Trans Panic! At The WNBA

0:01Recently, WNBA player Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever offered her thoughts on trans athletes. There are no trans players in the WNBA. And all heck broke loose. It was some of the culture war's greatest hits. Protests. Attack, transform it. Anxiety. It's for leagues and the governing bodies to work with their athletes to find solutions. Merchandise. She drops her Crazy Energy Colorway athlete-sponsored shoe in less than one hour online. It sells out in all sizes. Even Sophie Cunningham seems to wish it would stop now. It just makes me sad that all this kind of drama and things that truly don't matter are getting overshadowed.

0:44The basketball is getting overshadowed. That's coming up on Today Explained from Vox.

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1:40Starbucks refreshers concentrates are coming home. Find them in the coffee aisle and make it yours. This is, this is, this is Today Explained. Hi, my name is Sabrina Merchant and I'm a staff writer covering women's basketball at The Athletic. Who is Sophie Cunningham? Sophie Cunningham is a veteran basketball player in the WNBA. She played college basketball at Missouri. She's walking away, great defensive play from the freshman. And started her pro career in Phoenix. Spectacular game, 26 points in this one. She has been a member of the Indiana Fever for the last two years. Cunningham splashes home a three.

2:20She is basically the definition of a role player, comes off the bench, hits some threes, plays some defense, and then does a lot of stuff off the court now. So the last two years have been quite the star turn for Sophie Cunningham ever since joining the Indiana Fever, which has kind of been the source of most of the spotlight on the WNBA for the last three seasons ever since Caitlin Clark entered the WNBA and began playing for the Indiana Fever. Sophie sort of came to prominence last season in a game against the Connecticut Sun where Caitlin had been fouled hard by an opposing player. Yeah, it looked like Caitlyn got hit hard.

3:00This is excessive. And Sophie retaliated by fouling that player pretty hard. That's a flavor foul. Got ejected. I think Ham is apparently done. And developed a reputation as Caitlyn's enforcer, which is a role that some people thought no one was approaching with the appropriate level of concern. This type of shit happens every single game to her, and the league and the refs do absolutely nothing about it. She took on this new identity as Caitlyn's enforcer, and that has opened up a lot of opportunities for her in the public sphere. Tell me about those opportunities. What's she been up to? So Sophie Cunningham has a podcast called Show Me Something, which she hosts with a member of Summer House, Wes Wilson.

3:44Have you ever officiated a wedding? No. She has been a ring girl at a UFC fight. Which was so cool. She's been on the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. It was like 32 degree weather. She is a commentator on the WNBA, actually, on days when she is not playing for the USA Network. I'm just happy to be here. I'm happy to join you guys. And she had a grand profile about her published in ESPN last month, which has created even more infamy, famousness for her, notoriety, all the words. All the words, all the words. Okay, so let's talk about that profile because I was reading it earlier today. And as far as I can tell, Sophie Cunningham was not asked expressly, what does she think about trans women playing sports?

4:31She offers her thoughts in the context of making a larger point about how people tend to think she's MAGA. Tell me what she said exactly. Yeah, so Sophie has previously said, and she reiterated during this ESPN piece, that she does not believe that girls should have to play against biological men in sports. I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I'm like, I never once said that. I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think that with 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.

5:11She has since gone on to just double down on the idea that women's sports are not a place for transgender women. Okay, so in this day and age, you say a thing like that as a public figure, you can almost guarantee that there will be a response. What was the response? So once Sophie made her comments in the ESPN story and then elaborated on those comments in an interview after the profile came out, there was a chorus of individuals who came out in support of what Sophie said. You had people like Riley Gaines, an advocate for excluding transgender athletes from women's sports. Is it finally appropriate to say that transgenderism is a mental illness that breeds violence?

5:54Riley is something of a conservative influencer at this point, and Jennifer Say, and she is the founder of a company called XXXY, which highlights the difference in biology between the two genders. If you let me play against boys, I'll discover that fairness doesn't matter. That women are worth less than men. Starting these small rallies in favor of Sophie Cunningham at the Indiana Fever's next games, all of which happened to be on the road. So there was one in Seattle, one in Portland, one in Minneapolis. Thank you for coming out to support Sophie Cunningham. She has been a voice of reason. Transwomen are men.

6:31Very small groups of people, very peaceful groups of people. And then you had people who believe that transgender girls belong in sports were also there at these demonstrations outside of games. So they're just taking this and blowing it out of proportion for political reasons instead of just live and let live, let people have their own lives. There was one noteworthy event that happened at the Seattle game where two girls who were in favor of Sophie Cunningham's position were verbally chastised by the owner of the Seattle Storm. She allegedly yelled some profanities at them. She told us that we were effing insane.

7:09And she was suspended by the WNBA for five games. And to date, that has been the only real level of antagonism that has happened between these two parties after Sophie's comments. Based on what you're saying, it sounds like most of the reaction, and maybe this shouldn't surprise us, most of the reaction is coming from outside of the WNBA. It's either fans or people who are aware of the conversation that Sophie Cunningham kicked off here. But the players and the coaches themselves, not a ton of them saying a ton. Is that right? Yeah, I think a few of the coaches have been asked in their press conferences about their thoughts on Sophie's comments, and most of them have been broadly supportive of the idea of inclusion without giving specifics on how they feel professional sports or even college sports should be governed with regard to transgender athlete eligibility.

8:04I'm all about women, little girls deserving to play, and that includes trans women. I've chosen to educate myself about the space. I've chosen to listen to transgender families. And what I know is exclusions are the answer. But most of the players have been pretty silent on the topic. The large chorus of voices has come from outside of the WNBA because they've seen this opportunity to, you know, take a position that a professional athlete is holding and use it to advance their agendas. I also think that there are some trolls who are seizing this as an opportunity to kind of dunk on the WNBA and make fun of women's sports as a whole in the guise of protecting women's sports.

8:45There are two former NBA players who have publicly posted that they are going to enter the 2027 WNBA draft now that they are identifying as women. I'm transgender. I'm a woman. I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for purposes of basketball. Based on the current guidelines, I can and am officially declaring my eligibility for the upcoming WNBA draft in May 2027. I am definitely not here to mock, make fun of, or to suspect any community or personal choices. They're essentially making a mockery of it. I think the idea of, you know, a former NBA player suggesting that he is going to now identify as a woman for the purposes of playing in the WNBA is not serving or protecting women's sports in the way that he suggests it is.

9:34I think it is possible to listen to Sophie Cunningham's comments and to think this is a person who is saying what she believes firmly. And her defense of herself is, look, this is what I believe, right? What I wonder also, though, is whether this has been good for Sophie Cunningham. This is a woman who I had not heard of two months ago, and now she is all over my Instagram feed, and she seems to be everywhere. And I know she has a shoe, I think, and the shoe is selling. So what is this? What is all of this meant for her? Yeah, I think you're absolutely right in saying that this is what Sophie believes.

10:09And this is a position that the majority of Americans believe. And it has vaulted her into an extra level of public consciousness. Like I was approached by somebody at the dentist yesterday who, when they found out I was a basketball fan, wanted to talk about Sophie Cunningham. You know, like it's everywhere. And so, as you mentioned, she has a player edition of her shoe that is selling pretty well. Her jersey is one of the better selling jerseys in the WNBA. She has an opportunity to market herself. You know, like she's all over the place. I think it's fair to say that the WNBA, the Indiana Fever, would much rather talk about the basketball that is happening, which is ironic coming from Sophie considering she put all this out into the ether.

10:48But she and the Fever have been playing pretty excellent basketball. They're on a four-game win streak. As the time that we're recording this, they're in position to host the first round of the playoffs. They're one of the championship contenders in the WNBA. and the W is having its most popular season to date. They've had more TV viewers, more people in attendance at games than they ever had in previous seasons. And they just signed a mammoth collective bargaining agreement during the off season that has essentially quadrupled most player salaries. This is the biggest season that the league has experienced in its third year history.

11:20This is the 30th season of the WNBA. And there would be a lot to talk about even if Sophie Cunningham hadn't given this interview for an ESPN profile.

11:32Sabrina Merchant is a staff writer for The Athletic. She covers women's basketball. Coming up, the culture wars hit men's sports a while back. Kaplan, et cetera, you may recall. Why the WNBA and why now?

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14:59I'm Noelle King with Sirrit Sohi. She writes and podcasts about the WNBA for The Ringer. All right, Sirrit, why the WNBA? WNBA is a league that invites, frankly, a lot of distraction, both because of its own institutional failures. I do think the WNBA really struggles at telling its own story and has at times run away from its own story. But I think in general, the WNBA has become fertile ground for the culture wars, as we put them, because the league has exploded in popularity at the same moment in the country where we are embroiled in this cultural, political, legal fight over what the role of women is in society.

15:46Okay, this is very interesting. Let's break this down to the two pieces you mentioned. You referenced institutional failures. What do you mean? Well, I think that the WNBA from the top down has been understaffed, and it has historically been marketed in a way that is obsessed with trying to bring in some apocryphal average American. The nuclear family. Ah. Ever since Nikki McRae was a little girl, she wanted to be a professional basketball player. She spent years in the playground working on her game. And now she's taken that game to the nation's capital. I bet Coop could ride that bull longer than you.

16:28Who? Cynthia Cooper. She plays guard on the Houston Commons, Houston's new WNBA team. Never heard of her. Well, if her bull handling's half as good as her ball handling, she could probably kick your behind. And at the same time, this has been a league that has been defined by people who have historically existed on the margins. They are female athletes at a time when historically female athletes were not paid much attention to. And in fact, were mocked. The WNBA officials expanded to 10 teams this week, adding franchises in Detroit and Washington, D.C. But before you get too excited about the new additions to the league, remember, all of the players are still women.

17:06You like to watch women's basketball? Hell no! Like girls basketball. Them weren't girl-looking girls in that. It was a bunch of guys loping around, you know, like this. This is a league that is primarily black, that is openly queer, that is politically outspoken. And the league has always tried to toe the line of marketing the faces that feel more like a girl next door type of vibe. to the point that early on we can look at for example sue bird who when she entered the league was encouraged to not come out and if you look back at pictures of her she is dressed in a way that is is not only is it feminine but it is also that's not the issue the issue is that she's very clearly uncomfortable in her own skin diana tarrasi whose jersey was just retired last night you look back at her awards, it's the same thing.

18:02Flash forward to 2026. These are queer icons who are highly marketable in the media environment that we are in right now. But the WNBA has always been behind the eight ball in that regard because it has run away from its identity. Okay, this is interesting. So institutional failures, what we mean is, I think what you're saying is kind of maybe a lack of bravery or a lack of spine. You also said this exploded because the WNBA is of great interest at this moment to right wing figures. What do you mean by that? The right cares about the WNBA in the same way that it cares about who becomes a Disney princess.

18:40It understands the power of a good story. It understands symbolism. Mommy, Daddy, why does that princess have chest hair? Well, little Susie, that's not Cinderella. It's Cinderfella. And you're going to put out a Disney film with Snow White, a beloved American character, with a woman who hates more than half the country. The WNBA has become a league of hate, and it's just a bad league. The government should look into, you know, because the entire league is funded by a men's league, ironically. Yeah. Maybe cut out funding. The WNBA has lost the plot and turned into a bunch of leftist woke tards.

19:21To see women on that stage thriving, to see them sweaty, to see them wanting, to see them be instead of the object of somebody else's affection or interest, to see them be the main character, to see them be the subject and be the ones that are going for something as opposed to being on the sidelines, that in and of itself alone is very, very powerful. And then you think about But where the WNBA is politically, as a league, this has always been a league that has been very outspoken. This is a league that in 2020 helped flip a Georgia Senate election and actually ousted their then-owner of the Atlanta Dream, who spoke out against the Black Lives Matter movement.

20:06WNBA players have been wearing shirts to protest an Atlanta Dream co-owner. And so to have somebody a part of our league owning a team, you know, that opposes the equality of Black lives just doesn't it doesn't make sense. And she needs to go.

20:24Hmm. I always understood the WNBA to kind of have a niche or smaller fan base. But the situation with Sophie Cunningham has made me realize it is much larger. The fan base is much larger and much more middle of the road than I would have thought. Did something change recently? Did the fan base of the WNBA grow? Well, Caitlin Clark was an explosive figure. Caitlin Clark was really a gateway drug for WNBA fans. Caitlin! Caitlin! We're just kind of excited to see Caitlin Clark and the whole Clark effect. I just think she's a great person. I don't even know. I don't even have words to describe it.

21:08The sheer amount of eyeballs that she has brought to the game, the attention, her logo threes. She is the type of player that makes children out of all of us. Clark, guarded by Sherrod, will fire a bomb. And hit from way downtown. Clark, another long three. She's back. And then there's also this right wing movement that has latched onto her as a symbol. Why? Why is that for someone who doesn't watch many games? What's going on? Well, Caitlyn is white and straight. That is a demographic that I guess you could say is maybe underrepresented in the WNBA. and there was a feeling when she came into the league that she wasn't welcomed in the same way that maybe other stars in the past have been.

22:02There was a sense that maybe there was some resentment. Now, I don't know if that's true. I would imagine, look, these are human beings that we're talking about. There was probably a spectrum of feelings when you think about this was a league that didn't have charter flights. Kaitlyn Clark comes in, they get charter flights. Now, obviously, that's great for the players, but I also think that there was a feeling of, oh, wait, the WNBA could have done these things that we've been advocating for for a long time. Now they're finally listening because Caitlin is here. She is, ironically, an organic phenomenon that is bringing to light the manufactured failures of the WNBA in the past.

22:38Okay, so Caitlin Clark goes to the WNBA. The WNBA grows its fan base to include people who traditionally were not watching. And then what is the leap from that fact, more people at games, more eyeballs on games, more eyeballs on players, to a conservative movement seizes upon the WNBA and says, we're going to make something out of this. How did you see that play out? Well, it started with the 2023 national title game when Caitlin was still in college. And she went up against Angel Reese from LSU. LSU won that game. LSU has captured its very first national championship. And after the game, Angel Reese did the You Can't See Me taunt by John Cena.

23:30In which I put my hand in front of my face and said, you can't see me. Ha! Um, and it was actually something that, Caitlin did that in the Elite Eight. It was taken as trash talk. I don't take disrespect lightly and she disrespected Alexis and I wanted to pick her pocket, but I had a moment at the end of the game and that was just, I was in my bag. I was in my moment. Angel then repeated that symbol to Caitlyn after they won and pointed at her ring. In the aftermath of that, Angel Reese was called all kinds of things by not only conservative commentators, but a lot of this was conservative commentators.

24:07Classless piece of shit. I went and taunted someone after winning the national championship there. It was classless. It was rude. It was inappropriate. But I'm being rewarded for it. I'm black. I have this black privilege. Everybody's afraid to criticize me. They're going to cape up for me. And look what I got for it. But you also had people like Keith Olbermann, who's a former sports center anchor, and probably somebody who's a little bit more in the middle of the road, calling her classless. Doesn't matter the gender, the sport, the background. You're seconds away from a championship. and you do something like this and overshadow all the good, mindless, classless.

24:46I think a lot of the WNBA fans took those things to be dog whistles, that it was a form of racism. And there was also just overt racism. There were just words that you and I would not say and would not repeat here that were throwing at Angel Reese, who has also dealt with a lot of vitriol since that moment. That moment changed both of their lives, frankly. And that was really the inciting incident. And from then on, I think that there were a lot of people in the new media landscape that recognized that the WNBA was a fault line for a lot of our modern discourse in America. It is a league that you can use as a proxy to talk about race, gender fluidity, femininity, DEI, labor politics.