The WNBA’s crossover of controversy with the “Save Women’s Sports” movement deepened on Friday night.
Caitlin Clark was not made available to speak to reporters despite recording the fourth triple-double of her career. Her teammates that were made available fled the scene when a reporter sent by OutKick attempted to ask about Sophie Cunningham’s recent stance on protecting women’s sports.
And while Clark and her teammates were on the floor dominating the Portland Fire for the Fever’s fifth straight win, their coach was going viral on social media for answers to questions asked by the same reporter about the women’s sports debate that has gripped the W in recent weeks.
During a pre-game press conference, Fever head coach Stephanie White was asked her opinion on biological males competing in women’s sports.
“I don’t know that I would say I’m educated enough from a scientific standpoint. I don’t ever believe that exclusion is the answer. I just don’t. I do think that when we think about various levels of sport, various governing bodies of sport, and things that go into that, like I said, I’m not educated enough at the different levels. I know growing up I played with the boys all the time,” White answered.
The coach was then immediately asked if she would welcome a biological male in the WNBA. She did not rule it out.
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“I don’t know, when we talk about biological male and scientifically where we are, I think it’s a totally different scenario. Like I said, I’m not educated enough on transgender and transitioning, to give you a smart answer. I would say though that I just don’t think that exclusion is the answer, we need to have deeper and more layered conversations,” she said.
She was then immediately asked if she would “be okay with them in the locker room.”
White did not answer that question, and took a different question asking if the topic had become a point of “frustration,” for her team, but acknowledged the debate as “part of our growth edge as a league.”
“There is frustration, of course, because we want to talk about basketball, and we want to continue to work on our game, and we want to continue to grow as a team. But I also understand this is part of our growth edge as a league, and we have to be able to manage, we have to be able to insulate as much as we can, and then we have to be able to lead with conversation.”
It was the second game in a row in which a rally took place outside prior to tip-off in support of Cunningham. The Fever guard addressed the rallies prior to the game.
“I have honestly had nothing to do with them,” Cunningham said, per The Associated Press. “I think it’s people just practicing their rights of freedom of speech and doing what other fans have been doing since the WNBA has started. And so props to them, props to everyone who is able to be competent and be bold and courageous enough to to speak their truths.
“I think at the end of the day, I come in and I do my job. I think everyone who knows me personally, they know that I’m full of love. I’m bubbly. I love the people around me. I love basketball. I love inspiring the next generation and doing that in a positive light. And so that doesn’t even cross my mind. Doesn’t cross my teammates’ minds.
“And again, I’m here to play basketball, but I’m also here to be me, and I’m not gonna like shadow that or hide or, you know, dim my light just because maybe people don’t agree with that.”
Meanwhile, Clark was not made available to reporters for the second straight game. Fox News Digital has asked the Fever why Clark was not available, but has not received a response.
The reporter sent by OutKick also attempted to ask the two players who were available in the post-game press conference, Aliyah Boston and Makayla Timpson, about Cunningham’s recent stance on the issue, but the question and the remainder of the press conference was abruptly cut off when he began to ask.
The Fever cut the final exchange out of the video of the conference that was uploaded to YouTube.
Boston did address a general question about the Fever facing heightened attention.
“We know that there’s always going to be attention with the fever and for us it’s about coming in winning games. It’s for uh it’s about showing up and doing what we can to continue to take steps forward in this league,” Boston said. “And I think there’s always going to be outside noise. Um but I think we’ve been professionals long enough to know that if you let that affect you, then you’re not really here for the right things. And so for us, we just keep the main thing, the main thing.”
White’s responses drew criticism on social media from some users who support protecting women’s sports, while others criticized the questioning itself.
Some critics compared White’s answer to a previous controversial statement by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson. During her 2022 confirmation hearings, Jackson was asked by Senator Marsha Blackburn to provide a definition for the word “woman.” Jackson famously declined, responding, “No, I can’t… I’m not a biologist.
Portland Fire head coach Alex Sarama was also asked a question by that same reporter about males in women’s sports during pre-game media availability, and did not give a straight answer.
“My focus is as a basketball coach. To be completely honest, I don’t think I’ve ever had to think about that. I’m completely supportive of people from all communities, people from all walks of life, so that’s my stance, completely, I’m support of everyone in the Portland community,” Sarama said.
Outside the Moda Center, dozens of Cunningham supporters gathered for the second consecutive Fever road game, while counterprotesters assembled nearby, some wearing costumes.
The Portland demonstration followed Tuesday’s rally in Seattle, where supporters gathered outside Climate Pledge Arena to back Cunningham’s stance and proposed Washington ballot initiatives to protect girls’ sports.
Inside the arena, two 16-year-old girls wearing XX-XY Athletics shirts held a courtside sign reading, “Thank you Sophie for speaking up for girls.” The teenagers alleged that Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton approached them, invoked their Christian faith, called them “f—ing insane” and left one of them in tears.
The Storm publicly apologized, while the WNBA fined Keaton an undisclosed amount and barred her from Seattle’s next five home games. Cunningham later praised the girls for standing up for their beliefs, promised to send them gifts and called Keaton’s alleged conduct “truly embarrassing.”
A third Cunningham rally is planned for Sunday outside Target Center before the Fever face the Minnesota Lynx, in one of the higher-stakes games of the entire WNBA season.
The game will pit the league’s two hottest teams as the Fever are 19-10 after their five-game winning streak, while the Lynx are riding a nine-game winning streak to the best record in the W at 24-6.
And Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve, unlike White and Sarama, has taken a more definitive stance on the debate over males in women’s sports.
Reeve revealed her stance on the issue on July 17, days before Cunningham revealed hers. Reeve was asked that day about the recent Supreme Court ruling that protects state laws that ban males from women’s sports.
“The attacks on trans people, the attacks that they’ve gone through… it seems like it’s got way more aggressive, it’s sort of sickening when the issues they are trying to tackle are really not issues, the number of transgender athletes they are now making laws for and creating a problem, to get elected,” Reeve said.
“What I’m hopeful for is that people have gotten themselves more educated and they understand that, that’s not actually a problem… exclusion is never the answer, separate isn’t equal, and trans lives matter, so to take away something that’s so valuable that sports brings to young people in particular and what it does, as I have a youngster, encourages you to be part of a team and what it gives you in terms of teamwork, leadership, competitiveness, all the things, they have every right to that as well”
Now, Reeve will lead a marquee-matchup showdown against Cunningham, Clark and the Fever with what is expected to be the biggest Cunningham rally to date raging outside on Sunday.
