Whether in the United States or in France, the race for the MVP title is getting people talking. If Victor Wembanyama repeats to anyone who will listen that he deserves to win the title of best player of the regular season in the NBA, Julie Tetard, who shared the same hopes at her level, apparently does not mind having been snubbed by the women’s Ligue 2 in France. “Honestly, I don’t really care about this title (awarded by the players, coaches and media), the young transgender woman assures us. Whether I have it or not, I don’t pay attention to it. The most important thing is the team and the play-offs. »
However, the Monaco player would have reason to be angry, given her extraordinary statistics this season: 21 points, 20 rebounds, 35 rating on average. Numbers that would have crowned any player on Earth. But not Julie Tetard. The 33-year-old inside player, as well as Aurore Pautou, named the best player in the championship by the observers we contacted, were not even named among the top five in the elite antechamber.
“Not all the actors and actresses in our championship wanted to give this reward to Julie or Aurore,” assures Fabrice Courcier, coach of Saint-Amand Hainaut Basket. We can clearly see that the situation of transgender players in our Ligue 2 championship poses a real problem. There is such a superior athletic dimension to Julie Tetard’s level, that raises questions. »
Thirty rebounds in one game for Julie Tetard
Fabrice Courcier is annoyed. Pierre Gafforini, general manager of Voiron, too. During our telephone interviews, the two men continued to repeat their respect and goodwill towards the two players, who “are in no way responsible for the situation”, and praised “the immense courage it takes to carry out this transition process”. But they deplore, on the other hand, the lack of sporting fairness when facing Monaco Basket and its pivot of 1.90 m, which puts +15 evaluation, on average, to the best in the championship.
“She is a player who shows all the work she does on a daily basis to succeed in performing,” explains Gafforini. But when we see her wingspan, when we see the size of her hands, when we see this ability to be able to catch the ball and finish on lay-ups, when I see her running in a straight line and opponents are afraid to get in front of her because she has so much power, the observation is there. »
On March 21, during the clash between Monaco and La Tronche Meylan, Julie Tetard broke all records: 21 points at 54.5% shooting, 30 rebounds and 5 interceptions in 36 minutes. New proof of the total domination of the one who began her gender transition in 2021 and underwent her last operation in 2024. Arriving that same year in Monaco, Julie Tetard, who has always played basketball, martyred the Nationale 1, before moving up to the next level.
« Julie and Aurore have an advantage which means that at their age and with their initial intrinsic physical quality, they do things that cisgender girls do not do. This brings an advantage for them and for their team, which is not normal in terms of sporting fairness. When you get 25 points, 22 rebounds, these are things that don’t exist. This proves there is a problem. »
“We don’t have the right to win”
Asked by 20 Minutes to find out how she experienced the criticism surrounding her gender transition, Julie Tetard preferred not to raise the subject so as to “not reignite the controversy”. “When we win in women’s sport, we must above all not stand out in any way, because otherwise, in general, our performances will be called into question,” laments Ava, activist for All Women, a feminist association of trans and cisgender women. We saw it with Amélie Mauresmo or Caster Semenya. We have the right to have certain differences, we have the right to be part of certain marginalized categories, but we do not have the right to win. »
On her physical dimension superior to the rest of the players in the championship, the interior, on France 3, cited studies demonstrating “physical strength, jumping capacity and many other things diminished compared to a cisgender woman”. She also claimed to have “lower testosterone levels than a cisgender woman”.
In 2025, in the report “Transidentity and High-level Sport”, produced with the support of the Ministry of Sports and the CNOSF, twelve scientific, sporting and associative experts nevertheless explain that “sports depending on factors that are very differentiated by sex (such as size and vertical relaxation for volleyball or basketball) do not make it easy to envisage the competitive participation of people who have already undergone significant phases of this differentiation”.
This same report, which specifies that there are not yet enough precise studies on high-level transgender athletes, also ensures that “neither bone mass nor bone density nor body size changes after transition. There is currently no evidence of a loss of performance advantage after transition.”
“There are players who want to challenge themselves”
Conclusions not at all shared by Ava, who participated in the development of the report before dissociating herself from it, disagreeing with its conclusions. The latter believes on the contrary that “according to what science says, we can afford to doubt the physical advantages retained”.
Above all, she thinks that the presence of trans athletes poses “no problem”: “They are athletes, so it’s a good thing that they perform very well. I think it should be seen more as an opportunity to raise the overall level in France and to pull everyone up. » A vision shared by certain players, who are often eager to compete against what is best, before regularly leaving frustrated from their confrontations.
“There is necessarily an individual and collective motivation to play Monaco to try to limit Julie Tetard,” says the Saint-Amand Hainaut Basket coach. There are also players who want to challenge themselves compared to her, who certainly do even more. Afterwards, the difficulty is that there is still a real athletic difference. And if we have new cases with an even greater athletic dimension, we will ask even more questions. »
Alerts have been issued to the French Basketball Federation which has, for the moment, not changed its rules. These allow everyone to take a license, and therefore include transgender people. Which is not the case for the International Federation or the French Swimming, Cycling or Athletics Federations.
« Obtaining a license is on the identity card. Julie and Aurore are women, so they have the right to participate in a women’s championship. Now it’s difficult, because these are decisions that cannot bring satisfaction to everyone. »
The balance between freedom and fairness
Some leaders advocate the exclusion of transgender people from professional competitions, according to certain criteria. Others want the creation of a championship reserved for them. Many wonder if there will be a rule limiting the number of trans players on teams, as there may be with foreign players. “We are at an impasse. On a sporting level, sincerely, everyone in basketball finds it unfair, continues Pierre Gafforini. But there is a human side behind it that is difficult to manage, with women with great backgrounds. »
According to the report “Transidentity and high-level sport”, the exclusion of transgender athletes from competitions would not be the right solution: “If fairness certainly constitutes an objective inherent to the very idea of sporting competition, it nevertheless probably does not carry sufficient weight here to justify a derogation from the principle of inclusion of transgender people. »
Our file on basketball
“The real question to ask is to what extent the political climate encourages the discomfort that can sometimes be created around the participation of trans athletes,” concludes Ava. What follows is that if transgender people do not have their place in something which is supposed to be universal, which is supposed to bring together all of society like sport, at that point, these people do not have their place in society at all? »
Leave a Reply