Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham has been a lightning rod in the debate over the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports.
The WNBA player doesn’t believe that non-biological women should be allowed to compete alongside biological ones, and she considers it a threat to the integrity of women’s sports. Nevertheless, she has also advocated respect for the transgender community and otherwise integration into all other aspects of society.
Yet not everyone views Cunningham’s anti-trans stance as a pure advocacy posture. The hosts of “The Sports Gossip Show” argued that what the Fever player was doing was just securing a post-professional career business.
“We have talked about this. … Trans women in sports is not the biggest threat to women’s sports in any means, by any means. I would say it isn’t a threat to women’s sports. It’s so clear at this point that Sophie Cunningham is doing a pretty blatant, like, right-wing grift,” Charlotte Wilder said on Tuesday (Timestamp: 13:00).
Madeline Hill, Wilder’s co-host, said that this was a conscious choice by Cunningham to pivot to the right for business purposes:
“She’s clearly making a choice: this is what my post-retirement strategy will be.”
Hill went a step further and said that Cunningham’s career was likely not meant to be long, implying she is a mediocre player.
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Sophie Cunningham addresses her stance on the trans athletes issue
On the USA Network’s WNBA broadcast on Wednesday, Sophie Cunningham responded to a question about her position concerning trans athletes participating in women’s sports.
“I think I have a very clear and strong perspective on this,” she said. “I know that people are not always going to align and agree — I totally understand that — but I think the most important thing is having that respect, having that love and pursuing peace in these conversations, in these debates, because I think that it’s healthy.”
While she seemed to want to avoid relitigating her position, she certainly didn’t backtrack her comments from July. She also said what hurt her the most is how the actual basketball being played in the WNBA has become a background to the controversies surrounding the league and, in particular, the Indiana Fever.
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