For years, when interviewers asked for a favorite quote, I gave them Gloria Steinem’s: “We are linked, not ranked.” She used the line in 2013 as shorthand for her whole political vision. Women are not a tournament. We are not climbing over one another toward a single chair. We thrive when we treat our connection as a circle instead of a hierarchy.
I needed that line. In corporate life in the 1990s and early 2000s, the conventional wisdom held that there was room for only a few of us in executive team rooms and that the smart play was to swat the woman next to you out of the way. Steinem’s sentence rejected that scarcity story. The problem was the ranking, not the other woman.
I am a feminist. I adopted the word in college. Before that I was an athlete training eight hours a day, with no political opinions to speak of. What I had was a body that coaches treated as theirs to break and use to achieve their own goals.
My feminist awakening came after those years, when I understood that what happened to me was not a private misfortune. It was a pattern.
When I speak at conservative events — which I often do — I sometimes open with the same sentence: I am a feminist.
I did it at Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Conference in 2024, even after I arrived and saw the theme on the conference t-shirts: “Feminine, not Feminist.” I thought about dropping my opener. Then I decided honesty and authenticity were the only useful things I had to offer these women.
I told the room I believe women should have the right to vote, to own property, to get credit in our own names without a husband’s signature, and to keep private spaces — including battered women’s shelters and locker rooms — private.
Young conservative women cheered. That is not a contradiction. It is the part of feminism that simply demands that women be treated as full human beings.
It is not an exaggeration to say that without the movement Steinem helped build, American women would still be fighting for credit in our own names, locked out of professions and college majors, and without real recourse when a husband turned the home into a crime scene by abusing his wife.
People can criticize feminism all they want — I have my own criticisms of third- and fourth-wave feminism, which often treat promiscuity as equality and the female sex as a costume to be donned by anyone, including men, who choose it — but her influence on those earlier, concrete freedoms cannot be overstated. She mattered to me as a young woman trying to make a life after years of physical and emotional abuse in sport by male coaches.
In college, I read “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions,” her 1983 essay collection. I read it once, then again. She wrote about pornography and female genital mutilation as illustrative of the ways women are treated as less than human.
In the most famous piece, she went undercover as a Playboy Bunny in 1963 and reported the cheap pay and sexual harassment that Hugh Hefner’s club imposed on women, while selling it as a glamorous career path.
It all added up to what I already knew in my bones: women&#8217;s personal experience is a political matter. And women, as a sex class, deserve protections under the law.
I met her in 2018, when I was chief marketing officer at Levi’s. We brought guests into company events, and I was the in-house interviewer — Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake, and Jill Ellis (the winningest soccer coach in U.S. history). Steinem was the only one who made me nervous. Not a pop star. Not a coach. A woman who had changed the course of American women’s lives. A hero, for me anyway.
In 2020, when “Athlete A” — the documentary I produced and appeared in about Larry Nassar and the system that protected him — was released, she posted about it on X. She called it “the complicated story of one man in a position of power who sexually abuses women and the heroes — journalists, gymnasts, and police officers — who exposed the system which enabled him.”
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-1172721" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/IMG_3626-2.jpeg" alt="" width="415" height="487" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/IMG_3626-2.jpeg 481w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/IMG_3626-2-256x300.jpeg 256w" sizes=" (max-width: 415px) 100vw, 415px" /></div>
She said she could not think of anything more important to see in terms of truth-telling. I was honored. A woman who had spent her life naming power systems that kept women as second-class citizens had recognized the same architecture in sport. And she lauded the film, which went on to win an Emmy.
It would not be an overstatement to say that her later views on transgender ideology were a huge disappointment. For all her work on the oppression of women, she failed to see that this new doctrine is a continuation of that oppression: men in dresses insisting they are women, taking privacy, rights, and opportunities from actual women. Steinem came to treat those men as a kind of woman — linked, not ranked, inside the community of women.
They are not. They are men. And they are ranked at the top of the hierarchy whenever their feelings are placed above women’s sex-based rights.
That conclusion was not inevitable. Feminist icon Germaine Greer does not share it. Greer has said that transgender women are not women, and that surgery does not change sex. “Being without a penis doesn’t make you a woman any more than being without a womb makes you a man.”
Steinem was wrong on this. Terribly wrong. The man in the dress fooled her.
Steinem once said a woman has two choices: “She is a feminist or a masochist.” It is hard not to hear that line now as an indictment of women who call themselves feminists while handing men our privacy, our categories, and our very real identity — not as in “gender identity” but in who we literally are. On this question, that would include Steinem herself, as a masochist.
But we can praise the good without incinerating the whole person. At her death, I choose the harder thing: keep what she built and refuse the error that would undo it. “We are linked, not ranked” is still a true sentence about women, and people more broadly. It becomes a lie the moment it is used to smuggle men into the circle and then rank their claims above ours.
The work Steinem did during the first half of my life made the second half possible. The work still left to do is to defend the category she spent decades insisting was real: woman.
***
Jennifer Sey is the CEO of XX-XY Athletics. She is an author, filmmaker, and retired national champion gymnast.

Portrait Of Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem Changed My Life. I Won’t Pretend She Was Right About Everything.

feminism

gloria steinem

larry nassar

opinion

transgender policy debate

women's sports

A little over a month ago, I stood on the steps of the Supreme Court as it announced its decisions in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox. After nearly seven years of advocacy on this issue, it was gratifying to hear the highest court in the land affirm concerns that had been dismissed for years. The ruling finally gave states the clarity they had been fighting for and released protections for female athletes from the holding cells of courtrooms, including in my home state of Arizona.
That clarity is too hard-won to treat carelessly.
For years, Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee (CWALAC) and female athletes like me fought to establish what should have been obvious from the beginning: women deserve athletic opportunities that are fair, safe, and meaningful. Since Idaho passed the first Fairness in Women’s Sports Act in 2020, 26 other states have now acted to protect women’s sports.
The road to 27 was long, unpopular, and then suddenly obvious.
When CWALAC first began lobbying for women’s-only sports laws, we were vilified as “alarmist.” Few people took our concerns seriously. But momentum grew quickly after Idaho State Rep. Barbara Ehardt passed the first-of-its-kind legislation, and the Lia Thomas/NCAA scandal forced the issue into the national conversation.
If one institution should have learned this lesson by now, it is the NCAA. The organization entrusted with governing collegiate athletics repeatedly failed to protect female athletes when it mattered most. Its record should make all of us skeptical that we can simply trust sports institutions to get this right on their own.
That is why the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA) deserves serious scrutiny.
PCSA is the U.S. Senate’s attempt to standardize Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rules across the country. I understand its importance; student-athletes deserve clear and predictable rules. But clarity in this area could come at the expense of clarity in another.
Some of the strongest warnings about PCSA’s preemption are coming from the people on the front lines defending Fairness in Women’s Sports laws. The attorneys general from Florida, Alabama, Indiana, Utah, Oklahoma, and Alaska <a href="https://x.com/AGToddRokita/status/2085920871831474513/photo/2">wrote</a> to the Senate saying their recent victory at the Supreme Court that upheld women’s sports protections “might now be undone by the preemption provisions contained in S. 4668” and PCSA provisions are “unacceptably unclear and risk re-opening the floodgates of litigation.” Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization that has defended female athletes in court, agreed with these concerns and offered a “small edit” to the bill’s text that amounted to 15 total <a href="https://x.com/KristenWaggoner/status/2085889725240398256?s=20">characters</a>. ADF said these edits &#8220;would tighten the language against efforts by activist judges to misinterpret the bill’s intent: addressing issues in college sports without preempting state laws that keep men out of women’s sports.”
After seven years of litigation, injunctions, and uncertainty for female athletes, we should not be debating whether Congress can spare 15 characters to make its intent unmistakable. If the authors truly believe it wouldn’t affect women’s protections, then clarifying that should not change anything.
The years of inevitable injunctions against women’s sports protections could be disastrous for female athletics. For every one man who competes in women’s sports, hundreds of female athletes are robbed of fair and safe competition.
This is also why I am wary of simply trusting the NCAA or any other governing body to resolve these questions later. The NCAA had years to demonstrate leadership in protecting female athletes. Instead, female athletes were pushed to the sidelines, silenced, and expected to accept the discriminatory practices of the NCAA.
As a female athlete who played against a man during my recruiting process to play college volleyball, I understand this all too well. That’s why I’ve testified in support of women’s sports laws from South Carolina and New Hampshire to Colorado and beyond. I understand the importance of NIL. I understand the need for a cohesive framework to sustain these incredible opportunities. But we cannot rush it at the expense of other pressing issues facing sports governance.
I strongly urge the Senate to reconcile what is at stake. I am not asking Congress to choose between NIL regulation and female athletes. I am asking Congress to get both right. A clear path forward to protect female athletes was too hard-won to jeopardize haphazardly.
Do not make female athletes pay the price for getting NIL right.
***
Macy Petty Charles, a former NCAA volleyball player, is legislative strategist for Concerned Women for America, the nation&#8217;s largest public policy women&#8217;s organization dedicated to promoting Biblical values and Constitutional principles in public policy. On X: @CWforA

COLLEGE BASKETBALL: MAR 08 SEC Conference Women’s Tournament – Missouri vs Kentucky

Why The NCAA Can’t Be Trusted To Protect Women’s Sports And What The Senate Can Do About It

ncaa

politics

protect college sports act

title ix

west virginia v bpj

Sunday night at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, with two minutes left in overtime and the Indiana Fever locked in a nail-biter against the Atlanta Dream, a mother and her daughter were ordered to cover up.
Kasey Thomason and her daughter Annie came to support Sophie Cunningham, the Fever guard who recently said it’s common sense for girls’ sports to be for girls only. The mom-daughter pair sat close to the court to cheer for the Indiana Fever, with Kasey wearing a red, white, and blue XX-XY Athletics logo tee. Everything was fine until those final minutes of the game when a woman two rows ahead wearing a “Protect Trans Kids” shirt pointed at them, while speaking to security.
Then, the security guard pointed at Kasey and her daughter.
In a matter of minutes, they went from fans enjoying the game to problems that had to be dealt with.
Kasey and Annie were offered free “Wellness Night” tees sponsored by Emory Healthcare and asked to cover their shirts, or they would be escorted out.
They put the stadium shirts on. They wanted to see the end of the game. As soon as the official stadium tees went on, in an act of pure snitchy vindictiveness, the woman who had found their original tees offensive mouthed, “I like your shirt” in their direction.
The Fever won that night, but free expression lost.
This is not an isolated incident. It is a pattern.
It started in Seattle on July 28. Sixteen-year-old Ahnaleigh Wilson and a friend sat courtside wearing XX-XY tees and holding a simple sign thanking Sophie for speaking up for girls. Celeste Keaton, co-owner of the Seattle Storm, confronted the girls, called them “effing insane,” and left them in tears. The league later suspended Keaton for five games.
Days later in Minneapolis, Riley Gaines and I sat courtside in the same XX-XY tees from the company that I founded and lead. Riley held a small sign: “Sophie, thank you — a girl mom.” At halftime, arena security told Riley to put the sign down because, she was told, it had a player’s name on it. Meanwhile, those supporting different players and wearing shirts that read “Trans Kids Belong&#8221;—including one worn by Minneapolis Lynx Coach Cheryl Reeve—faced no such restriction.
We stayed and made the sign less visible. After the incident, people in our row bought us drinks as a show of support for our work to protect girls’ sports.
The WNBA, the team leadership, the stadium brass – they want everyone to believe that the message at the games is anti-Sophie, pro-trans and that anyone who supports Cunningham is just a bigot. But in fact, the pro-woman, protect-women’s-sports message is everywhere on the ground at these games, no matter how hard the league tries to suppress it.
Atlanta was next. A mother and daughter supporting the same basic principle — women’s sports and spaces are for women — were forced to cover clothing that simply acknowledges biological reality. Interestingly, the gifted shirts came from stadium sponsor Emory Healthcare, which operates a transgender clinic. Though Georgia law currently restricts pharmaceutical and surgical interventions for minors, the institutional alignment is clear enough.
Sophie Cunningham did not set out to become a cultural flashpoint. In July, she told ESPN that she wants to protect young girls and keep their sports and locker rooms girls-only. She wasn’t making a big political pronouncement; she simply answered a question honestly. She said what she said and moved on, but notably, has not walked it back one inch, despite pressure to do so.
The response from the institutional Left has been predictable.
Celebrations in support of Cunningham have drawn moms and daughters who simply want sex-based categories and biological reality preserved. We bring balloons and cookies. Counter-protesters are aggressive and mean-spirited. They bring megaphones to try to drown us out, while calling us the worst names you can imagine.
League and arena officials treat expressions of support for fairness as the problem while treating the erasure of those categories as settled morality. Messages and t-shirts that affirm biological sex are policed by stadium security. Messages that deny it are celebrated, put on the jumbotron, and featured in the TV broadcast.
But the more they try to suppress the message, the faster it spreads. Ordinary people are no longer afraid to speak up for common sense rules. Fans who never thought of themselves as activists show up to take a stand for fair competition.
But the WNBA seems intent on manufacturing a consensus that does not exist. They have an agenda, and it isn’t women’s basketball.
The WNBA, the arenas, the broadcasters, and the corporate sponsors can keep trying to manage the narrative. They can enforce dress codes selectively and hope the controversy fades.
But it will not. Truth has a way of asserting itself. Biological reality does not care about branding partnerships or “Wellness Night.”
And the censors are never the good guys.
Our movement is not driven by hate. It is driven by the obvious: males and females are different, those differences matter in sports and private spaces, and girls deserve categories that protect their opportunities, safety, and achievements. The crazy part is that it was ever controversial to say so.
Kasey and Annie put on their stadium shirts to stay and watch the end of a close game. Then they spoke out, refusing to stay silent no matter how intense the coercion. Game on.
Women’s sports belong to women. The more they pretend otherwise, the clearer the stakes and who the good guys are. The powers that be cannot suppress this forever.
***
Jennifer Sey is the CEO of XX-XY Athletics. She is an author, filmmaker, and retired national champion gymnast.

New York Liberty v Indiana Fever

Jennifer Sey: Supporting Sophie Cunningham Is A Court-Side Crime

jennifer sey

sophie cunningham

transgender in sports

wnba

Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom declared himself a prospect for the 2027 WNBA Draft on Friday, challenging the league to explain how its current eligibility rules would rule him out.
“After careful consideration and reviewing the current eligibility guidelines, I’m officially declaring myself a @WNBA prospect,” Freedom said.
“If simply declaring who you are is all that’s required, then I meet every single requirement necessary to compete in the WNBA.”
Freedom said his team had reviewed the league’s eligibility criteria and policies surrounding what he described as “self-identification and inclusion,” arguing that nothing in those rules prevents him from declaring himself eligible for the 2027 draft. 
“Based on the current guidelines, I can and am officially declaring my eligibility for the upcoming WNBA draft in April 2027,” he added.
The WNBA&#8217;s publicly available draft eligibility rules do not state that a player can become eligible simply by self-identifying as a woman. The league does not appear to have a publicly stated policy that explicitly bars transgender-identifying men from competing in the WNBA.
According to OutKick/Fox News Digital, the WNBA&#8217;s newly signed collective bargaining agreement <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/wnba-silent-whether-french-transgender-star-dominating-womens-league-eligible-play">states</a>: &#8220;Only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.&#8221; The outlet reported that the 409-page agreement &#8220;never defines &#8216;woman&#8217; or &#8216;women.&#8217; The terms &#8216;transgender&#8217; and &#8216;gender identity&#8217; don&#8217;t appear anywhere in the document.&#8221;
Freedom sought to head off criticism that the move was intended to mock transgender-identifying people, saying he was instead asking the WNBA to apply its rules consistently. 
“I know my presence on the court will stir up strong opinions,” Freedom said. “I am definitely not here to mock, make fun of, or disrespect any community or personal choices.”
“I’m simply asking that the current rules be applied equally to everyone — the rules that represent the very values many WNBA players and coaches have publicly advocated for.”
The stunt comes amid a growing controversy surrounding transgender-identifying athletes participating in women’s sports and the WNBA in particular. 
Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham has publicly argued that women’s sports should remain protected for female athletes. Her comments drew criticism from leftists and sparked a broader debate over where WNBA players and the league itself stand on transgender inclusion.
Some WNBA players and coaches have expressed support for transgender-identifying athletes competing in women’s sports. Golden State Valkyries forward Gabby Williams, for example, has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/another-wnba-star-enters-the-men-in-womens-sports-debate">said</a> she would welcome a transgender-identifying athlete on her team or as an opponent.
Freedom is now challenging the league to apply that philosophy to his own declared eligibility. 
“My team and I are prepared to ensure these guidelines are applied equally, consistently, and without exception,” Freedom said. “I look forward to the #WNBA honoring its stated principles.”
“See you at training camp.”
Freedom, 34, was selected third overall by the Utah Jazz in the 2011 NBA Draft and spent more than a decade playing in the NBA. He became increasingly outspoken on political and international issues during his career, particularly over the Chinese Communist Party and the NBA’s relationship with China, and has pursued political activism since leaving the league.
Freedom is 6-foot-10 and had a listed playing weight of 250 pounds during his NBA career, which would make him the heaviest player in the WNBA and among its tallest.
The stunt bears an obvious resemblance to &#8220;Lady Ballers,&#8221; the DailyWire+ comedy in which a group of men competes in women’s sports after discovering how far self-identification can take them under left-wing sporting policies.
The WNBA did not immediately respond to The Daily Wire&#8217;s request for clarification on its draft eligibility rules.

Washington Wizards v Boston Celtics

Former NBA Player Declares For WNBA Draft

2027 wnba draft

enes kanter freedom

sports

Golden State Valkyries star Gabby Williams became the first active WNBA player to declare she’d gladly share a locker room with biological men identifying as women.
Williams called trans inclusion &#8220;our new battle&#8221; while claiming rights are being &#8220;stripped away&#8221; from transgender individuals.
“I think it&#8217;s trans rights that now is our new battle,” Williams stated. “That&#8217;s what I think I was saying, that the battles have changed. Our intentions have been the same, but now the environment has changed. We see trans people&#8217;s rights being stripped away from them. There&#8217;s a lot of discourse around trans athletes and what they can compete in. I would welcome a trans athlete on my team or against my team anytime. I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s a problem in the world, it&#8217;s just another way to kind of attack trans people.”
Williams singled out former “non-binary” WNBA player Layshia Clarendon for praise.
&#8220;You know, we&#8217;ve seen players like Layshia Clarendon, who stepped into that forefront and have been brave enough and courageous enough to kind of step up. So I guess that&#8217;s the next battle that we have to fight as athletes.”
Williams&#8217; radical invite comes on the heels of a league-wide rift sparked by Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, who stood up for protecting women in sports. Cunningham ignited the debate last month by bluntly stating she wants to &#8220;protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn&#8217;t have to go against biological men,&#8221; before shutting down online mobs with a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sophie-cunningham-triples-down-on-haters-with-ice-cold-instagram-post%5d">defiant</a>, &#8220;I said what I said.&#8221;
The feud reached a boiling point on the court when Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve strutted out in a &#8220;Trans Kids Belong&#8221; t-shirt, earning a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/espn-praises-wnba-coach-after-trans-sports-jab-at-sophie-cunningham">public plug</a> from ESPN announcer Rebecca Lobo. Meanwhile, Fever head coach Stephanie White <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sophie-cunninghams-coach-asked-where-she-stands-on-men-in-womens-sports">ducked the issue</a> entirely, claiming she wasn&#8217;t &#8220;educated enough from a scientific standpoint&#8221; to take a stand.
While corporate execs and coaches hem and haw, Cunningham’s common-sense defense of female athletics has rallied fans nationwide, even drawing backing from White House Press Secretary <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/karoline-leavitt-rips-leftist-backlash-to-sophie-cunninghams-trans-sports-comments">Karoline Leavitt</a> and activist Riley Gaines.
The heat has even spilled into the stands. In Seattle, Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton was punished after flying off the handle in an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-co-owner-accused-of-cursing-out-teen-girls-over-xx-xy-shirts?author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=8&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=WNBA+Co-Owner+Accused+Of+Cursing+Out+Teen+Girls+Over+XX-XY+Shirts">expletive-laced tirade</a> against two 16-year-old girls wearing gear supporting Cunningham’s position.

WNBA: AUG 04 Toronto Tempo at Golden State Valkyries

Another WNBA Star Enters The Men In Women’s Sports Debate

gabby williams

Wednesday evening, I went to my first WNBA game where the Washington Mystics played against the Dallas Wings, right here in my own backyard. I walked in a skeptic. I walked out something closer to a convert.
If the league&#8217;s leadership would just get their long johns out of a twist and quit politicizing a game that doesn&#8217;t need it, the WNBA could be a real international sensation, not just a niche one.
With seven minutes left in the third quarter, the home team Mystics were down by 20, and the game looked every bit like a blowout in progress. Then something clicked: maybe it was the crowd&#8217;s noise, the team&#8217;s four-game winning streak, or just spite. Cotie McMahon started finding the hoop like she owned the place, capping the comeback with a clutch three-point play that flipped the game on its head. Washington won.
It was electric. The crowd, heavy on women and short haircuts, was loud and locked in. The arena holds a modest 4,200 seats, and nearly every one of them was full. It was intimate and homey and felt like I was transported back to my days broadcasting Ohio State women&#8217;s basketball. It was athletic theater with the potential to be great.
That is, if the WNBA would stop shooting itself in the hightop.
This isn&#8217;t the league&#8217;s first rodeo with the national spotlight. Back then it handled the attention differently. When WNBA star Brittney Griner was convicted in Russia on drug charges in 2022 and came home in a prisoner swap for notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, the league was quick to fumble the situation: an ESPN/Disney documentary, a Robin Roberts sit-down, a clothing capsule, a memoir. A player got caught with weed in a country where weed is illegal, and the WNBA turned it into a multi-platform victory lap.
Compare that to how it&#8217;s handling Caitlin Clark, a generational talent who&#8217;s been on the receiving end of ferocious fouls seemingly aimed more at her body than the ball, and Sophie Cunningham, the spunky, self-appointed protector who has taken to defending Clark and, more broadly, defending all &#8216;biological girls&#8217; in sports — loudly and proudly. As you can imagine, she was not offered an ESPN/Disney deal for speaking out against dudes in female sports.
Instead of capitalizing on the two most talked-about players the league has ever had, the WNBA has sidelined them and alienated the very audience that is finally paying attention.
When Cunningham doubled down on keeping biological men out of Women&#8217;s National Basketball Association locker rooms (because that is, after all, what the W stands for), Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton took it upon herself to publicly berate two teenage girls holding up signs in support of Cunningham at a game last week. Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, who has previously complained about the league having too many male coaches, wore a &#8220;Trans Kids Belong&#8221; shirt on the sideline. Cunningham and Clark&#8217;s own coach, Stephanie White, offered the toothless line that she doesn&#8217;t believe that &#8220;exclusion is the answer.&#8221; Golden State Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase chimed in with an equally pathetic platitude.
Stranger still, the players themselves seem to be piling on, delivering their objections through elbows and forearms rather than words. The refs, for their part, keep calling the fouls on Cunningham, presumably because her face keeps getting in the way of everyone else&#8217;s arms. All this while she&#8217;s trying to protect their league from biological men like Julie Tétart, the French unit who competes in France’s Ligue Féminine 2 and averages 21 points a game there.
You can bet if I saw that burly, mammoth frame barrelling down the court at me, I’d cry.
These women are dismantling the sport that Title IX and the generations of women before these players fought to create. What&#8217;s the point of a women&#8217;s league if men can play in it? At that rate, just merge the WNBA and NBA and let the best man win. Literally.
I think about the little girls at that game, watching women who made it past high school ball, past college, all the way to the top of what a professional female athlete can become. That&#8217;s supposed to be something to strive for — not something men can simply walk in and corrupt by claiming gender confusion.
Women&#8217;s tennis, at least, has kept its balls at bay and its head on straight. After the WTA rolled out sex-screening to &#8220;preserve the integrity of women&#8217;s professional tennis,&#8221; world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka closed her press conference by saying, resolutely, that men don&#8217;t belong in women&#8217;s sports. It really is that simple. Not one of these women would be standing where she is today if men had been allowed into the pool of play.
In 2026, the WNBA&#8217;s new media rights deal jumped to $281 million a year, over six times its previous haul, and franchise values are up 59% in a single season. Money talks, and it’s trying to tell us that this league is on the verge of a real cultural moment, if it would just get out of its own way. Imagine what happens to those numbers, and to player salaries, if the WNBA actually let Clark and Cunningham be the show instead of the scandal.
Fans want talent, spunk, and someone to root for. They&#8217;ve got that in Clark and Cunningham, a pairing with the commercial upside of a young Serena Williams, who didn&#8217;t just win 23 Grand Slams — she dragged an entire sport into the mainstream behind her.
Wednesday night felt youthful and electric, the kind of night that could stay with you a while — like a hometown high school championship, where fans treated each other like neighbors and old rivalries came roaring back. Moms and dads held up handmade signs. Kids reached for t-shirts flying out of cannons. Strangers high-fived after every clutch free throw. It was sweet, and I could actually see myself bringing a little Chloe one day.
Unless, of course, her coach is wearing a &#8220;Trans Kids Belong&#8221; shirt. Unless I&#8217;m watching 300-pound loony birds hold up signs expressing their sheer disdain for the Lethal Weapon pair. Unless I&#8217;m dodging trans flags waving in celebration of a policy that would gut the whole point of the league. But the Mystics did a good job of keeping it classy. They kept it about the game.
Usher in more of that, usher in pride for the women who make this sport possible, usher in support for the patriotic players who make it worth watching, and I&#8217;ll keep coming back. My guess is plenty of other Americans would too.

Indiana Fever v Washington Mystics

The WNBA Is A League Shooting Itself In The Hightop

caitlin clark

transgender athletes in women's sports

The world&#8217;s top-ranked female tennis player has taken a stand for female athletes.
Aryna Sabalenka, who is ranked No. 1 in women&#8217;s singles, said earlier this week that women&#8217;s tennis must be kept fair and female, backing a one-time gender test for athletes.
“The WTA (Women&#8217;s Tennis Association) recently announced that players will take a one-time gender test,” a reporter said to Sabalenka. “How do you feel about that?” 
“I think it&#8217;s really important to keep the fairness in our tour,” Sabalenka responded, adding that “men are way stronger than women.” 
“I feel like it would be not really fair for the woman to compete against biological men,” the Belarusian tennis player continued. “I believe it took them a little while to make the decision and I support it.”
“If they want to test us all, I&#8217;m happy to do that,” she added. “It&#8217;s pretty fair and let&#8217;s keep it that way.” 
The WTA announced in July that its Women&#8217;s Eligibility Policy will now be based on biological sex, as opposed to so-called gender identity. Now, all players competing on the women&#8217;s tour must undergo a one-time genetic screening for the SRY gene, which is associated with male biology. Players can be tested using either a cheek swab or blood sample.
Back in December 2025, Sabalenka voiced similar comments about the trans sports issue.
&#8220;I think it&#8217;s not fair on women to face basically biological men,&#8221; she <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sports/tennis/sabalenka-says-women-facing-transgender-athletes-not-fair-2025-12-10/">said</a> at the time. &#8220;The woman has been working her whole life to reach her limit and then she has to face a man, who is biologically much stronger, so for me I don&#8217;t agree with this kind of stuff in sport.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_1150105" style="width: 861px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1150105" class="wp-image-1150105 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2283904721-851x576.jpg" alt="" width="851" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2283904721-851x576.jpg 851w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2283904721-300x203.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2283904721-768x520.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/GettyImages-2283904721.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 851px) 100vw, 851px" />Robert Prange/Getty Images</div>
Sabalenka&#8217;s comments come on the heels of WNBA star Sophie Cunningham taking a bold stance for women. Bucking the league&#8217;s messaging and other players&#8217; activism, Cunningham said biological males should not be allowed in female sports and that she will always stand up for female athletes and advocate for fairness.
Cunningham doubled down on her position last week. &#8220;I said what I said,” she said, adding, “It’s kind of common sense, and I think I&#8217;ll always believe in that. I think it&#8217;s really important to protect children, and that&#8217;s little girls who are also involved in that category. I stand on what I said and I&#8217;m going to always believe that.”
“I&#8217;m not a very political person, but I do have beliefs,” she continued. “I have morals, and I&#8217;ll always stand on those and be true to who I am, and I think people are going to take it how they want to take it. … When it comes to protecting young girls in sport and women in sport, I feel very strongly about that.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-sophie-cunningham-doubles-down-on-protecting-girls-from-trans-athletes?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=7&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=WATCH%3A+Sophie+Cunningham+Doubles+Down+On+Protecting+Girls+From+Trans+Athletes">WATCH: Sophie Cunningham Doubles Down On Protecting Girls From Trans Athletes</a>

WTA 1000 National Bank Open Presented by Rogers 2026 – Day 1

World’s Top Female Tennis Player Takes Stand For Women’s Sports

No. 1 Female Tennis Player Takes Stand For Women’s Sports

aryna sabalenka

women's tennis association

Caitlin Clark, the Indiana Fever&#8217;s star guard and most well-known player in the WNBA, was asked Sunday to share her thoughts on men in women&#8217;s sports, a controversy that has erupted in the women&#8217;s basketball league following comments from Clark&#8217;s teammate Sophie Cunningham.
As Cunningham faces intense backlash from leftists over her comments on protecting women&#8217;s sports, Clark said the issue is not discussed in the Fever&#8217;s locker room.
&#8220;I think it&#8217;s for leagues and governing bodies to work with their athletes and find solutions, but our focus is on basketball. That&#8217;s what we talk about,&#8221; Clark said during her post-game press conference.
After her short answer, a reporter asked if she had any reaction to the controversy surrounding Cunningham.
&#8220;I just answered for you,&#8221; Clark replied.
Clark was pressed on the issue one day after Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sophie-cunninghams-coach-asked-where-she-stands-on-men-in-womens-sports?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=Sports&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Sophie+Cunningham%E2%80%99s+Coach+Asked+Where+She+Stands+On+Men+In+Women%E2%80%99s+Sports">pushed back</a> on Cunningham&#8217;s remarks on keeping men out of women&#8217;s sports.
“I don’t know that I would say that I’m educated enough from a scientific standpoint. I don’t ever believe that exclusion is an answer. I just don’t,” White told reporters.
Cunningham sparked discussion on the issue last month during an interview for a profile piece that was published by ESPN. In the interview, Cunningham was asked where she stands on men in women&#8217;s sports, and she addressed the matter head-on.
“I think that I am here to extend love,” she <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-star-breaks-with-league-on-explosive-issue?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=6&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=WNBA+Star+Breaks+With+League+On+Explosive+Issue">said</a>. “But I also think with that 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.”
Her comments resulted in a wave of support from many Americans, including the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/karoline-leavitt-rips-leftist-backlash-to-sophie-cunninghams-trans-sports-comments">White House</a>, who oppose policies by schools, athletic associations, and professional leagues that allow men to compete against women. Cunningham&#8217;s comments were also met with backlash from many people on the Left, including WNBA players, coaches, and at least one team owner.
During a Fever game in Seattle last week, two young girls attended the game with XX-XY shirts and a sign supporting Cunningham and her defense of women-only sports. The young girls were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sophie-cunningham-rips-wnba-team-co-owner-for-harassing-teens-girls-with-xx-xy-shirts?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Sophie+Cunningham+Rips+WNBA+Team+Co-Owner+For+Harassing+Teen+Girls+With+XX-XY+Shirts">heckled</a> by some Seattle fans and berated by Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton, who reportedly called the teenage girls &#8220;f*cking insane.&#8221; Keaton was reprimanded by the Storm and suspended from attending the team&#8217;s next five home games.
“Bravo to those girls for standing up for what they believe. You’ll be hearing from me soon,” Cunningham said. “Truly embarrassing of the co-owner. Unfortunately shows the type of leader she is.”
Clark is familiar with being on the receiving end of harsh backlash. Ever since she came into the league in 2024 — bringing a following of loyal fans from her success in college at Iowa — Clark has been public enemy No. 1 for many WNBA players. The WNBA&#8217;s hatred for Clark is evident even in the star player&#8217;s third season. Last month, when players placed votes for the WNBA All-Star Game, they determined Clark wasn’t even among the top 10 best guards, despite Clark putting up impressive numbers and setting league records, The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/latest-stunt-shows-just-how-much-wnba-hates-star-player-caitlin-clark?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Latest+Stunt+Shows+Just+How+Much+WNBA+Hates+Star+Player+Caitlin+Clark">reported</a>.
Clark has also brought unprecedented attention to the WNBA and helped drive record-breaking attendance, viewership, and merchandise sales.

WNBA Star Caitlin Clark Responds To Trans Sports Firestorm

The European Broadcasting Union has issued new guidelines on how to film women’s sporting events so that the athletes won’t appear sexually appealing.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: Oh Klavan, you marvelous merchant of mirth, how is it possible your effervescent imagination keeps merrily spewing bubbles of laughter into the air until all of life seems a frothy elixir of hilarity? Who but you could dream up a scenario in which some Europeans have so little to occupy their lives, they actually found time to think of a way to discourage the six or seven people who watch women’s sports from watching women’s sports? Where but in the imagination of a living genius of joy could there blossom a fabrication so absurd that it could actually make the incipient takeover of Europe by radical Muslim rapists and murderers seem like kind of an improvement over the Europe we have now?
But no, so help me, I am not making this story up.
The European Broadcasting Union — whose members operate nearly 2,000 media outlets that reach audiences of more than a billion people across the continent — has drawn up a list of disrespectful camera angles to be avoided to ensure that televised women’s sports do not become sexualized or have any other reason to exist.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/andrew-klavan-show-ep-1289"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-974735 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1024x171.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
For instance, according to the document released by the EBU, camera operators should not use low angles during such events as the women’s pole vault, lest it provide male viewers with a momentary view between the jumper’s legs and afford them a glimpse of a gateway into a heaven of pleasure beyond their wildest imaginations.
Likewise, camera operators should avoid close-ups on a female athlete’s face during her moments of maximum effort lest it cause male viewers to speculate that such an expression might be similar to the one she has when she has been coaxed to a pinnacle of ecstasy by an expert lover’s masterful yet tender caresses.
Slow motion replays of the efforts of women runners should be avoided, especially if the runners are well-endowed, for fear it will remind the viewer of that time when he was thirteen and the new &#8220;Tomb Raider&#8221; game came out with a Lara Croft who could actually jiggle so that he sat in front of the TV pressing the jump button over and over until he developed carpal tunnel syndrome and had to tell his mother he had been typing a lot because he was writing a dissertation on the temptations of St. Anthony.
Also discouraged is any camera angle that falls below the waist of a female tennis player, thus revealing the way her adorable little skirt sometimes flies up in the air during her backhand so that the viewer’s eye can trace the mind-destroying curve of her silken legs from her sneaker-covered but doubtlessly suckable toes to the underwear so wonderfully filled by her soul-particlizing shapeliness.
The EBU’s British chairman Sir Nigel Skoolbottom says the new guidelines are meant to eliminate any glimpse of any part of any female athlete’s body that might sexually excite the male viewer. And since virtually every glimpse of every part of every female athlete’s body will likely sexually excite the male viewer, Sir Skoolbottom recommends that every potentially thrilling video of a woman during a sporting event should be instantly replaced by the image of a naked schoolboy being caned by a stern yet ruggedly handsome headmaster so that the viewer comes to understand just how very naughty he has been for thinking those dirty thoughts about someone of the same gender as Sir Skoolbottom&#8217;s beloved mum.
Now some critics have pointed out that men are more interested in looking at women’s bodies than they are in appreciating their athletic prowess or indeed their intellectual capabilities or career achievements or ideas or conversation, and that banning sexually stimulating camera angles might reduce the audience for women’s sports to three virtue-signaling lesbians who are only pretending to give a damn, thus making it almost impossible for women athletes to garner an audience and earn a living.
However, the European Broadcasting Union suggests that the problem could be addressed if the women athletes simply supplement their incomes by opening accounts with OnlyFans.

Sophie Cunningham

Europe Eliminates Only Reason Men Watch Women’s Sports

camera angles

europe

televised sports

This is republished with permission from the author. The original, from <a href="https://www.houseofstrauss.com/">House of Strauss</a>, can be found <a href="https://substack.com/@houseofstrauss/p-209105305">here</a>.
***
I am kindly asking the WNBA to stop generating so much news. Please. I can barely keep up. The league’s main Twitter account posted and deleted a video where <a href="https://x.com/HaterReport/status/2082709528588517869?s=20">two of the sport’s most prominent stars bet on a game they were about to play against each other</a>. A similar incident might qualify as the biggest NBA news item of the year, but it’s not even the main WNBA story out there right now. <a href="https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/49483396/storm-apologize-co-owner-confronts-fans-cunningham-support">This is</a>.
The wild scene among spectators at Fever-Storm on Tuesday broke sports-world containment and became a political flashpoint. The vignettes are surreal because it’s like archetypal NPR tote bag owners are acting like classic inebriated bleacher hooligans. But these people aren’t tilted off booze. They’re drunk on politics. These Seattle louts are so unhinged over people agreeing with Sophie Cunningham’s support for a supermajority position that it’s now helping the side they despise.
Sophie Cunningham’s comment of, “I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn&#8217;t have to go against biological men,” apparently set the stage for a Seattle standoff on Tuesday. Ahead of the Fever-Storm game, protesters and counterprotesters streamed to the steps of the hilariously named Climate Pledge Arena.
There’s a state ballot measure called Washington Initiative 638 which aims to keep K-12 girls&#8217; sports exclusive to females, and it’s scheduled for the November ballot by the force of over 400,000 resident signatures. It was spearheaded by hedge fund man Brian Heywood as “not a partisan issue,” but no state Democrat supports the measure. Indeed, House Speaker Laurie Jinkins (D) and Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen (D) refused to even hold legislative hearings on I-638.
The “save women’s sports” I-638 supporters didn’t achieve a mass gathering on Tuesday. As <a href="https://www.theringer.com/2026/07/29/wnba/sophie-cunningham-transgender-women-in-sports-comments-wnba">Seerat Sohi of the Ringer argued</a>, this cohort could all so easily have been ignored. But they weren’t.
From Yahoo Sports:
<blockquote>
<a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/wnba/teams/seattle/">Seattle Storm</a> minority owner Celeste Keaton has been fined by the WNBA and suspended for her team’s next five home games following <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/storm-apologize-co-owner-comments-191134139.html">an incident Tuesday night involving a pair of Sophie Cunningham fans</a>, according to the <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/storm/storm-owner-suspended-sophie-cunningham-after-fan-incident">Seattle Times’ Percy Allen</a> and <a href="https://x.com/primetimeMitch/status/2082691122418102588">USA Today’s Mitchell Northam</a>.
The incident reportedly occurred when the two young women, wearing shirts for a brand advocating against the inclusion of transgender women in women’s sports, held up signs reading “We love you Sophie” and “Thank you Sophie for speaking up for girls” while sitting courtside for the <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/wnba/teams/indiana/">Fever</a>-Storm game. Their appearance came a week after Cunningham made comments against transgender inclusion.
</blockquote>
I’d say that’s a loaded characterization of Cunningham’s position from Yahoo Sports, but you get the general gist of the incident. From what I can tell, Cunningham and these girls aren’t broadly opposed to “transgender inclusion.” They’re specifically against biological males in women’s sports, a stance that New York Times polling <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/f548560f100205ef/e656ddda-full.pdf">tells us 79% of the country shares</a>.
Here’s an aspect that might be obscured if you’re only reading about this situation in a publication like Yahoo: The optics are comically favorable to what I’ll call <a href="https://www.houseofstrauss.com/p/how-sophie-cunningham-became-the">the non-Left</a>. The two teen girls come off as <a href="https://x.com/BrandiKruse/status/2082500178226155685">polite and well-adjusted</a>. Co-owner Celeste Keaton, who apparently berated the girls with “F*cking insane!” is obviously <a href="https://x.com/YahooSports/status/2082821382736380290">far older and also out of shape</a>. If the male equivalent yelled at girls for some different reason, mainstream journalists would freely describe this individual as “gross-looking.” So on the one side, you’ve got presentable teenagers quietly conveying their majority-backed views, and on the other side you’ve got an angry fat franchise partner verbally abusing them.
I mention this not to be mean, but to describe reality and also highlight how it doesn’t always fit conventional media narrative. I grew up on the baked-in assumption that the progressive protester represents ascendant youth and the person yelling at them represents aging decline. While polling suggests younger people are relatively more open to the inclusion of biological males in women’s sports, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-americans-oppose-trans-women-competing-female-sports-2-3-gen-z-rcna203658">even a solid Gen Z majority</a> opposes the idea. One reason a teen might physically show up to protest males in girls&#8217; sports is that they, unlike a liberal boomer yelling at them, have skin in the game.
My impression is that in sports journalism circles, it’s largely assumed that non-lefty Indiana Fever fans are all MAGA GRIFTER CHUDS. These types are angry men who probably look like they just stepped off the set of &#8220;Deliverance.&#8221; None of them care about women’s sports. All of them just enjoy triggering the ladies out of mean-spirited revanchist resentment.
A dominant narrative in WNBA media circles is that Caitlin Clark has a moral obligation to <a href="https://awfulannouncing.com/wnba/elle-duncan-calls-on-caitlin-clark-confront-bad-faith-actors.html">cool off these out-of-control freaks</a>. To be clear, a lot of conservatives online enjoy using the WNBA as a piñata, but there have been scant examples of Fever fans acting tangibly abusive IRL.
So it’s quite counter-narrative to see, in the wake of Cunningham taking up this “protect girls” position, fans acting out of control from the other side. I can’t vouch for the veracity of descriptions in every clip, but multiple examples of allegedly abusive Seattle Storm fans were posted from Tuesday’s action.
The aforementioned girls were also yelled at by a <a href="https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2082627754374111450">mustachioed man who looked a bit like a skinny Taylor Lewan</a>. He said, “Security: Take the trash out.” Conservative political commentator Brandi Kruse claims that two Seattle Storm fans attempted to trip a teen wearing an <a href="https://www.xx-xyathletics.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoqv8ygnLI2iRCjssCk_zPK2jCyYI18Gz22qhGmmbaEO9ZrI-LM7">XX-XY athletics</a> shirt. Kruse posted a photo of the two alleged offenders, but I’m not linking to it. Absent video, I lack solid evidence that this happened, even though it’s plausible based on the night’s events. I am, however, linking to <a href="https://x.com/BrickCenter_/status/2082544018379219020?s=20">this video</a> of a Storm fan allegedly spitting at a Fever fan. Maybe there’s some other context here, but barring AI magic, I can at least establish that this dude hawked a real loogie.
Black Sports Online proprietor <a href="https://x.com/BSO/status/2082594185199358460?s=20">Robert Littal posted</a>:
<blockquote>
Curiously, there is no mainstream attention or visceral social outrage about this fan interaction at a WNBA game&#8230;.. The Storm, the WNBA, ESPN, USA Today, etc etc no one has said anything and it is on tape so not like someone made it up&#8230;
</blockquote>
Littal, hardly a Trump supporter, is getting at a massive double standard. It’s an article of faith in mainstream sports media circles that politically activated fan misbehavior only goes in one (MAGA) direction. That assumption arguably fuels transgression from the side they align with. I’d hazard that the people lashing out at teen Sophie fans believe themselves to be good and righteous. If you’re wholly bought in on the idea that your enemy is cartoonishly evil, and you’re generally averse to countenancing their perspective as potentially valid, that can be interpreted as a justification for abuse. These aren’t human beings. They’re just avatars for “hate.” Why not harass them?
This is how an old woman finds herself aggressing courtside teenagers during a nationally televised basketball game. She’s likely lost herself in this sanctimonious certainty, totally oblivious to how the world might regard her as psychotic.
She’s in a bubble, of course. And an amusing one at that. Quoting <a href="https://x.com/jessesingal/status/2082569631768719611?s=20">HoS guest Jesse Singal</a>:
<blockquote>
Maybe the Seattleiest, richlibbiest Seattle richlib story ever. Keaton&#8217;s actually the long-time partner of Storm coowner Lisa Brummel (est. 9-figure net worth). Keaton is a &#8220;Feng Shui &amp; Intuitive Consultant&#8221; and an &#8220;ordained holistic minister.&#8221;
As a clairsentient and clairvoyant, my main divination modality is through reading Tarot cards &amp; by empathically tuning in to the Client.&#8221; (All via LinkedIn.) This is just a *deeeeeeply* 2026-America story, when you think about it.
</blockquote>
I laughed at the silliness of her biography but also saw notes of transferred religiosity in this woman’s background. Communion with God replaced with clairsentience and clairvoyance. A crusade against heretics replaced with a vulgar sermon for high schoolers. A steadfast belief in morality undergirded by absolute spiritual certainty.
Maybe there’s no way for mainstream sports outlets to get through to a woman like this, but it’d be nice if they did more humanizing of her target. Those teen girls don’t see themselves as advancing “hate.” They doubtless believe they’re protecting women because, on the same field of competition, males have obvious physical advantages over females.
It’s reflexive among many of my peers to sneer at anyone who takes up the “save women’s sports” stance. This is somehow both a “<a href="https://www.houseofstrauss.com/p/how-sophie-cunningham-became-the">non-issue</a>” and a contemptible cause. It’s “a distraction” but somehow also important enough that one must never cave to the majority. It’s simply all a pretext for being mean to a marginalized group, even if any sane person can reason out why males in female sports could be a problem.
Okay, but I-638 is a real bill, designed to curtail <a href="https://x.com/hecheateddotorg/status/2082517679559319660?s=46&amp;t=oGFkfjOaJhGL-HV3dqLoGQ">actual incidents in Washington state</a>. It’s a “for or against” proposition. There’s a shelf life on this cool kid media game of perpetually pretending these bill supporters are prima facie freaks, absent articulated counter positions. You can act like such people are “weird,” but who looked especially weird on Tuesday night, in images that went viral?
I’m not saying this sort of optically toxic progressive activity loses the midterm for Democrats, but I do wonder. The election should be a layup. The party in power almost always gets crushed, and I shake my head whenever I drive past a gas station.
But if your side keeps making cameos as loud and angry proponents of a fringe position, there’s a cost to this that even sympathetic prestige media can’t save you from. The evidence was strong that <a href="https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2024/trump-hammered-democrats-on-transgender-issues-now-the-party-is-at-odds-on-a-response/">the transgender sports issue helped Donald Trump win the 2024 election</a>. It’s not “concern trolling” to observe that digging in on males in girls&#8217; sports can deprive a major political party of power.
At first, it appeared that Sophie Cunningham might distance herself from the protesters. In response to accusatory questions, the Fever read a PR statement denying that “Sophie had any knowledge of this demonstration and no contact with its organizers.”
On Wednesday night, Sophie Cunningham <a href="https://x.com/sophaller/status/2082675804874604615?s=46&amp;t=oGFkfjOaJhGL-HV3dqLoGQ">tweeted</a>:
<blockquote>
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.
Bravo to those girls for standing up for what they believe. You’ll be hearing from me soon (hearts emoji) yay for gifts. Truly embarrassing of the co-owner. Unfortunately shows the type of leader she is.
</blockquote>
I don’t know if this is purely an extension of Cunningham’s moral intuition. Perhaps that’s unfair, and I’m just too cynical. I do, however, know that Sophie has quite a grasp of optics and popularity. A day later, after looking at the scenes, she chose to endorse the pleasant-seeming teen fans and dump on the angry old coot. You could argue that Sophie Cunningham is purely being rational here. You could argue she’s surrounded by a league and media ecosystem that regards rationality as immoral.
***
Ethan Strauss is the creator of the Substack House of Strauss. He is a former NBA PR gopher, basketblogger, and NBA beat writer.

Phoenix Mercury v Indiana Fever

Sophie Cunningham Is The Moral Compass Standing Up To The WNBA Coots

Celeste Keaton

DW Opinion

indiana fever

Seattle Storm

Transgender Athletes

After cursing out teen girls supporting female-only sports, Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton has been fined and suspended from attending the WNBA team&#8217;s next five home games.
The punishment was confirmed by the WNBA on Wednesday evening, according to Fox News. The same day, Storm majority owner Ginny Gilder apologized in a statement for Keaton&#8217;s actions at the Fever vs. Storm game.
&#8220;We are aware one of our co-owners made comments to two fans in attendance at last night&#8217;s game,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;We apologize that this happened. Everyone who attends a Storm game deserves to feel welcome, and we remain committed to creating an inclusive environment where every fan is treated with respect.&#8221;
Keaton allegedly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sophie-cunningham-rips-wnba-team-co-owner-for-harassing-teens-girls-with-xx-xy-shirts?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=Sports&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Sophie+Cunningham+Rips+WNBA+Team+Co-Owner+For+Harassing+Teen+Girls+With+XX-XY+Shirts">hurled</a> a series of expletives at the two teen girls who showed up to Tuesday’s game sporting XX-XY Athletics gear and holding signs in support of Fever star Sophie Cunningham. Keaton called the girls “f*cking insane” and left one of the teens in tears, according to reporting from independent journalist Brandi Kruse.
The girls were also harassed by Storm players and adult fans, Fox News reported. One male fan said the girls were “trash” that needed to be “taken out” by the security guard. 
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Some WNBA players and fans have been outraged that Cunningham is speaking out publicly about supporting girls&#8217; sports. She said last week that she will never cower from her position and said biological males do not belong in female locker rooms or athletics.
“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,&#8217;” Cunningham told ESPN, referring to her position on women’s sports. “I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that 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.”
After she received backlash, Cunningham doubled down, calling her stance &#8220;common sense&#8221; and bluntly stating, &#8220;I said what I said.&#8221;
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<div id="attachment_1146913" style="width: 662px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1146913" class="wp-image-1146913 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-30-at-8.34.31-AM.png" alt="" width="652" height="452" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-30-at-8.34.31-AM.png 652w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-30-at-8.34.31-AM-300x208.png 300w" sizes=" (max-width: 652px) 100vw, 652px" />Credit: Brandi Kruse</div>
Cunningham responded to the incident involving the teens late Wednesday night. She applauded the teen girls for &#8220;standing up&#8221; for their beliefs and said they would be hearing from her soon. As for Keaton, she called the fiasco &#8220;truly embarrassing&#8221; for the co-owner, adding that the incident &#8220;shows the type of leader she is.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
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.
Bravo to those girls for standing up for what they believe. You’ll be hearing from… <a href="https://t.co/gIVWhEHi3Q">https://t.co/gIVWhEHi3Q</a>
— Sophie Cunningham (@sophaller) <a href="https://x.com/sophaller/status/2082675804874604615?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 30, 2026</a></blockquote>

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WNBA Co-Owner’s Tirade At Sophie Cunningham Fans Ends In Fallout

Basketball

Girls

transgender

Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham ripped a WNBA team co-owner for harassing and cursing out teen girls with signs supporting Cunningham and female sports, calling the incident &#8220;truly embarrassing.&#8221;
&#8220;Bravo to those girls for standing up for what they believe. You’ll be hearing from me soon,&#8221; Cunningham said in a <a href="https://x.com/sophaller/status/2082675804874604615">post</a> published late Wednesday night. &#8220;Truly embarrassing of the co-owner. Unfortunately shows the type of leader she is.&#8221; 
The WNBA star added that there should be a safe space for all people, writing, &#8220;I truly believe there is a safe space and love for EVERYBODY,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Biological girls, biological boys, trans women, and trans men. Everyone is welcome at my table! You can disagree and still be kind.&#8221;
As highlighted by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-co-owner-accused-of-cursing-out-teen-girls-over-xx-xy-shirts?author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=WNBA+Co-Owner+Accused+Of+Cursing+Out+Teen+Girls+Over+XX-XY+Shirts">The Daily Wire</a>, two teen athletes sporting signs in support of Cunningham and female-only sports were <a href="https://x.com/BrandiKruse/status/2082500178226155685?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">harassed</a> at a Tuesday night WNBA game. Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton reportedly unleashed a wild, unprovoked tirade, branding the teenagers “f*cking insane,&#8221; leaving one of the 16-year-old girls in tears. The teens were repping XX-XY Athletics gear, which stands in support of female sports.
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<div id="attachment_1146913-2" style="width: 662px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1146913-2" class="wp-image-1146913 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-30-at-8.34.31-AM.png" alt="" width="652" height="452" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-30-at-8.34.31-AM.png 652w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-30-at-8.34.31-AM-300x208.png 300w" sizes=" (max-width: 652px) 100vw, 652px" />Credit: Brandi Kruse</div>
Storm players and fans also harassed the young Cunningham fans, according to Fox News. One adult male fan referred to the girls as &#8220;trash&#8221; that needs to be &#8220;taken out&#8221; by security.
Cunningham <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-star-breaks-with-league-on-explosive-issue?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=6&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=WNBA+Star+Breaks+With+League+On+Explosive+Issue">told</a> ESPN last week that she will always stand up for girls&#8217; sports and is against biological males in female locker rooms and athletics.
“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,&#8217;” Cunningham said, referring to her position on women’s sports. “I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that 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.”
The athlete later doubled down on her position, bluntly telling sports reporters, &#8220;I said what I said.&#8221; She also called her position to keep female sports female only &#8220;common sense.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-co-owner-accused-of-cursing-out-teen-girls-over-xx-xy-shirts?author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=WNBA+Co-Owner+Accused+Of+Cursing+Out+Teen+Girls+Over+XX-XY+Shirts">WNBA Co-Owner Accused Of Cursing Out Teen Girls Over XX-XY Shirts</a>

Indiana Fever v Seattle Storm

Sophie Cunningham Rips WNBA Team Co-Owner For Harassing Teen Girls With XX-XY Shirts

Sophie Cunningham Rips WNBA Team Co-Owner For Harassing Teens Girls With XX-XY Signs

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