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WNBA player Brianna Turner faced backlash from social media after she wrote a statement expressing her displeasure with the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) policy of keeping men out of women’s sports.
Turner, who recently signed a contract with the Las Vegas Aces after playing professionally in Australia, wrote in USA Today that she did not believe the new policy the IOC implemented actually protected women’s sporting events.
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Indiana Fever forward Brianna Turner reacts after defeating the Atlanta Dream in game three of the first round of the 2025 WNBA playoffs at Gateway Center Arena in College Park, Ga., on Sept. 18, 2025. (Dale Zanine/Imagn Images)
The IOC said it would use genetic tests to ensure women’s events include only women. Turner accused the IOC of using the new policies to “scapegoat” transgender athletes while ignoring “real” issues regarding women in sport.
“Policies that single out transgender women and intergender-variant athletes do not protect women’s sports. They scapegoat while ignoring the real challenges facing women’s sports: unequal funding, limited access to training and facilities, pay disparities, male-dominated management, gender-based violence and harassment across race, gender and gender,” Turner wrote on sexual orientation and gender, Friday.
She also rejected the IOC’s argument that the new policy is being adopted to ensure women’s sport is safe and fair, claiming there were no biological advantages in transgender athletes.
WNBA PLAYERS OPPOSE NEW OLYMPICS TRANSGENDER POLICY, SAYING THEY DO “EVERYTHING EXCEPT” PROTECT WOMEN
Indiana Fever forward Brianna Turner celebrates after defeating the Los Angeles Sparks 76-75 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California on August 29, 2025. (Kiyoshi Mio/Imagn Images)
“In more than 15 years of organized basketball, I have played with and against people who are transgender and undoubtedly people of intergender variation, and I have never experienced any unfair advantage. I saw these players as my fellow athletes, not my enemies,” Turner wrote.
She concluded by demanding that the IOC not use female athletes in efforts to “sham or exclude” transgender athletes.
Turner received a flood of social media responses to her criticism of the IOC.
Turner’s statement followed similar responses from former U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe and Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Sue Bird.
“We already know that biology, as much as we want it to just be nice and clean and tight and perfect in one category and another, it’s not,” Rapinoe said earlier this month. “We know. So now what we’re doing is subjecting everybody, every woman and every person who identifies as a woman, to this really invasive test that just says to me like, ‘Oh, we’re just trying to narrow it down to a certain type of woman.’ Is that what we’re doing? That’s really the whole game here.”
Bird said the IOC’s policy was akin to “fear-mongering”.
Turner will play with the Aces this season. She joined the Indiana Fever in 2025 and the Chicago Sky in 2024 after spending the first five seasons of her career with the Phoenix Mercury.
IOC President Kirsty Coventry speaks to volunteers ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Thursday, January 29, 2026. (Daniele Mascolo/Pool Photo via AP)
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There are no known transgender athletes competing in the WNBA.
