Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham clarified how her now-infamous stance that transgender athletes should not be allowed to play women’s sports came to be when speaking with the media before a practice on Wednesday.
“I was asked a question. And that’s simply what it was. I wasn’t just making a statement to make a statement. And so, I was trying to clear the air. And I did that back in February,” Cunningham said, per an X post from WISH-TV News.
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“So, it is what it is. And like I said, we’re in the middle of the season. I’m gonna keep at that. We talk about a bunch of distraction; our team is good, my teammates are good, our locker room is great. And so, now we’re just here, about to prepare for Las Vegas. And that’s where my mind is at,” she added.
At other points in the interview, Cunningham spoke about her desire to “get back to basketball”, as the discourse around her comments has been the dominant narrative within the women’s basketball community for at least the past week, despite the push for the postseason now being well underway.
She added, “The WNBA media, all we ever do is cover everything except basketball… You can talk about other things, those are great stories, it shows fans who people outside of the court, but I think we gotta keep the main thing the main thing.”
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Why Sophie Cunningham‘s ‘Get Back to Basketball’ Stance Feels Disingenuous
It is important context to know that the comments Cunningham made, which were initially included in a July 21 article from ESPN’s Hallie Grossman, were actually made back in February, if only because it indicates that Cunningham wasn’t actively trying to draw attention away from the basketball being played in the middle of this season.
Still, it feels disingenuous for her to call out the WNBA media for leaning into this story, because it’s not like it was fabricated from nothing. She commented, and if she didn’t realize that doing so would’ve caused a stir within women’s basketball-regardless of when it surfaced-that was naive on her part.
Cunningham has a better grasp on how to attract and maintain attention than essentially any other women’s basketball player, and she has gone very viral for things she has both done and said on and off the court. That’s why she has blossomed into such a huge star, and why people care about her stances on matters outside of basketball.
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Not to mention that she herself has a podcast where she speaks about the same stories as the WNBA media she’s trying to call out. She does use “we” in her comment, which suggests she knows she’s being hypocritical.
Still, Cunningham can’t choose when to be a part of the WNBA media and when to distance herself when it benefits her. It doesn’t work like that. So if she wants the media to “get back to basketball”, she needs to keep her comments about basketball.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/onsi/womens-fastbreak as Sophie Cunningham Clears the Air on ‘Distraction’ Trans Comments Have Created.
