Ted Cruz Cameos in Transgender Basketball Movie 'Lady Ballers'

Sen. Ted Cruz has a role in Lady Ballers, a new feature-length comedy that mocks transgender women competing against other women in sports.

The debate over transgender athletes has become the focus of America's culture wars in recent years, and is part of the wider national conversation about transgender women and female spaces.

Last year, trans swimmer Lia Thomas sparked heated debate over her participation on the University of Pennsylvania's women's swim team. She went on to become the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division.

Several prominent conservatives have become outspoken critics of transgender women in sports, including 1976 Olympic decathlon champion Caitlyn Jenner, who herself came out as a transgender woman in 2015.

On Monday, a trailer was released for Lady Ballers, which is directed by and stars the Daily Wire founder Jeremy Boreing and skewers the inclusion of transgender women in sports. The movie is set to be released on DailyWire+ on Friday.

"Hollywood won't make a movie about how laughably absurd it is that we now allow grown men to call themselves women and then dominate women's sports. So we did," Boreing wrote on X, formerly Twitter, as he shared the trailer.

"In a world where women's sports is being trans-formed, the Daily Wire calls foul with the most triggering comedy of the year," the trailer begins.

The trailer then follows an embattled high school basketball coach, played by Boreing, who pulls together a team of men to pose as women in a desperate bid to dominate women's sports and reverse his fortunes.

"If you can beat them, join them," reads a screen caption, as the coach tells his team members: "This is the way the world is now. My 8-year-old daughter told me all about it."

"So a guy can become a girl with no physical changes at all?" the coach is seen asking his daughter, who responds that "that's called gender fluid."

"So I can be a woman on the court and a man in the bedroom? Nice," a jock exclaims in response.

The men are seen competing in a variety of sports dressed in pink uniforms as they brutally taken down the women opposing them.

In a thinly-veiled dig at transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney, who documented her first 365 days of living as a woman, one of the teammates is shown saying to a camera: "Day one of being a girl athlete. I love being a girl."

Texas Republican Cruz is seen making a late appearance in the trailer, asking a woman sitting at a sports game: "Excuse me, are these seats open?"

After being flashed a glance by the woman in question, Cruz says, "Never mind," before walking away.

Following the trailer's unveiling on Monday, Cruz took aim at comedian and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, writing on X: "@JimmyKimmelLive, this is how you make basketball comedy that is actually funny. Take notes."

Explaining his reasons for taking part in the film, Cruz told the Daily Caller: "Leftist radicals are trying to permanently destroy women's sports. It's so outrageous it's almost comedic that the radical left is allowing men to dress as women and then dominate women's sports."

"They're so out of control, the regular news headlines are starting to read as if they were written by the (Christian news satire site) Babylon Bee," Cruz went on. "I was proud to appear in the Daily Wire's new comedy that will call out the leftists destroying women's sports and taking opportunities away from female athletes. Oh yeah, and the movie is funny as hell too!"

Unsurprisingly, the trailer divided opinion when it was unveiled, with a number of detractors criticizing the anti-transgender sentiment and the inclusion of Cruz.

"The way to get young people to enjoy comedy films... is to... ask Ted Cruz to be a cameo????" wrote one X user.

"How can Daily Wire have that budget for its art department/sound design... and not have ONE D-list actor?" they added. "What the hell is going on????"

One called Cruz a "bigot," while another said that "Hollywood actually has made that movie before. It was called Juwanna Mann and pretty much everyone agreed that it sucked."

The Daily Wire's co-founder Ben Shapiro, who also appears in the movie, sarcastically responded: "How dare you compare Lady Ballers, a movie about beautiful trans women, with Juwanna Mann, a movie about a man pretending to be a woman?!! Your bigotry is horrifying."

Showing interest in the movie, comedian Roseanne Barr, asked on X: "When and where can I see this?!"

Hitting back at the criticism of the film, conservative personality Ian Miles Cheong said: "The Daily Wire's LADY BALLERS is already angering the usual suspects who apparently can't take a joke and whose sense of humor died the moment they became woke. Good."

The movie also features a number of other conservative commentators, including Daily Wire's Brett Cooper, Michael Knowles, and Andrew Klavan. Former competitive swimmer Riley Gaines, who has become a figurehead for the movement to keep those identifying as transgender women out of female sports, also appears in the movie, alongside Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon.