Sophie Cunningham caused quite the firestorm with her comments to ESPN in a wide-ranging profile earlier this summer.
The main takeaway from the profile, in the eyes of many, anyway, was Cunningham’s comments on transgender athletes. Cunningham said that it is “common sense” to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports. Cunningham told ESPN that she wanted to “protect young girls in the locker room” and that “they shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
“I said what I said. I think it’s kind of common sense,” Cunningham told WNBA reporters after the ESPN profile came out. “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.”
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Cunningham has since faced praise from some and criticism from others, sparking a bit of a political war on the right and the left.
However, in a new interview with USA TODAY, Cunningham made it clear that she’s not apologizing.
Cunningham said that she’s standing by her comments, as some fans praise her for “not apologizing” amid a growing controversy.
Indiana Fever guard stands by her comments
Cunningham believes that players should be able to play basketball and also comment on societal issues.
“People are like, ‘You have a platform. Use it,’ and then once you use it, it’s like, ‘Go back to playing basketball.’ I think the reason why I stated that is because you go into media, and it’s not anything even about basketball. I think I could do both,” Cunningham told USA TODAY Sports. “Ask me about what’s going on and what I said. And also ask me how great my teammates are doing, how great our team is doing, how great the league is doing.
“We can be a great example of how to do both.”
Fever head coach Stephanie White, meanwhile, is hoping that her players can lead by example.
“I think the most important thing is just try to lead by example. Look, it’s really challenging, I think, for our team to silence it. You can’t silence it,” White said.
“For us, it’s how do we minimize it, and how do we use it in a way that brings us closer together. How do we use it in a way that helps us grow not just on the floor but off the floor to become a better basketball team, to become better human beings, to become better teammates, to become better friends, to become better allies? I think that there’s all of these different ways that we can minimize it to help us grow.”
The Fever are 24-12 on the year, one of the best teams in the WNBA.
