Caitlin Clark, Sophie Cunningham Skip Interview After Anti-Trans Rally

The WNBA is seeing historic growth in popularity and is fresh off a record-breaking WNBA All-Star attendance, but the focus has once again been taken off actual basketball playing. 

Tuesday night, two of the most talked-about players, Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham, and their Indiana Fever took on the Seattle Storm. 

Fans were crowded outside Climate Pledge Arena in support of Cunningham because of her anti-transgender sports ideologies.

Protesters were championing statewide initiatives 638 and 011. 638’s aim is to “reserve participation in girls’ sports for students who are biologically female, outlining a defined verification process and enforceable rules” in an effort to preserve “fair competition, safety, and equal athletic opportunity for girls.”

Initiative 011 similarly would bar transgender students from participating in girls’ athletics at all Washington state schools.

The controversy’s tension found its way into the arena, as ESPN reports that Cunningham was booed when she checked in and on her first shot attempt. 

The Fever would go on to win the game 105–95 as they make a playoff push entering the last stretch of the season, but Clark, who scored 32 points, was made unavailable to the media in the post-game press conference.

And of course, so was Cunningham because the team likely knew that the line of questioning would turn to her transgender women in sports opinions.

However, Kelsey Mitchell and Monique Billings, alongside head coach Stephanie White, were subject to questions about the protest. A Fever staffer then jumped in to read a prepared statement.

“Neither our organization nor Sophie had any knowledge of this demonstration and no contact with its organizers,” the statement said. “Our only goal as a team, whether at home or away, is to win basketball games and make Fever fans for life, and we are united in that mission.”

After the Storm’s seventh straight loss, head coach Sonia Raman spoke about the pregame demonstration, too.

“Seattle and this organization and Climate Pledge, we always want to be an area where people feel welcome coming into this building,” Raman said. “I think we’ve always done a really good job with that. So, I know our organization was working closely with Climate Pledge and the security just to make sure that everybody feels safe and included and welcome when they walk in this door.”

Cunningham sparked the firestorm last week during an ESPN interview when she claimed she doesn’t hate trans women and wants to preserve women’s sports by protecting “young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

See how social media is reacting to the latest in WNBA drama below.