A Transgender Volleyball Star Stirs ‘Unfounded’ Criticism In Brazil

Tifanny Abreu meets international standards for participation in women’s sports, but she still faces skepticism at home.

Brazilian transsexual volleyball player Tifanny Abreu takes part in a training session in Barueri, Sao Paulo, Brazil on February 16, 2018. – Abreu, the first transsexual to play in the Brazilian women’s volleyball league, is candidate for federal deputy in the October 7 elections. (Photo by NELSON ALMEIDA / AFP) (Photo credit should read NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images)

Tifanny Abreu was leading her team in a key volleyball match last month when the opposing coach called her a man.

Abreu is the first transgender volleyball player to compete on a professional women’s team in Brazil, and the comment was criticized widely in LGBTQ circles after it was aired on TV. But it also inspired critics of Abreu, including former volleyball star Ana Paula, to rush to the defense of coach Bernardo Rezende, who is better known as “Bernardinho,” or “little Bernard.”

“There’s a noisy minority that wants to force us to accept at all costs that feelings are more important than facts and biology,” Paula wrote on Twitter. “They are not.”

Bernardinho apologized, but his remark about the 34-year-old wing spiker rekindled a debate in Brazil about trans women and whether they should be allowed to compete professionally on women’s teams.

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