In a Facebook post showing a photo of a female basketball team, one of the players is falsely described as a 50-year-old man who ‘identifies as a young teenager’ playing with a female teenage league. This is not correct. The photo shows a female basketball team, and the exceptional player, a transgender woman, does not identify her as a teenager.
The image has been placed in one preview more than 1,600 times since it was uploaded on March 6th. It has the caption: ‘A 50-year-old man plays basketball in the women’s teenage league because he identifies himself as a young teenager. Mental problems? Prove me wrong ”(here and here).
One of the players was indeed 50 years old when the photo was taken. This player is the transgender basketball player Gabrielle Ludwig. The team with her was not exclusively for teenagers – and Ludwig met the requirements to join.
Photographer Martin Klimek captured the image in 2012 for a profile about Ludwig published in USA Today, while making a comeback at university basketball in California (here and here). The article reports that Ludwig is legally recognized as a woman in the state of California and underwent sex reassignment surgery. Her lifelong love for basketball is described in the article, and her partner describes the sport as Ludwig’s ‘mistress’ because ‘she likes the game’.
According to USA Today, Ludwig decided to return to college basketball as part of a light-hearted conversation with the coach at Mission College about her eligibility. It was necessary for her to enroll for university classes and to have an updated birth certificate with her new name, which met both requirements. Ludwig joined the team and was the oldest among her 18- to 20-year-old counterparts, but that did not affect her fitness, nor is there any evidence she identified as a teenager.
An ESPN article published in 2013 told Ludwig about her motives for returning. She said: ‘Originally I just wanted to play basketball, but I owe it to the people in the LGBT community who said,’ You can be a positive role model out there ” (here).
In 2017, Ludwig was listed on the Outsports website as one of the 19 inspiring transgender people in sports. It was for her job as the Mission College women’s basketball team coach (here). Ludwig could not be reached for comment by Reuters.
VERDICT
Untrue. The image shows a transgender woman who was 50 years old when she was pictured with the basketball team she joined in 2012. There is no evidence that she identified herself as a young teenager.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.