TOPSHOT – US Women National Basketball Association’s (WNBA) basketball player Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with illegal possession of cannabis, is escorted to the courtroom to hear the court’s final decision in Khimki outside Moscow, on August 4, 2022. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP) (Photo by KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. 

Brittney Griner is known for her game on the basketball court, but she’s now become embroiled in a much more dangerous game overseas. Griner has been detained in Russia for over five months after she was stopped at an airport for possessing vape cartridges containing hashish oil, which is illegal in the country. She faced a maximum of 10 years in prison but ended up getting 9.5.

Calls to free the WNBA star have escalated in the months since her detainment and put a considerable amount of pressure on the Biden administration to act. A potential prisoner swap could see Griner exchanged for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. President Joe Biden has accused Russia of “wrongfully detaining Brittney,” calling the decision “unacceptable.”

In the meantime, social media has been going nuts over claims that Brittney Griner has been “ordered by officials” to take a DNA test to determine whether she would serve her sentence in a male or female prison.

pic.twitter.com/A4KLormy0M

— BRAD LABORDE (@LabordeBrad) August 5, 2022

 

This is clearly false and a mean-spirited joke as Griner has been targeted with similar claims throughout her basketball career that goes all the way back to her time at Baylor.

The basketball star addressed the issue directly in 2015, as part of a photoshoot for ESPN Magazine’s “Body Issue”.

Griner said: “I’ve heard, ‘Oh, she’s not a female, she’s a male.’ I’ve been told, ‘Oh, she’s tucking stuff.’ They thought I was tucking.

“I mean, [in the Body Issue] it’s out there. Let me show that I embrace the flatness! I just want people to see somebody who embraces being naked, embraces everything about them being different.”

A 2013 interview with Elle reported that she “never had the feeling she was born the ‘wrong’ sex.”

Griner said: “I’m just being myself, honestly. I know society puts it, ‘Oh, this is masculine and this is feminine.’ I don’t put myself in categories.”

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