Sophie Cunningham’s take on transgender athletes in women’s sports deeply divided the basketball community. Moreover, her ex-Indiana Fever teammate Sydney Colson has minced no words in criticizing Cunningham for speaking on this controversial issue, as she believes it wasn’t required in the first place.
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“Let me just tell you now. For the white players in the league, when you don’t say s***, and even worse, when you say things that are harmful, you’re talking about the trans s***, nobody respects you. Shut the f*** up. Shut the f*** up,” Colson said during Thursday’s episode of the “Unsupervised” podcast, while chatting with retired WNBA player Theresa Plaisance.
“Nobody wants to hear your opinion,” she added. “Your freedom of speech, so you can say it, but just know people are just trying to get by when they’re dealing with you. And you ought to be ashamed. Y’all ought to be ashamed to act like you’re cool with people, to act like you care about sisterhood, all of these things.”
Colson played alongside Cunningham for the Fever during the 2025 season, where she averaged 2.4 points, 0.8 rebounds, and 2.0 assists per game. Needless to say, Colson has had some strong words for her ex-teammate.
Cunningham’s comments in a personal interview started a saga that soon attained a political undertone. In an ESPN interview with Hallie Grossman in July, Cunningham expressed her position on transgender players in women’s sports.
“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that.’ 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,” Cunningham said.
This was the catalyst for a much bigger controversy that gripped the WNBA and the Indiana Fever in the following months. The league’s eligibility rules also came into question after two ex-NBA players, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, declared themselves eligible for the 2027 WNBA draft.
Kanter Freedom was then ejected from a Chicago Sky game after a verbal altercation with Natasha Cloud. Kanter subsequently challenged his arena ban and is suing the parties involved.
While WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert did call for a discussion on this issue during a meeting of the anti-hate task force, the league statement afterwards said that no eligibility matters affect the WNBA at the moment.
The WNBA’s Article XIII, Section 1(a) mentions that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.”
While Colson argued that Cunningham shouldn’t have taken a public stance that would potentially affect the Fever locker room, Fever teammate Caitlin Clark had brushed aside the debate in August.
“It’s not really a discussion we have in our locker room,” Cunningham’s teammate Caitlin Clark said in August. “It’s for leagues and governing bodies to work with their athletes to find solutions, but my focus is on basketball.”
While Colson had some strong words for Cunningham, she was not the only one Colson called out in the Fever organization on the podcast.
Sydney Colson Calls out Fever Organization After Team President Defends Their Fanbase
During Game 2 of the Fever-Aces first-round series, there was an altercation between Aces star A’ja Wilson and a fan. Wilson apparently took issue with the fan stepping towards her and pointing at her while mouthing something. The now-five-time WNBA MVP angrily marched toward the fan and was subsequently given a technical foul for “unsportsmanlike conduct.”
Moreover, during the same game, Sydney Colson, who was in attendance at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, was seen arguing with a fan, while someone restrained her from a full-blown confrontation.
However, the Wilson altercation brought criticism against the Fever fanbase, so much so that Fever president Amber Cox had to step in and give a statement.
“The attacks on our fanbase have no basis in reality, and they need to stop, especially with members of the media,” Cox said. “I’m talking about media who have never been to a game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Every organization in the league, every organization throughout professional sports, all the way down to youth rec leagues, have to deal with occasional bad behavior from spectators. And anyone who crosses the line in an arena or online needs to be held accountable. I want to be really clear about that. There is a line, and people need to be held accountable if they cross it.”
This did not sit well with Colson, who called out the Fever organization for failing to recognize the problem with the fanbase and then making any sort of effort to act on it.
“We have done little to nothing to address the problems that have happened within Gainbridge Fieldhouse and in arenas where the Fever are playing,” Colson said on the same episode of the “Unverified” podcast. “My thing is, you can’t control how people might respond to a highly charged situation where they might be triggered. Whether you think it makes sense or not, A’ja felt, and she said in the postgame, ‘I didn’t like how he was pointing, looking at me.’ And neither did his (fan’s) wife.”
In 2025, Colson had opened up about the criticism and “negativity” she had to face after joining the Indiana Fever, something she wasn’t accustomed to before. But she seemed to take it in her stride back then.
Only time will tell how the Fever management deals with this issue. At the moment, they don’t seem to view this as an issue at all.