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O<\/span>n 26 October, Angel City FC\u2019s Elizabeth Eddy made her first post on X in nearly two years. In it, Eddy in essence responded to the Guardian\u2019s report that the NWSL had quietly dropped<\/a> its inclusion policy for trans and intersex athletes, leaving the league\u2019s future stance on the matter undecided.<\/p>\n The New York Post gave Eddy\u2019s writing a signal boost the next day, republishing it in full<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m concerned that without clarity about who the league is for, it will lose its identity and its momentum,\u201d Eddy wrote in the piece, which broadly advocated for a ban on trans athletes from the NWSL<\/a>, to protect \u201cthe integrity of women\u2019s sports\u201d so the league does not lose \u201cits identity and its momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear how Eddy thinks the NWSL\u2019s integrity has been harmed \u2013 either under its former policy that allowed trans athletes in the league, or its current lack of one. The league, now in its 13th season, has developed a clear identity. It\u2019s highly competitive. It\u2019s commercially and culturally powerful. It\u2019s, well, an integral<\/em> part of the global women\u2019s soccer scene. The league\u2019s momentum appears to be largely fine, too \u2013 to pick just two data points, viewership has grown every season, and in 2026 the league will expand to 16 teams, nearly doubling its size in the last five years.<\/p>\n Eddy cites the English FA\u2019s recent ban<\/a> on transgender athletes from women\u2019s soccer as a success story. Yet England\u2019s ban<\/a> is believed to affect only 20 or so grassroots players out of 5.5 million registered athletes. There\u2019s reason to believe the effect would be similarly negligible here in the US. In 2021, when the league\u2019s trans inclusion policy took effect, the NWSL had two<\/a> trans players: Quinn and Kumi Yokoyama. Both have since left, and no out trans players currently play in the league. On the 2025 season\u2019s opening weekend, the league welcomed its 1,000th<\/a> player. That\u2019s just two out trans players out of over 1,000 in league history.<\/p>\n Eddy\u2019s piece is written as if there is a pipeline of trans players set to take over the league at a moment\u2019s notice. There is no such thing. There are currently no out trans players competing at a professional level in the United States. Federal legislation expressly prohibits<\/a> trans players from competing in NCAA college soccer. And aside from all that, multiple peer-reviewed studies<\/a> have shown that trans athletes have no biological advantages over cis athletes.<\/p>\n In the absence of out trans people, transphobic attacks have continued along racial lines. When the Orlando Pride\u2019s Barbra Banda was named the BBC\u2019s player of the year, a wave of online abuse followed. The NWSL was painfully slow<\/a> to act in support of their star player. The Kansas City Current\u2019s Temwa Chawinga<\/a> and her sister Tabitha have experienced similar abuse. It\u2019s all derived either from the fraught world of gender testing standards, the players not looking outwardly feminine enough to some, or some combination of both those factors.<\/p>\n In her piece, Eddy does manage to identify that there is harm in legislating bodies in this way, saying \u201cThis uncertainty serves no one, as questions and controversy abound over intersex and transgender athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n But she doesn\u2019t seem to realize how her op-ed further enables those harms. As Suzanne Wrack put it<\/a> in the Guardian earlier this year: \u201cWhat the hysteria over an almost impossible hypothetical situation does is open the door for transphobic and racist targeting of female football players and creates an environment that makes trans people, young trans people, or those questioning their gender identity at grassroots level feel as if they don\u2019t belong in football or sport.\u201d<\/p>\n This harm is exponentially increased by the New York Post\u2019s shameful decision to run Eddy\u2019s op-ed with a photo of Banda, who like many athletes of color are frequently targeted by transphobic attacks. And Eddy\u2019s own teammates know it.<\/p>\n \u201cThat article does not speak for this team in this locker room,\u201d Angel City FC captain Sarah Gorden told reporters on Thursday. \u201cWe don\u2019t agree with the things written for a plethora of reasons, but mostly the undertones come across as transphobic and racist as well. The article calls for genetic testing on certain players, and it has a photo of an African player as a headline. And that\u2019s very harmful. As a mixed woman, with a Black family, I\u2019m devastated by the undertones of this article \u2026 And there are players in this league and in this locker room that are directly harmed by what was written in the article.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if one were to ignore all that and believe that trans inclusion constitutes a real problem for the NWSL, it\u2019s hard to see how it would outrank any number of other issues that have actually blunted the league\u2019s momentum and affected its integrity.<\/p>\n