Politically Unstable: Former college athlete on the WNBA’s manufactured transgender furor

Video

Tuesday, August 25, 2026

OPINION:

Screenwriter, director and former NCAA Division II basketball player Princella Smith joins Kelly Sadler on Politically Unstable to unpack the transgender firestorm engulfing the WNBA.

Smith argues no transgender athletes are actually seeking roster spots, calls out Royce White and Enes Kanter for “mocking” the league, and lays out where she thinks the WNBA should draw the line.

[SADLER] I thought it was just going to be a blip on the radar, but it has turned into a full transgender war, given the WNBA’s stance on Sophie Cunningham and basically saying that she does not believe that men should be participating in the league.

Princella, as a former player, as a former woman basketball player, what is your take on this controversy? And the fact that it just continues to keep going on. The WNBA doesn’t seem to be backing down with its inability to define what a woman is, and fans are going to the games wearing shirts that say, XX, XY chromosomes and getting kicked out. I mean, what — what’s your take on all of this?

[SMITH] Thank you for having me, Kelly, and I want to thank The Washington Times, everybody, for giving me a chance to say my piece. I think, as you said, I did play basketball. I can speak to this. As a woman who has gone my whole life being tall, being considered tall, I’ve got real long arms, long legs. I’m only 5’10”, but I appear to people to be 6’1”, 6’2”. And so I get a lot of this commentary. I played at the collegiate level. And the nuance is lost in this conversation.

I want to be clear. I do not believe that biological men should play in women’s sports. I just want to make that clear. But I also don’t think that the right conversation is being had. And for people who are, you know, I’m not punching down on the LGBTQ community. I don’t believe in it. I don’t believe in marginalized communities being punched down on. And I don’t like that I feel that women are being punched down on. And let me explain what I’m saying.

So a couple of nights ago, Tiffany Hayes is a WNBA player for the Valkyries, Golden State Valkyries. She hit a buzzer-beating three-point shot. It was ahead of the first quarter, or excuse me, to close the first quarter. And she hit a buzzer-beater, and the crowd goes crazy. By the way, it’s a sold-out arena, okay? Women’s basketball is growing. Sold-out arena. I think it was the 21st sold-out game there, okay? The camera pans over to Steph Curry. Four-time NBA champion Steph Curry, whatever you think about that man, he is cheering. He is going crazy over that three-point shot. He’s standing next to Gary Payton II, who won a championship with him, who is the son of championship winner Gary Payton Sr., and they’re cheering. What’s the reason I bring that up? Because I believe that real men cheer on women’s sports.

When I played ball, I got teased. I got some of the same treatment that the WNBA players are getting. And I’ll tell you something, it never came from a guy who was good at sports. Some of our biggest supporters and some of our biggest fans were guys who were very good at basketball, very good at football. Many NBA players support the WNBA.

Okay, so why do I make that point? Because I believe — I’m probably getting ahead of you here, Kelly. So I’m sorry, I’m a talker, I’m probably going to have you here. But I believe that what Royce White and Enes Kanter are doing is actually mocking the WNBA. Okay, there are no transgender players in the WNBA. I have not seen a push from the WNBA to say, please bring in transgender players. And I’m going to give you a very — one of the practical reasons why. There are only 15 WNBA teams. There are only 12 roster spots on each team. You have to be an exceptional woman basketball player to make it to the WNBA. So I don’t see them saying, let’s expand this for more people getting in. Let’s make this a controversy.

Furthermore, I know that many of the players, like, for example, Caitlin Clark has actually been quiet on it. Some of the coaches won’t comment. I know why they’re quiet. Behind the scenes, behind closed doors — I’m going to say it, because whatever, try to cancel me, I don’t care — those women don’t want to be canceled. Behind closed doors, they know, no, we don’t want people who were assigned male at birth in these rooms.