Michele Tafoya remembers when the WNBA was purely about celebrating women’s basketball.
Appearing on Dan Dakich’s show, “Don’t @ Me,” Tafoya expressed that she no longer recognizes the league she once helped broadcast. Having called WNBA games during its inaugural years alongside figures like Robin Roberts and Hannah Storm, she stated that political activism has overshadowed the sport’s original mission.
“I’m losing faith in this league,” Tafoya told Dakich. Recalling her early days working alongside Reggie Miller, she added, “It was a celebration of these women. This league has now somehow morphed into something that feels like activism on display.”
To illustrate how emotionally charged the debate over women’s sports has become, Tafoya pointed to a recent protest outside a Minnesota Lynx game. She described how pro-trans activists used bullhorns and sirens to drown out women speaking in defense of female-only competition.
“They were loud,” Tafoya continued. “They had bullhorns. They would press their little siren button and just blast us so we could never talk. It’s just hard to believe that we are still conflating this idea of women having their own sport, but trans women somehow having access to that sport when they aren’t biologically female.”
“This is not an anti-choice, transphobic movement at all. God bless Sophie Cunningham, and you know it as well, if not better than I do. She’s got a spine, and she is a hero of mine.”
Cunningham, one of the WNBA’s most outspoken defenders of women’s sports, has drawn both praise and fierce criticism for refusing to back down. When Dakich asked whether Cunningham’s willingness to speak out might encourage other players to do the same, Tafoya admitted that today’s locker room culture makes that a difficult proposition.
Tafoya also highlighted Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve wearing a “Trans Kids Belong” T-shirt on the bench, viewing it as further evidence of a league more interested in pushing activism than promoting basketball.
“I hope it opened the doors for others. But you know what? It’s going to be a very narrow group,” Tafoya said. Regarding Reeve’s T-shirt, she added, “By the way, this has nothing to do with kids, and I’d love to leave kids out of this entire ideology altogether.”
Tafoya emphasized that, in her view, protecting women’s sports is not about hate, but rather about fairness, meritocracy, and preserving the categories women fought decades to establish. Ultimately, she believes the WNBA is creating its own distractions, warning that the more the league leans into activism, the more the actual basketball gets lost in the noise.
