No, Venus Williams didn't forfeit to a transgender woman. That's satire | Fact check

Chris Mueller, USA TODAY
·3 min read
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The claim: Venus Williams forfeited match against transgender woman

An April 14 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows an image of retired tennis champion Serena Williams paired with supposed news about her sister.

"Venus Williams Forfeits Match Against Trans Woman: 'I’m Not Playing a Man,'" reads the post.

Many commenters appeared to believe the post was legitimate.

"FINALLY a female athlete standing up for all female athletes!!" reads one comment.

Another reads, "Good for her, they can't win in their own sport so they try to be a woman so they can win."

The post was shared more than 3,000 times in five days.

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Our rating: False

The claim originated on a satirical website. There is no evidence Venus Williams forfeited a tennis match to a transgender woman.

Claim originated on satirical website

No credible news reports support the post's claim. In the first comment, the social media user who created the post links to an article that repeats the claim but provides no evidence to support it.

The claim originated with the satirical network America’s Last Line of Defense, which labels itself as satire on its "About Us" page, saying, "Everything on this website is fiction."

It's an example of what could be called "stolen satire," where claims written as satire and presented that way originally are reposted in a way that makes them appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, as was the case here.

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There are other clues the post's claim is inaccurate.

While the post is supposedly about Venus Williams, it features a photo of her sister, Serena Williams. Multiple news outlets published the same photo and others like it during her final professional match at tennis' U.S. Open in 2022.

The tennis player cropped out of the image – but still visible on the satirical network's website – is Amélie Mauresmo. In 2004, Mauresmo became the "first Frenchwoman in history to climb to the top of the world rankings," according to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Mauresmo retired in 2009.

A list of Venus Williams' matches does not show any recent forfeits, nor are there any matches against "Joe 'Josepheena' LaBarron" – a play on the name "Joe Barron," which is frequently used in the satirical network's articles.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

PolitiFact, Lead Stories and Check Your Fact also debunked the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: No, Venus Williams didn't forfeit to a transgender woman | Fact check