How the right wing decided to care about women’s basketball in Indiana

Right-Wing Activists Find New Cause in Indiana Fever’s Courtroom Drama

Goldlaner.com – A recent WNBA matchup between the Seattle Storm and Indiana Fever became an unexpected flashpoint in the ongoing national debate over transgender athletes, drawing attention from conservative activists who had found a new arena for their advocacy. The incident centered on Celeste Keaton, who serves as co-owner of the Seattle Storm, and her confrontation with two teenage spectators seated courtside during the game.

The teenagers were dressed in matching shirts displaying “XX/XY” — a nod to human sex chromosomes — while one carried a placard that read, “Thank you Sophie for speaking up for girls!” Sophie Cunningham, a bench guard for the Fever and the team’s fourth-leading scorer, had recently characterized transgender athlete bans as “common sense” in her public statements. The shirts the girls wore came from XX-XY Athletics, a brand established by right-wing advocate Jennifer Sey with the mission of preserving women’s sports for cisgender women.

A Growing Movement on the Sidelines

Keaton faced consequences for her involvement in the confrontation, receiving a fine and a five-game suspension from the league, as reported by ESPN. The story gained momentum when the Fever traveled to Minnesota to face the Lynx. There, Sey — a former gymnast who competed on the US national team and who had previously campaigned against school closures during the pandemic — sat courtside alongside Riley Gaines.

Gaines, a former collegiate swimmer, has built a public platform around her experience of finishing fifth in a tie with a transgender competitor at the national finals. Her advocacy has grown into a full-time pursuit of restricting transgender girls and women from participating in girls’ and women’s sports. The presence of these two athletes at a basketball game was notable, particularly because no transgender women were playing in the game, and the WNBA has never included any transgender players in its history.

The Sophie in question was Sophie Cunningham, a bench guard and the Fever’s fourth-leading scorer, who recently called it “common sense” to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.

The Fever’s Unexpected Cultural Moment

The Indiana Fever, traditionally a middle-of-the-pack franchise that has not won a championship in fourteen years, has experienced a resurgence on the court. This athletic success has coincided with an unexpected cultural spotlight from right-wing activists who see Fever games as an opportunity to express grievances about gender and race.

Ahnaleigh Wilson, a high school runner sponsored by XX-XY Athletics, was among the girls supporting Cunningham in Seattle. Wilson has been a vocal opponent of transgender women in sports since 2024. Right-wing podcaster Brandi Kruse, who accompanied the teenagers to the game and helped promote the story afterward, noted on X that a “generous donor” had covered the cost of their tickets. XX-XY Athletics did not provide comment when contacted for this story.

The same day the Storm issued an apology regarding Keaton’s conduct, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling — a prominent critic of transgender rights — told her millions of X followers that the teenagers were “heroines.” Sey, who founded XX-XY, published a Substack column opposing transgender girls’ participation in sports while portraying the girls as principled victims of a changing cultural landscape.

Caitlin Clark Becomes a Symbol

Before Sophie Cunningham captured the attention of these activists, the conservative focus had been on Caitlin Clark, the Fever’s young star guard. Clark holds the all-time scoring record in Division I college basketball for both women and men, and like Cunningham, she is a white player. In early July, eleven Republican lawmakers led by US Representative August Pfluger of Texas wrote to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert. Their letter claimed that Clark had been “hip-checked, poked in the eye, and struck in the throat during games,” and suggested that this rough treatment “may be racially motivated.” The lawmakers threatened to push for federal investigations of the league and demanded “meaningful action.”

Professional basketball is a physical sport, especially when a younger player with a flair for theatrical shot-making meets established veterans.

Before Clark’s era, the NBA’s “Jordan Rules” strategy in the 1980s saw the Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks test the physical limits of how aggressively they could play against the rising Michael Jordan. Yet right-wing media and political figures framed the treatment of Clark as a scandal. Fox News has devoted more coverage to the fouls against Clark than traditional sports networks, even creating what it called a “Caitlin Clark hard contact timeline: WNBA’s growing history of brutal hits against the face of the sport.”

Newsmax host Greg Kelly recently replayed a flagrant foul on Clark by Phoenix Mercury’s Alyssa Thomas from June, stating, “If the league won’t do anything, I think the cops have to show up and start making arrests.” The WNBA suspended Thomas for one game following the incident. President Donald Trump also weighed in, noting that Clark was “treated rather rough.” Notably, the fact that Black women — who make up the majority of the league — are frequently fouled as well has received less attention in this narrative.

The convergence of sports, politics, and culture continues to evolve as these activists find new platforms and new figures to champion their cause, transforming what might have been a routine basketball game into a broader cultural statement about gender, competition, and who belongs in women’s sports.