Over the past couple of weeks, voices from within and outside the WNBA weighed in on the issue of transgender athletes in women’s sport. Following Sophie Cunningham’s voicing her opposition to the idea in a July 21 interview with ESPN, former US Women’s National Soccer Team legend Megan Rapinoe made her position clear in an appearance on ABC’s The View podcast last month.
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While she didn’t address Cunningham directly back then, that changed on Thursday’s episode of Rapinoe’s “Why Are You Like This” podcast. The USWNT legend posted a clip from the show in which she directly addressed Cunningham’s comments, and Chicago Sky forward DiJonai Carrington agreed.
“Clock it, Megan!” Carrington commented on Megan Rapinoe’s Instagram post. This was the first example of Carrington expressing which side of the argument she is on. Meanwhile, in the video, Megan Rapinoe delivered a comprehensive and characteristically unsparing takedown of Cunningham’s position.
She was also particularly displeased by the photograph of Sophie Cunningham posing with conservative activist and former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines after the Fever’s away game against the Minnesota Lynx at the Target Center.
“I don’t know Sophie. So I can only project what I see about her beliefs based on her actions. And seeing a picture of her with Riley Gaines after the game told me everything I need to know about what’s happening. Riley Gaines has made it her life’s mission to exclude trans people from public life…” Rapinoe said in the video.
“She’s directly tied to the Heritage Foundation, the authors of Project 2025 and now 2026, who have now published a report that suggests that they want to repeal Title IX, the very piece of legislation that allowed athletes like Sophie and myself to compete in sport.”
“Sophie has claimed both to love trans people and support Title IX. And this is where I think the accountability with having a major platform is extremely important. You can hear it even in the language being used that the root of trans exclusion is to protect young girls from men,” Rapinoe added.
Cunningham posed with Gaines for a picture while holding the sign Gaines had brought to the stadium in support of the Indiana Fever star. “Sophie, thank you – A Girl Mom,” read the sign. Besides Gaines, the guard shared the frame with XX-XY Athletics founder Jennifer Sey, who has also been one of her vocal supporters.
Sophie Cunningham, of course, has maintained throughout this debate that her position is rooted in protecting young girls. “I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men,” she told ESPN’s Hallie Grossman. Cunningham has also doubled down on her take despite the backlash and the rallies.
However, Rapinoe also argued that the discussion is being framed around a problem that does not exist, while excluding children from participating in youth sports. And the way she sees it, anyone who genuinely accepts those talking points as legitimate or believes they are protecting young girls in sports leaves her with one question: “Are you serious?”