Oklahoma warns AEW’s Nyla Rose, trans wrestler, against matches with women

All of this was over a Dec. 20 match in Oklahoma City that lasted 120 seconds bell to bell between Rose and Alejandra Lion. Rose won after landing a power bomb. After the match, she took a cowboy hat off the head of a fan in the crowd and put it on her head to big applause.

Rose responded to the Oklahoma news by tweeting: “Don’t worry Oklahoma I’ll find the dastardly Transgender that *checks notes* entertained fans!!! HOW DARE THEY MAKE PEOPLE HAPPY?!!!”

The commission used the wrong pronouns for Rose in its minutes and said Rose should not have wrestled a woman. The former AEW Women’s World Champion has logged 99 wins and 47 losses while in AEW, according to the promotion’s website.

AEW CEO Tony Khan said he was disappointed by the commission’s decision, writing in a statement: “There simply should not be a climate in professional wrestling, or anywhere in our society, where transgender people face discrimination. AEW stands behind Nyla Rose, as well as all transgender athletes and transgender people, who are impacted by discrimination.”

Transgender athletes have become a hotly debated topic in the broader culture wars, divided roughly into conservatives often arguing it isn’t fair to other competitors and liberals saying it invalidates gender identities when people who identify as women can’t compete against women. Battles over roster makeups have made their way into the courts, and to the desk of President Biden.

Now, the debate has made it to a place that subverts the binary of supposed reality every week on television: professional wrestling, where the outcomes are predetermined. It is theater, not sport. (Intergender pro wrestling happens but is rare in major promotions.)

Oklahoma sports commission member Larry Lovelace made a motion Jan. 3 to “warn AEW not to do this again or there will be punitive action,” according to the minutes. The motion was unanimously approved.

The Washington Post called Lovelace’s office for comment Thursday, but the call immediately disconnected when a reporter identified himself and asked for Lovelace. A follow-up call was sent to voice mail. The message had not been returned as of Thursday afternoon.

The commission indicated in its minutes that it considered Rose indicating that she is a woman on her wrestling license application part of its problem. Applications for boxing, kickboxing and MMA all require athletes to indicate whether they have had gender reassignment surgery, but the wrestling application does not, according to the minutes. The commissioners said they would add the question “so this doesn’t happen in the future.”