Last week, Sophie Cunningham, Indiana’s controversial, outspoken 3-and-D spark plug, set the internet ablaze when she shared her opinion on transgender women and girls participating in women’s sports.
“I want to protect young girls in a locker room,” she told ESPN last week in a wide-ranging profile. “Or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
After those comments, a coalition against transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports organized a rally outside Climate Pledge Arena in support of Cunningham. A counterprotest was quickly organized. …
None of this should have been surprising. For the past three years, the WNBA has hosted proxy wars for nearly every modern American anxiety, including race, gender and sexuality, DEI policies, and the pros and cons of liberal institutions. …
Cunningham, who knows how to generate and extend a content cycle, seemed to make the active decision to give them nothing to work with before, during, or after the game—aside from a spate of accurate but decidedly uncontroversial 3-pointers. …
We don’t need to throw her a parade for this, but I do think it points to the idea that she probably doesn’t want to be the savior the right is hoping for and probably isn’t the malevolent grifter her enemies think she is. The Turning Point USA crowd is probably watching Sophie Cunningham like NBA scouts salivating over Victor Wembanyama’s game tape. If Cunningham really wanted to be “MAGA Barbie,” MAGA Barbies would be on shelves by now.
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When Cunningham says that she doesn’t hate trans people but doesn’t think trans women should be playing sports alongside cis women, she sounds a lot like a coveted demographic that advertisers, politicians, networks, and leagues salivate over: the average American. Sixty-nine percent of Americans agree with her.
