Transgender comedian faces backlash for mocking Payton McNabb’s brain injury caused by volleyball player
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Transgender comedian Stacy Cay sparked backlash on social media Friday after making a joke about former high school volleyball player Payton McNabb’s brain injury.
Cay responded to the backlash in a statement to News Digital.
“It seems like the woke left is trying to cancel another comedian,” Cay said.
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Cay’s joke made light of the fact that McNabb suffered a concussion, brain hemorrhage, and permanent whiplash after a biological trans male athlete poked him in the head during a North Carolina high school game in 2022. Cay called footage of the incident “pretty funny.”
“They never want to show the clip of what happened because it’s actually pretty funny,” Cay said.
“They hit her right in the head and then she falls down like a little girl. And I’m like, ‘Oh, she really was like that before.’ I don’t know if there’s a nice way to say this, but she should have been wearing a helmet. She shouldn’t have been in there with normal people.”
Payton McNabb, left, applauds as second lady Usha Vance looks on during President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
McNabb provided a statement to News Digital in response to Cay’s comments.
“A grown man making fun of a teenage girl’s traumatic brain injury is not comedy, it’s cruelty. My story is not a punchline. It’s a warning about what happens when adults ignore reality and little girls pay the price. I suffer from something that changed my life forever. Your jokes won’t silence me; they only prove why this fight is important,” McNabb said.
Cay’s joke sparked backlash from other Save Women’s Sports activists, including Riley Gaines and XX-XY Athletics founder Jennifer Sey.
TRACK STAR WHO PROTESTED TRANS ATHLETE ALLEGES HE WAS NOT GIVEN HER MEDAL FOR MONTHS UNTIL SHE FILED LAWSUIT
McNabb’s story has become one of the flashpoints in the cultural movement to protect women’s sports from trans athletes and has been cited by government officials, including President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.
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McNabb testified before Congress in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “Unfair Play: Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” subcommittee hearing in May.
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Jackson Thompson is a sports reporter for News Digital covering critical political and cultural issues in sports, with an investigative lens. Jackson’s reporting has been cited in federal government actions related to Title IX enforcement and in mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The News and ESPN.com.