Transgender comedian Stacey Kaye sparked criticism on social media after joking about former high school volleyball player Peyton McNabb’s severe brain injury. McNabb had sustained a concussion and other serious injuries when a transgender male athlete spiked the ball into her head during a 2022 high school match in North Carolina. Kaye described the incident as “pretty funny.”
She remarked, “They don’t want to show what happened because it’s so funny. She gets hit in the head and goes down like a toddler. I thought, ‘Oh, she’s really been like this before.’ I don’t know how else to say it, but maybe she should have been wearing a helmet—she shouldn’t have been around normal people.”
In response, McNabb issued a statement saying, “When a grown man makes fun of a teenage girl’s traumatic brain injury, it’s not comedy, it’s cruelty. My story isn’t a punchline; it’s a warning about the consequences of adults ignoring reality while girls suffer. What I’ve gone through has changed my life forever. Your jokes won’t silence me—they only highlight why this issue is so important.”
Kaye’s comments received backlash from various Save Women’s Sports activists, including Riley Gaines and Jennifer Sey, the co-founder of XX-XY Athletics.
McNabb’s experience has become a pivotal example in the ongoing cultural debate about protecting women’s sports from transgender athletes and has been referenced by significant political figures, including President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. Additionally, McNabb testified before Congress during a hearing on the topic.
