Sophie Cunningham points out what's rights

A brief history of professional female athletes speaking out for women's sports

Given the media meltdown over finger-pointing meme-ified WNBA player Sophie Cunningham’s statement that girls sports should be for girls, here’s a brief timeline of the vanishingly few active professional female athletes who have spoken publicly in support of women’s sports for women, and responses that explain why there are vanishingly few active professional female athletes who speak publicly in support of women’s sports for women.

photo credit: x.com

If, for example, you’re blanking on the name of the Canadian cyclist who protested males in women’s cycling by wearing a women’s-supportive t-shirt on the podium, your search will frustratingly come up with Kristin Worley, one of the Canadian male cyclists women were protesting about. Unless you type Danika Schroeter’s name into a search engine, the internet has erased any record of female athletes speaking out in support of women’s only sports. Way back in 2002, the Canadian Cycling Association gave male mountain biker Michelle Dumaresq (Cycling News in 2006 called Dumaresq a “transsexual”) a female race license. Five of the top women riders, who were very supportive of Dumaresq as a rider and a person, but felt it was unfair competition, suggested CCA create a new trans category. They were ignored. Dumaresq won the Canadian downhill national championships in 2006 for the third time. A friend handed Danika Schroeter a Sharpie-lettered t-shirt that read 100% Pure Woman Champ 2006, which she wore as the silver medalist on the podium, while her supporters “shouted obscenities” at Dumaresq. CCA suspended Schroeter for three months. Schroeter appealed that punishment, saying it did not align with UCI’s discipline policy. CCA said the discipline was warranted “because of the way she used the national championships podium ceremonies to air her views in an offensive manner, not because of the issue she chose to protest.” CCA went on primly that women could express their views that it was unfair for men to compete in their sport as long as they did so “in a moderate and respectful manner.” Let’s recall where five years of moderate and respectful expression of views got them. The “compromise” that CCA landed on was that Schroeter was to publicly apologize for her actions and apologize in person to other riders when she was allowed to participate as a member of the Canadian team at the mountain bike world championships. She could serve her three-month suspension after that. Her grovelling public apology was printed in Pedal Magazine, including this: “The message upon my t-shirt was inappropriate, insulting and directed negative attention towards my sport.” Schroeter was utterly humiliated. CCA, who knowingly allowed a man to compete in women’s sport, handing him awards and spots on national teams meant for women, was never disciplined for their egregious violation of the foundation of the sport. This appalling demonstration ensured no actively competing female cyclists stood up for their rights, “moderately” or otherwise, for more than a decade as males paraded in their sport with impunity. Even after UCI finally decided the women’s category should be for women (or males who messed with their endocrine system as children) in 2023, there was no public apology for destroying women’s sports for 21 years. Women were meant to be grateful.

In June 2023, then D1 hockey player Britta Curl posted on social media in support of fellow hockey player Jocelyne Lamoureux’s support of USA Powerlifting’s attempt to maintain the female category for females only. Curl posted a response to calls for Lamoureux to lose her job for “abhorrently transphobic behavior” saying: "Females protecting female players on the female players association board? Thank you LamoureuxTwins.”

The sky darkened, the curtains of Democratic headquarters were rent in two, and kind, loving trans allies the world over took to their keyboards to dump hot bubbling vitriol on Curl’s curls, calling her not only transphobic but, oddly, racist. The screeching got even louder and more poisonous when, in 2024, Curl was drafted by PWHL (the W is for Women’s; the transphobia never stops) Minnesota, to the point that, in order to salvage not only her career but her skin, she issued a grovelling Instagram apology for the “hurt” and harm she caused by supporting someone else for supporting women’s sports for women. This sent the Man Mob into a frenzy. Now, two years later, Curl-Salemme is still booed every time she steps on the ice. I have never seen anything like the spitting viciousness, open incitement to violence, the orders of magnitude out of proportion hate, in professional sports, men’s or women’s. This insanity was described recently in mainstream media as “significant criticism.”

In October 2025, Angel City defender Elizabeth Eddy wrote an op-ed in the New York Post calling for some kind of eligibility standards, since again, the NWSL (is that W just decorative?), the professional women’s soccer league, has no definition for what constitutes a woman. Eddy suggested players either “be born with ovaries” or the league institute genetic testing.

Again, the skies darkened at mid-day, birthing people shielded their children from the violence of those words, and her teammates and Angel City front office folx quick called a press conference so that they could call Eddy transphobic and (again, somehow) racist on TV, and announce to the world that women’s professional soccer did not care about women and was not a serious sport since it was more of an all-comers league who very much supported leading scorer Barbra Banda and other players who had been barred from playing in the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations because of “high testosterone levels.”

Eddy told NBC News that since her op-ed was published, she heard from current players "who agree with my points, but are too fearful to speak up.” She told OutKick she thought about speaking out for a long time but “selfishly” valued playing more than doing what she knew to be right. She knew that saying out loud that women’s sports should be for women would be career ending. This was 2025, folks. That changed when Angel City scrimmaged with a boys’ U14 team, and lost. The Angel City captain then decided to end scrimmages with teenage boys because of injury risk and the fear that the boys’ parents would video the practices and post them online, and “it wouldn’t look good for the team. To me, that was a huge wake-up call," Eddy told OutKick. "If professional athletes of the highest level were so physically outmatched by teenage boys, yet there's this pressure to hide that reality rather than acknowledge it. That's why protected categories are so vital." Five months after her op-ed was published, Eddy announced her retirement.

Cut to right now, that straight-talker out of the Show Me state, Sophie Cunningham, has made a meme out of pointing out wrong-doing. But what made the media lose their collective minds was, not an accusation, no pointing, no hate, just a simple statement of “common sense” and “love” for biological women in a long profile in ESPN. Though it was an extensive wide-ranging story including her family life, her resume on the paint, her style of play and reputation for standing up for, and pointing out, what’s right, the small part of the profile the media seized on was her statement that girls should be protected in the locker room and that “they shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

She’s a woman playing in professional women’s sports: recognizing the importance of these foundational realities does not seem in any way controversial. Unless you interpret “I support women’s sports” as anti-trans. Which the media almost universally did. While she said girls and women should not have to compete against “biological men,” reporters and editors reflexively demonstrated reality—they mentally equated biological men with trans. Biological men = trans. Oops.

The New York Times headline read: “Sophie Cunningham says it’s ‘common sense’ to keep trans athletes out of women’s sports.” She said nothing of the kind. She said it was common sense to protect girls and have male-free sports. Her comments were about girls and women and supporting Title IX rights. She never said anything anti-trans. The paper of record misquoted her in the headline. The Hill’s headline read: “WNBA star defends efforts to ban trans athletes from youth sports.” Misrepresented again. Her focus was on protecting the rights of girls and women, not banning trans athletes. Yahoo Sports went further into propaganda territory, quoting one male sportscaster who opined that “the WNBA needs to suspend her,” and became hysterical because Cunningham “refused to apologize.” That tactic has worked before; why isn’t it working now? He lost his shit because a woman would not apologize for saying women’s sports should be for women.

OK, Fox News got it right: “Sophie Cunningham inspires young athletes to speak out on protecting girls’ sports.”

So, yes, in 2026 it’s still impossible to make a blindingly mundane straightforward women’s-sports-for-women statement without the media 1) interpreting that as anti-trans, and 2) endlessly reflecting their own rigid captured narrative back. The media played a key role in instituting gender ideology and spreading ideology as fact, and they are desperately beating that dead horse, even as the public and sports organizations back away.

Here’s where Cunningham’s story veers from Curl’s and Eddy’s. Throughout this media-orchestrated struggle session, John Q. Public has quietly nodded along with her. The majority of commenters to The New York Times coverage wrote something along the lines of, She’s right you know. The vast majority of Americans think women’s sports should be for women, and critically, they now know they are in the majority.

No enforcers from the WNBA or the Indiana Fever have come to make Sophie Cunningham an offer she can’t refuse. No press conference has been called to denounce her. On the contrary, the Fever announced they support her freedom of speech, and let her loose in the mixed zone. They’re reading the room: A pro female athlete saying …

“If Title IX and women’s sports weren’t protected, then you wouldn’t hear about any type of women in sport. And so, I think in the future, it’s just really important to protect.”

is resonating with people. Turns out, women saying women’s sports should be for women is good for the WNBA. Who knew?

Far from being dropped by sponsors, ESPN pointed out that, for a reserve player, Cunningham has the kind of top-tier, star power recognition and relatability that makes sponsors’ hearts go ka-ching. Her own Adidas Crazy Energy PE kicks come out July 24th.

Coming on the heels of Women’s Tennis Association’s announcement that they will protect the integrity of women’s tennis with genetic screening, and the Supreme Court’s ruling that states may organize sports by sex, quite suddenly the fever has broken. People are realizing, not only should women’s sports be for women, but that it’s not in any way controversial to say women’s sports should be for women. What Sophie Cunningham’s finger has exposed is the media’s role in silencing women, shaming female athletes, gaslighting the public, and now desperately trying to keep the lie going. Cunningham has proven, women can say out loud that women’s sports should be for women and not be smote with the vengeful fires of transrighteousness. That meme-ified finger pointed unapologetically at women’s rights.