The WNBA Has Lost Its Way

Mother and 17-year-old daughter forced to cover “XX-XY” and “For the Girls” shirts or leave Atlanta Dream-Indiana Fever game

A Georgia mother and her teenage daughter say arena security singled them out during overtime of Sunday’s Indiana Fever-Atlanta Dream game, ordered them to cover their XX-XY Athletics T-shirts or face ejection, and handed them promotional Atlanta Dream “Wellness & Health Night” shirts to wear instead.

Mom and daughter told to cover up XX-XY T-shirts, say they were threatened with ejection at Fever-Dream game | OutKick - Credit: foxnews.com

Kasey Thomason and her 17-year-old daughter Annie sat two to three rows from the court at State Farm Arena after paying roughly $1,000 each for tickets. They wore the shirts in support of Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, who has publicly defended single-sex women’s sports and spaces, and to affirm basic biological reality: women have XX chromosomes, men have XY.

Kasey wore an XX-XY shirt featuring stars-and-stripes lettering. Annie wore a Riley Gaines collaborative shirt with “XX” on the front and “For the Girls” on the back. They reported no problems through most of the game. Nearby fans were supportive. Then, in overtime of the Fever’s 95-91 win, a security guard approached.

Kasey asked if it was about the shirts. The guard said other fans found them “offensive.” The choice: put on the provided tan Dream “Wellness & Health Night” shirts or be escorted out. Kasey replied, “Biology and science is offensive?” They complied so they would not miss the final minutes. ESPN cameras captured them holding and then wearing the promotional shirts late in overtime.

“We were made to cover up our XX-XY shirts at this game,” Kasey said afterward. “They gave us t-shirts during overtime and told us we had to leave or cover our shirts up. This just happened… We did nothing. We were just sitting there. I didn’t make signs… I did nothing.” Annie added that she could not believe it happened in Atlanta.

The family believes a courtside spectator wearing a “Protect Trans Rights” shirt — who had been featured on the jumbotron earlier — complained. That fan was later seen with a jacket zipped over the message and reportedly mocked the Thomasons once they were covered up.

State Farm Arena’s prohibited-items policy bars clothing with “explicit language, profanity or derogatory characterization.” The NBA Fan Code of Conduct restricts “obscene or indecent messages.” Security did not cite those standards; the shirts were simply labeled “offensive.”

Sunday was marketed as the Dream’s Wellness & Health Night, intended to “use the power of sport to improve health outcomes for women and girls across Georgia.” The irony is hard to miss: a night framed around women’s health coincided with silencing two women for shirts stating biological sex.

XX-XY Athletics, founded by Jennifer Sey, produces apparel supporting fair women’s sports and single-sex categories. The brand and its supporters have faced repeated pushback. Less than a month earlier, Seattle Storm minority owner Celeste Keaton was suspended and fined after confronting teenage fans wearing similar shirts and holding pro-Cunningham signs.

As of Monday morning reports, the Atlanta Dream had not issued a public response. OutKick and others sought comment.

XX-XY Athletics itself responded by noting the episode will only increase the number of people wearing the shirts to games.

This is not a championship final — it was a regular-season contest — but the optics land the same way. A professional women’s league and its arena treated a statement of biological sex and support for female athletes as too provocative to remain visible, while a competing ideological slogan received jumbotron time. Fans who paid premium prices to watch the game and quietly back women’s categories were told to cover up or leave.

For Shasta Unfiltered readers tracking cultural and institutional double standards, the pattern is familiar: selective enforcement that polices one side of a debate while amplifying the other. Biology is not hate speech. “For the Girls” is not obscenity. When arenas and leagues treat those messages as ejectable offenses, the public conversation only intensifies.

Sources: OutKick/Fox News Digital (Jon Root reporting with family comments), New York Post, contemporaneous X posts and video from Adam Francisco and others, game box score confirming State Farm