Lexi Rodgers has revealed she is the trans lady hoping to play within the NBL1 competitors.
Key factors:
- Basketball Australia has convened a panel to debate Rodgers’s utility to play within the NBL1 ladies’s competitors
- Rodgers says she made her title public so individuals would see the “trans participant” being talked about as an individual, not an amorphous entity
- Former NBA champion Andrew Bogut has been vocally in opposition to Rodgers’s place within the league
Rodgers went on the Beneath The Floor podcast with former WNBL MVP Anneli Maley to discuss her expertise because it was revealed there was a trans participant within the ladies’s semi-professional basketball league, sparking debate on-line and in board rooms.
“I’m Lexi Rodgers, I am not non-existent,” she stated.
She stated she wished to indicate individuals who she was so they’d cease making assumptions and creating a picture of their minds of what a trans participant appears to be like like.
“I feel it is good to have a little bit of a voice now,” she stated.
“As a result of when it is this hypothetical particular person and individuals are making an image of what a transgender athlete appears to be like like of their head; one, I do not assume it is me; and two, I feel it is a bit harsh, and other people simply overlook that there is really an individual.
Rodgers stated she was “nonetheless the identical particular person” she was earlier than she transitioned, “simply in a unique wrapping”.
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Basketball Australia has arrange a panel to debate her utility to play within the upcoming NBL1 South season for Kilsyth Cobras, beginning on April 1.
Rodgers informed Maley she thought transitioning would imply she must hand over on enjoying basketball, however was elated at getting the chance to return to her “past love”.
“I am going to all the time adore it,” she stated.
“Once I transitioned it went by my head, ‘should you do that you then’re not gonna be enjoying sport’, and that was robust, however that was the choice I made in my head.
“Each time I am on the basketball court docket, each time I am with the women, each time I’ve bought something going to do with enjoying basketball, it is only a present.
“I by no means thought I might be right here. I by no means thought I might be enjoying basketball once more.”
Rodgers thanked individuals for the “overwhelming help” she has acquired up to now, however not all of the dialogue has been supportive.
Former NBA champion Andrew Bogut has been significantly outspoken in his criticism of Rodgers’s inclusion within the ladies’s competitors and the way through which the league dealt with session with different groups.
Maley had agreed to go on Bogut’s podcast to debate the problem earlier than cancelling, saying she had been made to really feel unsafe after receiving threats on social media from Bogut’s followers and even stated individuals turned up at her home.
“You haven’t any thought what it is prefer to be a girl getting bodily threats kind [sic] grown males,” she wrote.
“I need not justify my experiences to you or any man that questions my expertise.”
Bogut stated Maley was “enjoying the sufferer” and hosted former federal Liberal candidate for Warringah Katherine Deves, who based a foyer group aimed toward protecting trans ladies out of feminine sports activities.
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