With an election coming, and all the voice-of-doom political ads screaming about “keeping boys out of girl’s sports,” and worries about having a furry as your commercial airline pilot, at least one thing was a small respite for me from continuing election-year U.S. culture wars.

It happened on Saturday night 4,000 miles away in an arena in the Principality of Monaco.

It was the opening games of the season in France’s Ligue Feminine 2. One match involved Monaco Basketball Association and Rouen Bihorel. For most of us this matchup is just run-of-the-mill.

Yet a month or so ago, a 34-year-old post player for Monaco became known across the Atlantic as everyone was shouting about Enes Kanter Freedom, Royce White and how “the WNBA needs to define what a woman is”.

Enter Julie Tetart, a French trans woman who can hoop. Last season she averaged 21 points and 20 rebounds per game to help Monaco reach the LF2 playoffs and get a step closer to a team goal of climbing into the first division by 2028.

Certain media outlets shrieked about the “French trans phenom” and trumpeted that the “dominating French trans basketball player implores WNBA for chance to play!”

She was interviewed and misconstrued about hopes of her coming to the WNBA. What Tétart actually said was, “If they contact me I won’t say no, but you have to be realistic. I’m old, and there are far better players than me.”

Don’t let facts get in the way of the trans people in sports “monster movie.”

Never mind what she actually said on the realities of her eligibility to play professional ball in LF2, the regulatory processes, the grind through a medical transitions and all the laws therein. She explained these details at length in a feature story for a Monaco outlet last season when nobody outside her league or country noticed.

Had anti-trans-athlete folks taken the time to read that, maybe she wouldn’t have been dragged into the saga of two men attempting to embarrass the WNBA, protests built by an anti-trans clothing manufacturer and at least one WNBA player — Sophie Cunningham — saying trans women don’t belong in the WNBA.

Tétart kept her focus on her goals. It is what she told me when she turned down my request for an interview. I didn’t blame her then for declining the interview, and I still don’t.

Julie Tetart had a good, not great, opening game of the season

I did tune in via YouTube to see her play.

Watching the full game in real time revealed a team player. She was setting screens up high to open lanes her guards could take to the basket.

I saw her setting up in the post, but often looking for the open player first.

She fought for loose balls and closed the traps on a double team.

Sometimes she got beat. In the first quarter, a quick guard left her flat-footed and got a lay-up to cut into Monaco’s early lead.

I also saw Tetart get in a groove in the second half to score 10 of her 14 points on the game, along with her 4 rebounds, 4 steals and 2 assists. Her team would be on the right side of an 89-41 final on a night when every Monaco player scored.

She wasn’t some leviathan rising out of the Mediterranean to pillage European women’s basketball. Julie Tétart was a professional doing her job.

She didn’t speak to reporters afterward, she just celebrated with her team.

I would have liked the nattering nabobs of anti-trans negativism to see what I saw. A post player screening for guards, finding teammates, fighting for loose balls, getting beaten on one possession and coming back to win the next.

A player locked into a game with four teammates around her and a season ahead.

I’ve clicked the “subscribe” tab on Monaco Basketball Association games, and I look forward to seeing this team try to make that climb to LF1.

It was good to see Tétart play her game in an atmosphere where it’s known that she is trans, but she isn’t subject to a debate every possession because that process is handled before tipoff.

The most radical thing I saw Saturday night was something wonderfully mundane: Julie Tetart playing basketball.

Bonne chance this season, Julie Tétart. Keep showing up and showing out.