Trans basketball player Lexi Rodgers opens up amid eligibility debate

The transgender athlete hoping to play in the women’s NBL1 basketball league says she wants to emulate some of the sport’s biggest stars and has detailed her “overwhelming” gender experience.

The transgender athlete bidding to play in the women’s NBL1 competition has spoken out for the first time, saying she wants to compete at the highest level.

On the same day the expert panel convened by Basketball Australia met to determine her playing fate, Lexi Rodgers detailed her “complex” situation and called for kindness and understanding after Australian basketball legend Andrew Bogut revealed her plan to play for Victorian club Kilsyth, sparking heated online debate.

“It’s good to have a bit of a voice, now, because, when it’s this hypothetical person and people are making a picture of what a transgender athlete looks like in their head, 1: I don’t think it’s me, and, 2: I think it’s a bit harsh and people forget that there’s actually a person,” Rodgers said on WNBL MVP Anneli Maley’s podcast Under the Surface.

“If you don’t get it and you don’t know 1: don’t yell stuff on the internet about it because it’s probably wrong, and, 2: Go and learn about it.

Basketball player Lexi Rodgers on the Under the Surface show. Picture: Instagram

An Instagram post from basketball player Lexi Rodgers.

“Please be nice. It has been a hard week, so just try to remember that there’s actual people who are affected by these discussions and these debates.”

Rodgers, who grew up in Montrose at the foot of the Dandenongs, made the decision to transition during Covid, when she went through a relationship break up and received the shattering news her mother had been diagnosed with a terminal illness.

A talented basketballer in her youth, Rodgers had given up on dreams of playing the sport, but she said her ability was recently noticed by a work colleague, who offered her an opportunity.

This chance has ignited a dream to play alongside Maley for the Opals and in the WNBL.

“Coming into women’s basketball has been pretty cool, because, unfortunately, I didn’t know many of you before,” she told Maley.

“But now, watching you (Maley) play, and watching people like Cayla (George) play, Mon Conti … that’s where I want to get to, that’s where I want to be.”

Maley was among a host of WNBL players, including Perth young gun Chloe Bibby and Adelaide Lightning’s Mareena Whittle, who hit back at Bogut’s concern over a biological male competing in a women’s competition, and defended Rodgers’ right to play.

Rodgers said she first felt feminine tendencies at age 10 or 11, but she suppressed those feelings and kept them secret for many years, fearing she would “sacrifice everything I had”.

But, after the trauma of her relationship breakdown and news of her mother’s illness, she confided in a friend, who helped her explore her feminine side.

“It was overwhelming. It was such a quick move from ‘Oh, I’m going to be a more feminine guy’ to ‘I’m trans, there’s no doubt about it’,” she said.

Basketball Victoria, earlier this month, was on the verge of approving Rodgers’ participation in NBL1 but Basketball Australia was forced to step in after her bid was made public.

The panel who will decide her eligibility includes BA’s chief medical officer Dr Peter Harcourt, triple-Olympian and BA board member Suzy Batkovic and Notre Dame University sports and exercise physician Associate Professor Diana Robinson.

BA has community guidelines around transgender athletes but no official policy, while each state has its own guidelines. Similarly, guidelines and policies across governing bodies in other countries vary.

It’s understood BA officials are privately frustrated FIBA does not have a framework for the sport’s governing bodies to lean on when dealing with cases where transgender athletes wish to participate in elite or semi-elite competitions.

News Corp has asked FIBA if Rodgers or any other transgender athlete would be permitted to play, should Basketball Australia select her for the Opals.

A BA spokesperson confirmed FIBA had been consulted on the issue.

World swimming’s governing body FINA last year adopted a new gender inclusion policy, which banned transgender women who transitioned after the age of 12 from competing in sanctioned competitions.

Last week, World Athletics banned transgender women who had undergone male puberty from competing in elite female competitions.