The Patriot Post® · Sophie Cunningham Slam-Dunks on Cancel Culture

By Emmy Griffin ·
https://patriotpost.us/articles/129417-sophie-cunningham-slam-dunks-on-cancel-culture-2026-07-27

WNBA player Sophie Cunningham — a teammate of Caitlin Clark with the Indiana Fever — recently made fans and observers even more supportive of her efforts to protect and defend Clark on the court.

Recall that the courageous Cunningham is now meme-famous for pointing a finger at Phoenix Mercury player DeWanna Bonner for beating up on Clark. It goes without saying that the WNBA devalues players who have the wrong melanin count (i.e., white athletes).

Now, Cunningham has made another bold statement.

In an ESPN interview last week, Cunningham — responding to comments calling her hateful — said, “I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that.’” She added, “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.”

When the leftist trolls heard about this, they tried to get Sophie canceled. The sleuths discovered that Cunningham — are you sitting down for this? — follows women’s rights activist Riley Gaines on social media. They also endeavored to dig up any social media activity that was “incriminating.” Yet despite finding nothing noteworthy, the mob hurled the usual insults, and Cunningham faced the whirlwind of leftist hate and stupidity that comes flying at anyone with divergent political beliefs.

The ESPN article was published on Tuesday. By Wednesday, a reporter interviewing Cunningham postgame asked if she could “expand on that viewpoint a little bit.” Cunningham did not back down.

“I said what I said,” she responded, her tone polite but firm. “I think it’s kind of common sense. … I think it’s really important to protect children … and so I stand on what I said, and I’ll always believe that. … I’m not a very political person, but I do have beliefs, I have morals, and I’ll always stand on those and be true to who I am.”

Cunningham refusing to capitulate is incredibly refreshing. This is how you fight the cultural harpies; unfortunately, very few people in the media spotlight have the courage to do it.

Sports commentator Steven A. Smith, who considers himself more middle of the road politically, supported Cunningham, saying on his radio show that she’s “a thousand percent right.” He pointed out that her precept is just common sense, providing this example:

What if an NBA player decided to transition to playing in the WNBA? How elite would they be? How great would they be? We gotta put stuff in its proper perspective and call it like it is. We live in a society where people got scared. They got scared to say these things. We’ve got to stop that. Every truth ain’t meant to be told … but it ain’t meant to be hidden either. You can’t have a society where we’re ignoring the clear unfairness of a male transitioning to female and competing in their sports. It is clearly unfair to women.

This, of course, is in direct contradiction to Megan Rapinoe — a former women’s soccer star who mind-bogglingly believes it’s reasonable for men to play in women’s sports. Rapinoe sees the exclusion of gender-confused athletes from women’s sports as an affront to the fight for LGBTQ+ equality. Last Tuesday — the same day that the ESPN interview with Cunningham was published — Rapinoe told ABC’s “The View” that the fight to keep men out of women’s sports is really a fight to keep women from succeeding. She said:

They’re going after trans people in sports, and they’re using this as a wedge issue because “We love sports” and “We don’t want our little girls to be unsafe in sports.” And it’s like, “Unsafe from who?” … [They’re] saying, “If you look like this as a woman, you can play.” … There’s a bill in Washington happening right now that’s going to require all girls … to go through a sex test … to see if they’re a “woman.”

She insanely concluded, “It’s an attack on women in society.”

Rapinoe is scaremongering to distract from the utter garbage that she has spewed before. It is not pro-women to let a mentally ill man beat up a female in a boxing match or take a first-place surfing trophy from an elite female surfer. It’s certainly not pro-women to let men into the female locker room; that’s just asking for trouble.

Rapinoe also willfully misrepresented the issue. Women sustaining injuries by playing against biological males is a major concern, as is women losing their ability to earn spots on teams and podiums. Just ask women’s biking.

Furthermore, there are many examples of gender-confused males gleefully entering women’s spaces or exposing themselves in locker rooms.

Rapinoe has deluded herself to the point that she thinks up is down, wrong is right, and boys and girls are interchangeable. Her own mental darkness should not dictate policy.

By the way, Rapinoe and her professional team once played teenage boys — and lost. These kids weren’t even at the highest level for elite male players, and yet they defeated the highest-level women’s team — badly.

Three cheers for Sophie Cunningham for her bravery and for wanting to keep the achievement ladder there for the next generation, unlike Megan Rapinoe. Cunningham fights for her teammates and does not yield to the venom of the raging leftist mob. Her courage is the blueprint for both decimating cancel culture and standing up to the political slings and arrows being hurled at athletes who just want to play the game they love.

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