Sophie’s right choice

Sophie Cunningham has a spirit of boldness, not of fear.

If the tall, blonde guard for the WNBA’s Indiana Fever hasn’t made that clear in her role as superstar teammate Caitlin Clark’s de facto bodyguard on the basketball court, she certainly has by openly declaring that boys don’t belong in girls’ sports.

Here’s the quote Cunningham gave ESPN for a profile of her that went viral on July 21:

I get a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans (people). 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. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sports who shouldn’t have to go against a biological man.

Cunningham’s quote got me thinking for multiple reasons.

First, it reminds me of 1 Corinthians 13:6: “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” If Cunningham was indeed leaning upon that verse when she spoke, it wouldn’t surprise me: The former University of Missouri star got baptized for the second time in her life at Christ’s Church of the Valley in Arizona back in April.

“I got baptized when I was little but I was feeling a tug on my heart to do it on my terms as an adult!” Cunningham, who played for the Phoenix Mercury for six years before being traded to Indiana before the 2025 season, told her 1.8 million TikTok followers. “Such a fun, amazing day. Thank you Jesus!”

Cunningham’s rededication of her life to Christ is a wonderful thing. However, it could come at a cost—namely, her career.

Think about it: The WNBA is about the most LGBT-friendly pro sports league in America, if not on the entire planet. And whenever Christian female pro athletes have been fearless enough to cross the rainbow mafia, they’ve found themselves unemployed soon after.

It happened to soccer player Jaelene Daniels (formerly Hinkle): The defender who declined an invite to join the U.S. women’s national team (USWNT) in 2017 because she would have had to wear a Pride-themed jersey drew the ire of Northwest Women’s Soccer League fans five years later when she skipped the North Carolina Courage’s Pride match. In a manner not befitting its name, the Courage released Daniels at the end of the season, and no other NWSL team signed her, effectively forcing her into retirement.

Something similar happened to Daniels’ former back-row linemate with the Courage, Elizabeth Eddy. The defender for Los Angeles’ Angel City FC dared argue last fall in a New York Times op-ed that being female should be a requirement for playing in a women’s pro league. In response, two of her own teammates came out against her, as did the team itself. After no NWSL team signed her in the wake of the backlash, Eddy officially retired in March.

Given her popularity, WNBA teams would be stupid to blackball Cunningham—though popularity hasn’t stopped players from trying to drive out Clark. Regardless, Cunningham appears to have counted the cost of standing for truth (Luke 14:27-29), and she isn’t backing down. Asked about her remarks before the Fever’s July 22 game against the Connecticut Sun, the 29-year-old told reporters, “I said what I said. I think it’s kind of common sense.

“And I think I’ll always believe in that. I think it’s really important to protect children, and that’s little girls who are also involved in that category. I stand on what I said.”

Cunningham’s stance matters. On July 28, at Indiana’s road game against the Seattle Storm, two teenage girls sat courtside wearing apparel from XX-XY Athletics, a brand created specifically to promote the protection of women’s sports. Surrounded by a very pro-LGBT+ crowd that vociferously booed Cunningham every time she touched the ball, the girls held up a sign that read, “Thank you, Sophie, for speaking up for girls.”

Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton responded by berating the girls at halftime and reducing them to tears, calling them “(expletive) insane.” Keaton did this even though Climate Pledge Arena, the Storm’s home, prohibits abusive or obscene language and says violators could be ejected.

The Storm later issued the standard corporate apology: “Every person who attends a Storm game deserves to feel welcome, and we remain committed to creating an exclusive environment where every fan is treated with respect,” the team said in a press release. The WNBA then suspended Keaton for five home games and fined her an undisclosed amount. Still, the incident underscores why Cunningham’s stance requires courage.

As former ESPN reporter Sage Steele said on her podcast before the Seattle incident: “Sophie Cunningham did it—what no other woman in the WNBA has been willing to do: She stood up for other women.

“It’s actually been maddening, frankly, to witness so many other women choose to ignore the obvious and basically virtue signal. … It’s sad to me that it took so long.”

Steele even called Cunningham “the kind of woman that I want my daughters to look up to.” As the father of a Christian female athlete myself, I couldn’t agree more.