On July 21, Sophie Cunningham commented on the issue of transgender athletes in women’s sport in an interview with ESPN. Cunningham’s stance was clear. “I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” Now, in the debate that’s raging on in the aftermath of the Fever guard’s comments, former USWNT icon Megan Rapinoe has given her take on the issue.
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“They’re using this as a wedge issue, because we love sports, and, you know,
we don’t want our little girls to be unsafe in sports. But now we’re using this as, like, an overarching thing, when, really, we’re attacking women. We’re saying, if you look like this as a woman, you can play,” Rapinoe said while appearing on ABC’s The View.
“They don’t like women in sports because it helps us with confidence and power,
and we see so many women in the C-suite who played elite-level sports. It’s just great for you physically and all of it, but it’s an attack on women in society.”
“I think the tie between the Heritage Foundation now wanting to go after Title IX, it’s just, like, so blatant. Like, let’s connect these dots. It’s more than just a couple of trans kids in the entire country and a couple in each state being able to participate in some youth sports.”
Megan Rapinoe‘s broader point was that concern for women’s sports is selective. For her, many of the people now claiming to protect women’s sports showed little concern for the sport in the past and are instead using transgender athletes as a wedge.
In fact, while speaking on The View, Rapino name-dropped The Heritage Foundation. On July 8, 2026, the foundation dropped a report on their grievances about how the 1972 civil rights law Title IX has evolved.
From Sophie Cunningham’s perspective, “protecting” women’s sports is all about competitive fairness, safety, locker-room privacy, and preserving Title IX.
“That’s why you have some of the greats in women’s sports. If Title IX and women’s sports weren’t protected, then you wouldn’t hear about any type of women in sport,” Cunningham said ahead of their game with the Connecticut Sun.
Meanwhile, for Megan Rapinoe, however, the issue goes beyond sports. She believes it is being camouflaged as an effort to protect women’s sports but is actually part of broader efforts that she feels are detrimental to women’s sports in general.