Ever since Sophie Cunningham’s July 21 comments on transgender athletes in women’s sports sparked widespread debates, her supporters have followed the Indiana Fever guard to road games with signs and banners. On July 28, Seattle Storm minority co-owner Celeste Keaton even got fined and suspended for five home games for accosting a couple of teenagers over a sign. Now, former NCAA swimmer and activist Riley Gaines has claimed that her poster also became an issue when she showed up to support the 29-year-old during Indiana vs. Minnesota Lynx on Sunday.

“I was the only person in this whole arena that was told I could not have my sign. I was not being obnoxious and holding it up the entire time because there were people sat behind me,” Gaines said on the August 4 episode of Riley’s Vlog on YouTube.

“He comes over there, and he says, ‘ You need to take your sign down.’ And I kind of push back. I’m like, ‘Why?’ And at this point, everyone in my little section was pretty outraged. They’re seeing the hypocrisy with their own eyes firsthand.”

“So they’re like, ‘Why does she have to put her sign down? Look, that person has a sign. This person has a sign. Why does she need to put hers down?’ And he says, ‘Well, I was told it has her name on it, so she can’t.’ And I said, ‘Whose name?’ He said, ‘Sophie. You can’t have her name on a poster.'”

Gaines said her poster complied with the arena’s stated size policy and simply read, “Sophie, thank you,” and was signed, “a girl mom.” She stressed that it was “nothing political, nothing derogatory,” and was intended only as a show of support for Sophie Cunningham.

Now, Gaines is far from an ordinary supporter. According to Hungarian Conservative, she “has been campaigning for the banning of biological men competing against biological women in sports since 2022.” So when Sophie Cunningham went viral for saying she wanted to “protect young girls in a locker room,” it wasn’t surprising to see Gaines publicly throw her support behind the Fever guard.

But this incident became even more unpleasant for her when she claimed that after the game ended, she was confronted by someone she identified as Kayla McBride’s partner.

“Kayla McBride’s wife or girlfriend, and I still have my little poster, and the game was over at this point. I’ve got my shirt on, and she looks at me and goes, ‘Ew, ew, ew, ew,’ all in my face like that,” she further added.

While Sunday’s game ended with the Lynx handing the Fever a 108-100 loss and snapping their five-game win streak, the conversation surrounding Sophie Cunningham once again extended beyond basketball.

With a fourth rally planned for Indiana’s next road game against the New York Liberty on August 22, it won’t be surprising if another incident takes center stage and shifts the focus away from the basketball.