women’s sports, it would squeeze women out of the sports leagues created to allow girls and women to flourish. That’s been the result where schools and leagues allow “trans women” to compete against biological females. Some of those impacted, like Riley Gaines, have absorbed abuse and intimidation for speaking the truth about biological reality.
For too long, women who benefited from separate competition have remained silent about this. Sophie Cunningham may not have chosen to raise awareness of this issue, but she has remained courageous and outspoken enough to draw some others to stand up for girls and women. Let’s hope the momentum builds and the media start reporting reality rather than carrying water for radical nihilists.
Update: VIP member Alex informed me that Gauff is ranked second among American women tennis players and fourth worldwide, not second worldwide as I originally wrote. I have corrected it above.
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