The captains on Angel City Football Club, a professional soccer team, have labeled their teammate Elizabeth Eddy racist and transphobic after the player called in an op-ed for stricter gender guidelines in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL).
Sarah Gorden and Angelica Anderson claim the entire Angel City FC is disgusted with Eddy’s op-ed.
The piece, published in the New York Post on October 27, stated that women should be the only players competing in the NWSL in order to grow and protect the league. Eddy said, “I’m concerned that without clarity about who the league is for, it will lose its identity and its momentum.”
The professional soccer player suggested gene testing, which other sports leagues have implemented, as one way to ensure the women playing women’s soccer are actually women.
“The NWSL must adopt a clear standard,” Eddy wrote. “One option is all players must be born with ovaries, as the FA requires. Another option is an SRY gene test, like those World Athletics and World Boxing implemented.”
Her teammates responded negatively.
“The undertones come across as transphobic, and racist as well,” Sarah Gorden said at a press conference, the recording of which was posted to the team’s official X account.
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Gorden went on to say in the video that the op-ed, combined with the featured image being of a black player, was “inherently racist.”
“As a mixed woman with a black family, I’m devastated by this article,” Gorden added.
Anderson said that when she thinks of Los Angeles, she thinks of inclusivity, which Eddy actually said she stands for in her op-ed.
“Addressing this challenge entails remembering why women’s sports categories exist in the first place,” Eddy said. “Not to exclude but to create a space where female athletes can physically compete on equal footing.”
Angel City FC’s season ended Sunday in a loss to Chicago.
