Former NBA player Matt Barnes expressed his thoughts on trans athletes during a sit-down with VladTV, where he was asked about trans players potentially playing in the WNBA.
During the interview, Barnes admitted to DJ Vlad that he generally agrees with the idea of “to each their own,” but not when discussing sports.
“I don’t like that,” Barnes quickly responded. “You wanna be whatever you wanna be… I’m pro-make-your-choice. Do you do this, but sports is different, you know what I mean? Sports is a different beast.”
“I don’t like that,” he reiterated. “If you’re born a woman, I think you should play women’s sports. And if you’re born a man, you should play man sports. But if you wanna be—if you wanna do whatever you wanna do with your life, I respect that. That’s not my business. But I just think the sports thing is just a little different.”
“They were horrible. … Not one is even decent,” Arenas said.
Barnes, who asserted that gender identity isn’t always reflective of athleticism, seemed to agree with Arenas.
“You might just not be shit, period, in sports,” Barnes said. “It is what it is.”
