Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham defended the policy of keeping men out of women’s sports and girls’ locker rooms this week, and the Left and media immediately screamed “Foul!”
However, Cunningham characteristically refused to back down and on Wednesday night doubled down.
The WNBA star, whose fierce, hysterical 22-second finger-point at Phoenix Mercury guard DeWanna Bonner last month turned her into a cultural phenomenon, insists she’s “not a very political person,” but protecting women’s sports is “common sense.”
Yet, such “common sense” has been enough for Cunningham to be derisively labeled “MAGA Barbie.”
The ruckus started when Cunningham, deep in a lengthy ESPN profile, declared she wanted to “protect young girls in the locker room” and “young girls in sports who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
It’s actually not a new position for the sharpshooting forward. In 2022, she shared a tweet from CBS Sports’ Josh Pate about former Penn transgender swimmer Lia Thomas that declared, “Female collegiate athletes deserve so much better than this.”
That retweet alone had critics throwing elbows her way. “I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,’” she told ESPN.
Now Cunningham is far more famous, and the spotlight far more intense. The basketball player is getting shredded again on X and in media circles for her latest comments. She’s accused of “actively harming children by demonizing and marginalizing trans children,” and is facing calls for her to be suspended.
Qwame Skinner at The Comeback wrote, “Hopefully, it doesn’t take a suspension for Cunningham to realize the damage that she is doing to an extremely small, extremely vulnerable community of people who are trying to live their best lives.”
Former women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe took to “The View” Tuesday to perversely claim that keeping men from competing in women’s sports is actually an attack on women. Nay, “an attack on women in society.”
However, many have come to Cunningham’s defense, including the White House. “The backlash she is receiving from Democrats and left-wing thinkers across the country is astonishing,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday. “They are clearly very out of touch with the American public on this issue.”
“Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, who’s been at the forefront of the fight to protect women’s sports and spaces, shared Cunningham’s Wednesday night remarks on X, adding three clapping emojis.
Speaking to reporters before Indiana’s 123-88 win over the Connecticut Sun, Cunningham doubled down in defense of women’s sports.
“I said what I said. I think it’s kind of common sense,” Cunningham said. “And I think I’ll always believe in that. I think it’s really important to protect children, and that’s little girls who are also involved in that category. I stand on what I said.”
Cunningham pointed to Title IX, the sex-equality law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. That 1972 law is credited with the explosion of girls’ and women’s sports in the United States.
“That’s why you have Title IX. That’s why you have some of the greats in women’s sports,” Cunningham said. “If Title IX and women’s sports weren’t protected, then you wouldn’t hear about any type of women in sport. And so, I think in the future, it’s just really important to protect.”
Cunningham rejected the notion that her comments could be seen as derogatory toward trans athletes, insisting she has “room to love everyone.”
“But I’m also there to love biological women, and I think that there are rights that need to be protected,” Cunningham continued. “And, like I said, I’m gonna stand true to that. I’ll never falter in my beliefs in that. But I have never once stated that I hated the trans community.”
Further, Cunningham, who plays Doc Holliday to superstar Caitlin Clark’s Wyatt Earp on the Fever, declared of criticism, “I don’t care.”
“I know whatever I say, I’m going to get hate and I’m going to get love, and if I’m going to live by the love, I’m gonna die by the hate, and that’s just not who I am. I beat to my own drum.”
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
