After transgender women were barred from traditional tennis play, a group of Las Vegas players built their own league, turning the idea of a group chat into a growing community on the court.
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The group, called Tennis with Friends, was co-founded by Valarie Witherspoon and Christine Delisle and began organizing the matches after listening to players who felt they no longer had a place in established leagues. What started as a small text thread quickly expanded into a regular gathering, attracting transgender women and other players looking for an inclusive space.
United States Tennis Association Quietly banning transgender women She declined to participate in the women’s league in October last year. The ban was carried out without publicity in compliance with an executive order meant to keep trans women out of women’s sports.
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“It started with an email from five of us saying, ‘We’re going to play every week. We’re going to figure out a way to play. We can’t lose you.’ said Las Vegas Fox affiliate station KVVU.
The group’s creation comes amid a broader and rapidly changing landscape for transgender athletes, as state and national policies increasingly restrict women’s participation in sports.
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Last November, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into the United States Tennis Association’s Texas League to determine whether it violated Texas law by allowing transgender women to participate in women’s matches.
“We will defeat a radical left bent on crushing the dreams of many girls by allowing men and women to compete in sports. If the USTA allows biological males to compete in women’s games and misleads athletes about who they will be playing against, my office will take all steps necessary to protect the women and girls of Texas,” Paxton said.
At the federal level, President Donald Trump has issued an executive order aimed at defining eligibility based on sex assigned at birth and restricting transgender women’s participation in sports. These directives have influenced policy discussions at various levels of sport, but implementation varies widely between sports and governing bodies.
Source: Advocate.com – www.advocate.com
