US women’s sports star Sophie Cunningham speaking up on defending women's sports

I agree, it's the manufactured outrage of the self-righteous zealot that will be the undoing of this stupid ideology, ordinary people can only take so much frothing at the mouth.

I like the simplicity and directness of SC's comments and statements -
I did the foul, I took the punishment;
I have no problem with Carrington.
I said what I said.
I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans, I have never once stated that I hated the trans community
I truly believe there is a safe space and love for EVERYBODY. Biological girls, biological boys, trans women, and trans men.
Everyone is welcome at my table! You can disagree and still be kind.
I agree with things on both sides, disagree with things on both sides. And that's all I've ever said about my political beliefs. But people love to assume.

Compare and contrast with the pages and pages of unfair exaggeration, innuendo, smears, and groundless speculation from her critics.

As I said before, SC may veer towards MAGA Trumpism in the future, I'm sure they'd love to have her - it's not impossible. But then again she might not.
That's not the point, The point is that she is being unfairly attacked as if she already has.

That's what is so outrageous about the storm of unfounded abuse she's receiving - she's being attacked for something that only exists in the minds of her attackers.

Ah, ok.

Looking forward [not!] to seeing how that is spun as transphobia crossed with MAGA crossed with white supremacy

I dare say there's something about colonialism in there, too

Erm. You are starting to revert to the sort of posts that made one, none or some of us feel a little uncomfortable.

That's how this (un)civil war is to be fought.
The likes of Sophie now, Riley before her, JKR, Navratilova etc on the long march, building on those who've been at it from the start (Bindel, Greer etc).
Once sport is free of this risk, it'll be the women that Sophie gave permission to speak out, that will have been integral. Sophie is the bridge to them.
It's about to get very hot indeed.
You can't go from forces pushing to normalize men in women's sport to the cold air of physical reality and truth, without extreme pushback and character assassination.
Remember, the establishment were ok with women losing out to a male swimmer & get punched by a male boxer, content to let US women's college volleyball burn, and now try and shut up any woman, especially a prominent one like Sophie, from highlighting the risk.

Chicago's DiJonai Carrington ejected for hard foul on Sophie Cunningham - BBC Sport

A balanced article from the BBC website.
SC's comments are the opposite of inflammatory, aren't they?
And she makes the point that when she committed a similar foul, and was punished:
Last year, I did the same thing and I got kicked out, and I deserved to be kicked out.

Looking forward [not!] to seeing how that is spun as transphobia crossed with MAGA crossed with white supremacy🙄

Maybe Cunningham spoke out/up, because she saw the immolating toxic effects of trans athletes in other women's sport, especially college volleyball.
It took one or two males in that sport to literally implode it. Females weren't allowed to criticise TIMs on the opposing team, teammates of the TIMs weren't allowed to not support their "brave" teammates.
The result was the sport was corrupted.
Quillette.com documented the whole thing.
For the sake of one or two male egos, females had their sport ruined.
Few spoke up in female volleyball, and they weren't heard/we're silenced (too little money and exposure in female college sports).
Cunningham is not doing the same in women's basketball.
Toilets/changing rooms and sport are the rubicons that need to be crossed for TRA to co-opt civic society.
Once men are "allowed" to use women's toilets as a matter of course, and men regularly "compete" in women's sport, there's no going back, prisons, refuges, the very definitions of sex-specific activities and spaces, the very essence of heterosexual and homosexual differences, are corrupted. Self ID inevitable.
Not sure if we're still at the thin end, but the thick end of this wedge is at stake.

The algorithm on my phone keeps feeding me articles about this now.

Here's a shoddy, biased piece from CNN:

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/07/us/indiana-fever-sophie-cunningham-caitlin-clark-trans-bans-cec

The crux of it seems to be that being opposed to "trans girls" in women's sports is part of a right wing culture war. No attempt to take a look at the science, apart from one cherry picked article that says TW have no advantage. Perhaps the author could have looked at the research that underpinned the IOC's recent decision to protect the female category?

It is depressing to see how this is perceived as purely a right v left issue in the US by much of the media, despite the fact that support for protecting the female category is bi-partisan.

You mean she didn't try to get away with it by claiming the 'white privilege' to do it.

CRT is a lot bigger in the USA than it is here, reparations are the best our race baiters can come with. The USA, sadly has a whole history of discrimination to fuel the race baiters with, what amazes me is the segregation was the product of the Democratic party, the fact that it's now the Republicans that are getting called racists by the Democrats is surly DARVO.

I guessed that the headline was about a previous infamous foul by SC.
But I wouldn't rule out a subtext...

SC was rightly punished for that foul, she was fined, and I don't think she complained about it.

Thanks

It is still a fucked up headline even if it referred to a previous foul.

So a black player commits a serious foul on a white player - intentionally or accidentally - and then, when penalised, attacks the player she fouled and that’s…white privilege?!

WTAF?

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/aug/08/sophie-cunningham-foul-dijonai-carrington-ejected-wnba

I got the screen grab from X, but the article is still up. However, haven't looked at the article, the karma comment seems to be in relation to SC carrying out a similar foul previously, so perhaps it wasn't in relation to her comments about preserving female sport. The lesson being that it's good to check things when grabbing them off X 😄

Is this real? That is a fucked up headline.

thanks for the screen grab

Was there much fallout over Khelif at the Olympics?
I seem to recall the majority of "journalists" (more and more received opinion/regime narrative propagandists) either kept their heads down or were generally purveying the "Be Kind dont bully the special and vulnerable Khelif"...they didn't even question the validity of DSD males as sports"women".
Only the Guardian's Sean Ingle and Telegraph's Oliver Brown got the facts and tone right.
I recall the Olympics ending and somehow Khelif getting Gold as mainstream accepted, and feeling very peaked that a new (ab)normal was ascendant.

They might come up with some nonsense policy where they say that any "woman" who has been taking hormones for two years will be eligible. That will rule out the two former NBA players. Didn't some sporting bodies in the UK have policies like that before finally tightening them up? The US has a long way to go.

Look at the 6'10" male ex-pro attempting to sign up with the WBNA.
Would he have said anything if he was a current player and had sponsorship deals and personal ratings to lose?
Especially back in the dark days of cancel culture, 2018-2023.
Even now, where are the males in pro sport speaking out? I'm not seeing any of them take a stand.
All that men can provide, retired players, most notably Daley Thompson in the last few years.

This was the headline on Sports Illustrated (they've changed it now) 😐

Apparently, that particularly vicious foul was just karma for SC for saying men shouldn't play in women's basketball

I know men who shrug their shoulders at men in women's toilets, a bit more agitated with men in women's changing rooms, don't sit well with men in women's refuges, start to get animated with men in women's prisons.
But men in women's sports? NO WAY, JOSÉ!