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Caitlin Clark
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NEED TO KNOW
- Caitlin Clark deflected questions about trans athletes
- The WNBA star was asked again about trans athletes playing in women’s sports, days after she broke her silence on the issue
- Clark told reporters on Thursday that she tries “to just show up and be myself every single day”
Caitlin Clark is keeping the “focus on basketball.”
Less than a week after breaking her silence on the issue of trans athletes in women’s sports, the WNBA star was asked to revisit the issue — and she’s sharing that it’s not where her mind is.
“I think first and foremost, like you know, you speak when you feel like you want to speak,” Clark, 24, told reporters on Thursday, Aug. 6. “I try to just show up and be myself every single day.”
On Sunday, Aug. 2, the Indiana Fever guard told reporters that it was “for leagues and governing bodies” to work on the issue of trans athletes playing on women’s teams.
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Sophie Cunningham, Caitlin Clark
Credit: Andrew J. Clark/ISI Photos/ISI Photos via Getty
For Clark, the controversial issue — about which her teammate Sophie Cunningham has been outspoken — is seemingly not one on which she is focusing.
“I’m trying to navigate playing at the highest level, and then you know sometimes you get asked a lot of questions, and sometimes that’s your responsibility,” Clark said. “And then sometimes, you know, you want to keep the focus on basketball.”
The WNBA star’s stance comes days after Cunningham, 29, drew both ire and support for her opinion on the matter, which she first shared with ESPN last month.
“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,’ ” Cunningham told ESPN. “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.”
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Cunningham’s own opinion set off a firestorm of rallies against and for the issue. As supporters of her stance celebrated outside the Fever’s game against the Minnesota Lynx on Sunday, Cunningham posed after the game with controversial right-wing commentator Riley Gaines inside.
That game, the Lynx’s head coach Cheryl Reeve pointedly wore a “Trans Kids Belong” shirt, and was seen animatedly talking with Cunningham before tipoff. On Wednesday, the Fever guard told reporters that she and Reeve exchanged “stories” about their viewpoints.
“She just came up, and I respect her for coming up in person,” Cunningham said. “A lot of people hide behind screens and love that type of thing. She had stories about her point of view and I had stories about my point of view. We left with love and respect and I think that’s what it’s all about.”
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