‘Accountability Is Extremely Important’ — Megan Rapinoe Accuses Sophie Cunningham, Riley Gaines of ‘Villainizing Trans Girls’
The Sophie Cunningham firestorm has pulled in yet another major voice, this time from outside the WNBA entirely. Retired U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe pushed back hard on the Indiana Fever guard’s stance on trans athletes and on the company Cunningham has been keeping while defending it.
Megan Rapinoe Criticizes Sophie Cunningham, Riley Gaines Over Transgender Athlete Debate
The moment that set Rapinoe off traces back to Sunday, Aug. 2, when Cunningham and the Fever visited the Minnesota Lynx at Target Center.
Riley Gaines, the former NCAA swimmer turned prominent activist against transgender participation in women’s sports, showed up to support Cunningham in person, carrying a small handheld sign that read, “Sophie, Thank You – A Girl Mom.”
After the final buzzer, Cunningham posed courtside with Gaines and Jennifer Sey, the XX-XY Athletics founder and former Levi’s executive, holding the sign herself in a show of solidarity with her earlier comments.
Gaines has become one of the most recognizable voices in the movement opposing transgender women competing in women’s sports after competing against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas during her college career.
Since then, she has regularly appeared at legislative hearings and sporting events advocating for sex-based competition.
So her appearance to support Cunningham, along with the courtside photos of the Fever guard and Gaines, quickly became another flashpoint in an already heated debate.
Rapinoe, one of the most vocal advocates for transgender inclusion in sports, addressed the photos, claiming Cunningham’s appearance alongside Gaines said more about her stance than any public statement.
“I want to address the controversy that is happening right now around trans women in sports,” Rapinoe said.
“I don’t know Sophie, so I can only project what I see about her beliefs based on her actions. And seeing a picture of her with Riley Gaines after the game told me everything I need to know about what’s happening.”
She went further, tying Gaines directly to a political network Rapinoe argues has bigger goals than protecting girls’ sports.
“Riley Gaines has made it her life’s mission to exclude trans people from public life,” Rapinoe said, pointing to Gaines’ ties to the Heritage Foundation and referencing their report that, she argued, proposes scaling back Title IX — the same law, Rapinoe noted, that opened the door for both her own career and Cunningham’s.
Rapinoe also took aim at what she called a mismatch between Cunningham’s stated values and her public alliances.
“Sophie has claimed both to love trans people and support Title IX,” she said. “And this is where I think the accountability with having a major platform is extremely important.”
She pushed back specifically on the “protecting young girls” framing that has driven much of the debate, arguing it distorts who is actually affected.
“It villainizes trans girls as if they’re somehow magically older than their peers, or are men, when in reality, they are also young girls,” Rapinoe said, adding that the policies being pushed under that banner are, in practice, shutting kids out of youth sports altogether.
Cunningham, for her part, has repeatedly said her position is not rooted in animosity. The 29-year-old wrote on X:
“I truly believe there is a safe space and love for EVERYBODY.”
She has found no shortage of support outside the league, either. Several Republican lawmakers have publicly backed her stance on X, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), along with Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.)
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.
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