Last week, Celeste Keaton, a co-owner of the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, joined a group of angry fans confronting two teenage girls sitting courtside at a game between the Storm and the Indiana Fever. The two teens were wearing shirts reading “XX/XY” — a reference to human sex chromosomes — and one held a sign reading, “Thank you Sophie for speaking up for girls!”
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 T-shirts were the product of XX-XY Athletics, a brand by right-wing advocate Jennifer Sey dedicated to keeping transgender women out of women’s sports.
Keaton was fined and suspended for five home games by the league for her role in the incident, according to ESPN. When the Fever traveled to play the Minnesota Lynx days later, Sey — a former gymnast on the US national team who also campaigned against Covid school closures — sat courtside, accompanied by Riley Gaines, the former collegiate swimmer who has turned a fifth-place tie with a trans competitor in the national finals into a career as a spokesperson for banning trans girls and women from participating in girls and women’s sports.
