A pair of teenage girls who brought a sign thanking Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham for defending women’s sports to Tuesday night’s game in Seattle were reportedly scolded and brought to tears by the Co-Owner of the Seattle Storm, Celeste Keaton.
The game, which took place at Climate Pledge Arena, ended with a 105-95 win for the Fever, the club’s fourth victory in a row. But the game was noteworthy for another reason, as fans for and against the inclusion of transgender athletes brought their signs and voices to hail or harangue Cunningham, who recently took a stand against allowing men and boys to compete in women’s and girls’ sports.
Two young fans who came to support Cunningham were seated near the court and held such a sign, thanking Cunningham for “Standing Up for Girls.”
As the girls describe the incident to journalist Brandi Kruse, at first, the girls were sitting there, minding their business.
“Well, we were just sitting there with our signs that said like, ‘We love Sophie,’ like, ‘Thank you Sophie for speaking up,’” one of the young girls told Kruse, “and so we were holding on, just watching the game, again, like, we were being super great, we hadn’t said anything to anyone else, we were being super respectful, we were just holding our signs and cheering for both teams, and this lady (Keaton) comes up to us.”
Next, the pair describe a scene in which an older woman, later identified as Keaton, approached and began berating them.
“Yeah, I’ve never been yelled at like that. I mean, I’ve had people hate me on the internet, but like it doesn’t really affect me as much because it’s just people online,” she said. “But that just took me by surprise because I thought she was going to be nice and then she starts like screaming at us and cussing at us.”
Kruse pointed out to the girls that their tormentor was none other than the Storm’s co-owner. Until that point, they had no idea who the woman was.
ESPN ran a feature last week where Cunningham opined on the topic of transgender athletes’ participation in sports.
“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,’” she said. “I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”