WNBA backtracks after Sophie Cunningham fans ordered to remove 'XX-XY' shirts at game: 'fell short'

Fights over silent protests against males in women's sports have jumped from the high school soccer field to the professional basketball arena, as the WNBA wrings its hands over the meaning of "women" with just six weeks until the playoffs and eight months before a draft that could include NBA veterans who claim eligibility under league rules.

Fans of gender-critical Indiana Fever sharpshooter Sophie Cunningham allege that security ordered them to cover up their XX-XY Athletics shirts, which promote female-only sports, at Sunday's Atlanta Dream home game against the visiting Fever at State Farm Arena, where Cunningham celebrated her 30th birthday with an overtime win.

This was despite the fact that Cunningham appeared with XX-XY founder Jennifer Sey, the 1986 U.S. Women's All-Around National Champion gymnast, and Riley Gaines, the former collegiate swimmer, at a Minnesota Lynx game soon after Cunningham endorsed female-only sports in an ESPN profile. 

A photo shows Sey and Gaines wearing the brand and Cunningham holding a hand-drawn sign: "Sophie, thank you - a girl mom."

Both the WNBA and Dream confirmed the incident late Monday, saying fans were wrongly asked by league security – not the team's personnel – to cover their shirts, but did not mention the content of the clothing.

"This should not have happened," a league spokesperson told Front Office Sports. 

"The Atlanta Dream believes in creating a safe and inclusive environment for everyone. Unfortunately, at last night's game, WNBA security took actions that fell short of that standard," the team said.

Transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner, who won an Olympic gold medal as Bruce, is also supporting Cunningham's cause, telling Fox News it's as "simple" as "XX you're in, XY you're out" of eligibility for women's sports. 

Jenner accused the WNBA of "hypocrisy" for its skeptical response to former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White officially declaring for this spring's WNBA draft. The progress women's sports has made under Title IX would be "ruined" by letting males play, Jenner said.

Tennis great Chris Evert said she respects the views of Jenner and transgender tennis pioneer Renee Richards, a male who competed against Evert several times yet proved difficult to vanquish despite being decades older than Evert. Richards now opposes males who have undergone puberty in girls' sports, according to a new biography.

The Dream incident recalls a New Hampshire school district's removal of parents from girls' soccer games for wearing "XX" armbands to protest its policy allowing a male to compete, which prompted First Amendment litigation that initially favored Bow School District. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has yet to rule since oral argument in November.

It represents an escalation in response since Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton allegedly cursed out teenage Cunningham fans in XX-XY Athletics gear, also holding signs thanking her for "speaking up for girls," when the Fever visited the Storm last month. Cunningham shamed Keaton on social media.

Seattle journalist Brandi Kruse, who helped organize a pro-Cunningham rally outside the game, reported the girls weren't told to cover the shirts or hide the signs. She said Climate Pledge Arena security refused to remove Keaton for harassing fans, though the WNBA suspended her for five home games for unspecified behavior.

"They gave us t-shirts during overtime and told us we had to leave or cover our [XX-XY] shirts up," an unidentified woman who attended Sunday's Fever-Dream game with her teenage daughter told conservative activist Adam Francisco after the game. 

The daughter said they paid $1,000 each for their seats on floor 3, row C, three rows from the court, to support Cunningham and girls' sports. 

"We did nothing. We were just sitting there," the mother said, adding that she had wanted to make signs supporting Cunningham but refrained so as not to ruffle feathers at the game. Their shirts have variations of the XX-XY logo on the front, and on the daughter's Riley Gaines collaboration shirt, "for the girls" on the back.

Francisco said the arena Jumbrotron had showcased a fan wearing a pro-transgender shirt. "She was the one who told on us" because personnel had "told her to zip up her jacket," the daughter said. OutKick identified the duo as Kasey and Annie Thomason.

The arena's list of "prohibited items" includes clothing or garments with "derogatory characterization towards any person(s)," while reserving the right to "prohibit other items as deemed necessary." The Dream's code of conduct prohibits apparel with "discriminatory or hateful messages," which will prompt "warnings for violations."

The Dream didn't answer queries about the incident or its policies.

'Biology and science is offensive?'

The Thomasons told OutKick a security guard called them over about halfway through overtime and said one or more fans were "offended" by the XX-XY shirts, telling them to put on the Dream-theme shirts for the night or leave the arena. 

"Biology and science is offensive?" Kasey Thomason said she responded. The ESPN broadcast shows them wearing the XX-XY shirts with two and a half minutes left but Dream theme shirts with 90 seconds left, OutKick said.

Cunningham's stance is also offensive to the moderators of the Reddit discussion group for the WNBA, which the league doesn't control.

They banned mentions of Cunningham "because it tends to [weed] out trolls and people that aren't fans of the WNBA," a moderator told a user who asked why her name was suddenly verboten, threatening to ban the user from the forum if they kept questioning the ad hoc policy.

On the other side, a "Stand with Sophie" petition by Faith Driven Consumer highlights her Christian witness, including two-year-old remarks claiming the WNBA has "more believers than you would actually expect" because Christians tend to keep quiet. The league wants to "hush" players who speak against the "look" and "style" the WNBA promotes, she said.

Cunningham's ideological fans inside and outside arenas at Fever games – a politically diverse group including "Tomboys for Sophie" rallied outside its home game Friday against the Dallas Wings – pose headaches for a league that has long supported males in girls' sports.

For Pride Month five years ago, the WNBA celebrated the male athletes whose domination of girls' track in Connecticut, which prompted litigation by female athletes against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference. A docket order last month says legal discovery ends Feb. 15, 2027, in the case, reinstated nearly two years ago by a federal appeals court.

Yet the league seemed caught off-guard by the groundswell of support for the opposing view, espoused by Cunningham in less than a paragraph of a lengthy July 21 ESPN profile, and by Freedom and White each officially declaring for the WNBA draft this spring based on self-identification as women.

The WNBA nonetheless declined to clarify whether the collective bargaining agreement's limitation on eligibility to "women" refers to sex or gender identity, at an "anti-hate task force" meeting last week.

One critic of Freedom and White, an avowed member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is circulating an unsourced screenshot that falsely claims the league requires a year of testosterone suppression for males to be eligible, rendering the two ineligible.

The WNBA statement following the meeting makes no such reference to conditions for male participation in the league.

The anti-hate meeting included "ongoing discussions on transgender athletes and the continued hate and vitriol directed at players online," a spokesperson said Wednesday. It will continue conversations with "all league stakeholders" in alignment with league "values."

The spokesperson denied there were any "immediate eligibility matters affecting the WNBA" and said the league "strongly denounce[s] the bad-faith efforts to use these topics to demean or marginalize others," without being more specific.

Individual WNBA coaches, players and the players union have also been outspoken in support of males competing in women's sports going back at least five years. Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve and Storm player Stefanie Dolson each wore pro-transgender shirts at recent games in response to Cunningham's remarks.

The Cunningham spat is also a distraction for the Fever, which blocked her and Caitlin Clark, the league's most valuable asset, from speaking to the media after the team silenced the Storm on July 28, at the game where Keaton allegedly cursed out the teen girls.

Currently fourth heading into the playoffs, the Fever is emerging from a fan revolt after coach Stephanie White appeared to dismiss the severity of a clothesline foul on Cunningham by an ejected Chicago Sky player who had criticized Cunningham's stance.