Sophie Cunningham has won a lot of supporters away from the hardwood this month because of her comments on transgender athletes, however simply as she has doubled-down, certainly one of her closest mates since childhood in Columbia, Missouri has declared he is not on her bandwagon.
West Wilson, Cunningham’s pal since highschool, serves as her co-host on the Show Me Something podcast. Over the weekend, he posted a viral TikTok video in protection of trans athletes.
“Transgender athletes in American sports is such a borderline non-existent issue. Right-wingers have convinced a massive portion of people in our country that these people are, like, a threat to sports in America, when mathematically it’s not the case at all,” stated Wilson, 31. Fans of the truth present Summer House might bear in mind Wilson as one of many housemates. And identical to on TV, he is not shy about his opinion on this divisive situation.
“By continuing to platform this, fucking politicians, athletes, journalists, news outlets, you’re only isolating transgender people even more by making them seem like this giant group of people is a threat to society, a threat to sports, when that’s just not proportionately the truth in any capacity.”
While not addressing Cunningham directly, he made it clear he thinks rants like hers are “dumb.”
“There’s like 10 transgender athletes in all the NCAA. I think there are unique questions that can be handled on [an] individual basis, but to allow this to take attention away from housing, healthcare, and wars and all the other actual harmful shit in our country is dumb.”
The true number, NCAA president Charlie Baker told Congress in 2024, is fewer than 10, as The Advocate reported.
Wilson, a former high school and college football player, now works as a social and editorial producer at Complex, according to his LinkedIn. So, Wilson knows a thing or two about how the media works, but his video has drawn its own backlash on TikTok.
“Said by a person who has a protracted historical past of not caring about girls,” commented Sarah Cooper. “it doesn’t have an effect on you, nevertheless it does have an effect on many younger girls of their expertise in sports activities.”
“Ah sure a person telling girls that should shut up on this situation,” added Nicole Calvin. “It results each organic girls in sports activities.”
A few respondents tagged Cunningham and suggested they discuss it on their podcast by supporting West’s position.
“I perceive this viewpoint,” said Alondra Lopez. “The massive image continues to be that it’s *nearly* a nonissue. The quantity of transgender athletes competing at the next stage is astronomically low. And the ‘gender assessments’ which can be being proposed are rather more traumatic and unfair than something the cis athletes would undergo competing with trans athletes.”
In reporting on Wilson’s TikTok video, Us Weekly clarified for its readers the information about this situation:
“In addition to the low variety of transgender athletes in sports activities, there’s additionally no conclusive proof that transgender girls have a tangible benefit over their cisgender counterparts.” The report cited a study funded in part by the IOC and published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2024, as reported by The Advocate, that found several disadvantages for trans women, including poorer lower-body strength and lung function.
Although the Show Me Something podcast bills itself as posting new episodes twice a week, there hasn’t been a new episode since June. We’ll be watching and listening to see if Cunningham and Wilson hash it out on their next episode.
