The TikTok video – left – of Teaira McCowan – right – has been extensively criticised and reported (TikTok/Getty)
Dallas Wings WNBA center Teaira McCowan has become the latest sports star to be ‘transvestigated’ by a gender-critical social media user, and her fans are not happy.
The term transvestigating – a mash-up of trans and investigating – refers to conspiracy theories that falsely claim individuals, typically women, are transgender and are hiding their “true” gender identity.
Celebrities, political figures and professional athletes have all been “accused” of being trans with no evidence other than the conspiracy theorists’ own warped, often misogynistic, view of femininity and gender.
Now, 6ft 7in Dallas Wings player Teaira McCowan – who also plays for Galatasaray in the Turkish Women’s Basketball Super League – has become the latest athlete to be targeted in this way.
In a TikTok video posted on 7 May by a user called @Shayshante, which has now been viewed over 600,000 times, a video of McCowan learning a dance with her teammates has been used as some kind of “proof” that she is “actually a man”.
In the video, which fans of the athlete are complaining should be taken down, @Shayshante circles McCowan and repeatedly says: “She is a trans. She is a man. This is a man.” She also adds: “This should not be allowed, she’s playing with the WNBA, this is a man.”
The video caused widespread anger. One X user tweeted: “The whole Teaira McCowan Tiktok situation is a perfect example of how trans-exclusionary feminism is not about ‘protecting women,’ it’s about policing women. This disproportionately affects women of color.”
Another person asked their followers to report the video to TikTok, saying “what we won’t do is tear down a black WOMAN that’s worked hard as hell.”
It seems from the user’s follow up videos that the viral video was removed, but then reinstated. In a follow up clip, the same user defends their stance, saying “I said what I said… y’all can report it but I said what I said” and in the same video they also double down and falsely claim that WNBA player Caitlin Clark is trans too.
Caitlin Clark plays for Indiana Fever and previously played college basketball for the Iowa Hawkeyes. She is regarded as one of the greatest collegiate players of all time and has been repeatedly ‘transvestigated’ in recent months. Multiple posts on the question and answer site Quora are dedicated to “debating” her gender.
PinkNews has reached out to TikTok for comment.