Dress-Down Drama Erupts At WNBA Game

Basketball player in headphones high-fives fans while walking past crowd — Photo: 1022 Project / Shutterstock

A mother and daughter say arena security threatened to throw them out of a WNBA game unless they covered up shirts that simply spelled out male and female chromosomes.

Story Snapshot

Kasey Thomason and her daughter Annie paid $1,000 a ticket for seats near courtside at Monday’s Indiana Fever-Atlanta Dream game at State Farm Arena.
They wore XX-XY Athletics shirts supporting Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, with “For the girls” printed on the back.
A security guard told them during overtime to put on free team shirts or leave, saying another fan had complained.
The arena’s own written rules and the Atlanta Dream’s team policy both ban clothing seen as offensive or discriminatory, giving staff wide room to decide what crosses the line.

What Happened Inside State Farm Arena

Kasey Thomason and her daughter Annie, both from Georgia, bought tickets two rows from courtside for Monday’s Fever-Dream matchup. Each paid $1,000 apiece. They wore XX-XY Athletics shirts to show support for Sophie Cunningham and the push to keep women’s sports limited to biological women. Annie’s shirt read “For the girls” on the back.

The two wore the shirts through most of the game without any trouble from arena staff, according to the report. That changed in overtime, when a security guard approached them and said another fan had complained. The guard gave them a choice: put on free Atlanta Dream “Wellness & Health Night” shirts the team was handing out, or be walked out of the building.

Team and Arena Rules Give Staff Broad Power

State Farm Arena’s posted policy bars clothing or signs showing “explicit language, profanity or derogatory characterization towards any person(s)”. The Atlanta Dream’s own conduct policy, titled “No Space for Hate,” goes further, prohibiting “signs, apparel, or gestures with discriminatory or hateful messages”. Neither rule spells out exactly what counts as discriminatory, leaving that call to whoever is working the section that night.

That kind of open-ended wording is common at sports venues across the country, and legal researchers have flagged it for years. One study of major college football stadiums found that 92.2 percent of schools with posted fan-conduct rules had language that could violate free-speech protections. Another academic review of pro and college venues found similar patterns, warning that vague bans on “offensive” speech leave the door open to uneven enforcement depending on who is complaining and who is being told to comply.

Part of a Wider Pattern Around Cunningham

The State Farm Arena incident is not the first flashpoint tied to Cunningham and the women’s sports debate this season. Fans wearing XX-XY shirts have shown up at Fever road games in multiple cities, and dueling protest groups have gathered outside arenas before tipoff. The same shirts and slogans have become a recurring symbol in the broader fight over who gets to compete in women’s sports, turning routine WNBA games into flashpoints far beyond the court.

Mom and daughter told to cover up XX-XY T-shirts, say they were threatened with ejection at Fever-Dream game https://t.co/8yFalcLlur #FoxNews
Alright all you actual civil rights lawyers out here on X. Whose going to step up and volunteer to sue the Shit out of the Atlanta Dream… pic.twitter.com/yQ89RnT6UQ

— DevilDog (@airwinger_9014) August 17, 2026

Whether one side’s message counted as “hateful” while another’s did not is now the center of the dispute. Fans on both sides of the trans-athlete debate have used arenas as a stage this year, and venue staff are the ones left deciding, game by game, which shirts stay on and which get covered up.