The right-wing media machine is salivating over its newest anti-trans storyline, served up by Sophie Cunningham, a guard on the WNBA’s Indiana Fever.
Cunningham, long nicknamed “MAGA barbie” by W fans, has 3 million followers on TikTok and a predilection for reposting content starkly to the right of the famously progressive, activist league (she says her politics are “very much in the middle”). She hasn’t disavowed her adoption as a poster child by Republican officials, saying after the Trump White House used a meme of her taunting another player earlier this month: “I think everyone around the world is posting it. Every company has done it. So I don’t really think twice about it. I just think they’re another group posting about it.”
She propelled herself to MAGA cinematic universe main character status last week when she parroted an anti-trans talking point to ESPN.
“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,'” she said. “I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
A rally was planned before the Fever’s game in Seattle on Tuesday to “support” Cunningham and two ballot initiatives that would bar trans girls in Washington state elementary and middle schools from playing on girls’ sports teams. The event reportedly drew only a couple dozen participants.
The real drama unfolded inside the arena, where two girls wearing shirts bearing XX divided from XY (in reference to chromosomes, sold by an athleticwear company that advocates for trans sports bans) and holding signs reading “we love you Sophie” and “thank you Sophie for speaking up for girls” sat courtside. The girls, who said they are 16 years old in a post-game interview with anti-trans podcaster Brandi Kruse, were prominent in the television broadcast; Kruse said on Twitter that the seats cost $1,300 apiece and were paid for by “a generous donor.”
According to footage gleefully run by Fox News, some fans heckled the girls and told them to leave. At some point in the game, Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton approached the two, who said she called them “fucking insane” and advised them to stop pulling stunts. On Thursday, the league confirmed to reporters that it was suspending Keaton from attending the next five home games and fining her an undisclosed amount. The Storm apologized in a statement, saying the team is “committed to creating an inclusive environment where every fan is treated with respect.”
Another anti-trans rally is being planned at the next Fever game in Portland on Friday, per Fox News.
The right has glommed onto the W for its culture war battles in recent weeks, having just come down from an outrage cycle about a different Fever guard, Caitlin Clark, being fouled by the Phoenix Mercury’s Alyssa Thomas, who is Black and in a relationship with another player.
Cunningham, though significantly less prominent as an athlete than Clark — she typically comes off the bench for Indiana and averages around 23 minutes a game — is proving herself a more willing avatar. Clark attracts criticism for her often tepid responses to being weaponized by the right, but Cunningham isn’t condemning it at all.
“I truly believe there is a safe space and love for EVERYBODY,” she tweeted Wednesday. “Biological girls, biological boys, trans women, and trans men. Everyone is welcome at my table! You can disagree and still be kind. Bravo to those girls for standing up for what they believe. You’ll be hearing from me soon💕 yay for gifts. Truly embarrassing of the co-owner. Unfortunately shows the type of leader she is.”
Prominent right-wing figures, including the pioneer of the mediocre athlete-to-Fox News mainstay pipeline, registered their outrage.
“Women are our own worst enemy. It’s remarkable,” former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines tweeted in response to a photo Kruse, the anti-trans podcaster, posted of women allegedly laughing after trying to trip the two teenagers.
“I don’t believe [Donald Trump] has reached out to her. I know he is following the story,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during her Thursday briefing. “As you know, this is something the president feels strongly about as well, and the American people do, too: that men should not be playing in women’s sports.”
“These young women are heroines,” posted J.K. Rowling, the Harry Potter author-turned-anti-trans activist. “They’re peacefully protesting against the grotesque unfairness of men playing in women’s sport. The only people who are ‘f*cking insane’ here are those making a mockery of fair sport for women and trying to bully girls like this into silence.”
The right typically feigns interest in women’s sports — taking a brief pause from demeaning them, or seeking to weaken Title IX — in one of two situations: when it can project its racial grievances onto Caitlin Clark, or when it can advance its anti-trans agenda.
With Clark, the source is endlessly iterative, if providing stories with a fairly short shelf life: Any time she’s fouled hard by a Black player, it creates video readymade for social media circulation.
Cunningham, though, may be offering them an even more profitable font of news cycles. She’s comfortable with celebrity, hosting a pop culture podcast with reality TV star West Wilson, providing analysis of WNBA games for USA Sports, having posed for Sports Illustrated and performing as a ring girl at a recent UFC fight. As long as anti-trans agitators are sent to WNBA games, there will inevitably be pushback; the mostly Black, prominently gay league is considered a safe environment for its many LGBTQ+ fans and each team celebrates pride nights.
Combine the narrative of a telegenic white player’s trials as a brave and lonely anti-trans crusader with easy-to-get footage of fans yelling at calculatedly young women advocating for the same cause. It’s a Fox News (Fever) dream.
Shouldn’t she be squirting out white babies full time?
Remind me again exactly how many males have transitioned just to play sports on a different team? Anyone who’s seen a friend or family member go through transition knows how ridiculous that is. Is it a particularly right-wing American delusion that sports are so important that someone would go through years of chemical and surgical interventions just to play?
And give us specific examples of where this is actually happening.
This is a solution in search of a problem, but boy, do the minions get hepped up about it.
If there is one thing that the reich wing can’t resist, it is a loudmouthed idiot who confirms their biases. Riley Gaines sure as hell is that. She’s a solidly middling basketball player who has probably never played with or against a trans woman, hell she’s probably never even met a trans woman.