Kim Slusser, mother of former San Jose State University volleyball player Brooke Slusser, led a rally in Dallas on Wednesday in support of athlete Sophie Cunningham, continuing a series of demonstrations advocating for policies supporting cisgender women in sports.
The rally, organized with the Texas-based advocacy group Texas Values, took place outside the American Airlines Center ahead of a WNBA game between the Dallas Wings and Cunningham's team, the Indiana Fever.
Kim Slusser spoke at the event, recounting her daughter Brooke's experience at San Jose State. Brooke Slusser joined a lawsuit against the NCAA in fall 2024, citing her experience of sharing a volleyball team and an apartment with a transgender athlete whom she later learned was biologically male. This situation, Slusser said, brought her family into the national spotlight.
"Almost overnight Brooke was launched into a media frenzy," Kim Slusser stated in her speech. "It was overwhelming at times, and nothing our family was ever prepared for."
She expressed her family's support for Sophie Cunningham, stating, "Sophie chose to use her voice to stand up for women and girls in sports. And what she's standing for is really very simple. Girls deserve a fair chance to compete. They deserve the opportunities created for female athletes. They deserve privacy in their locker rooms and in their apartments."
In comments to Fox News Digital after her speech, Kim Slusser emphasized the difficulty of her daughter's experience and the growing movement. "My daughter Brooke went through a lot at San Jose State University... it's one of the hardest thing our family has ever been through," she said. "So to see a woman speak up, and now its' becoming a movement... People are starting to come around and have a little more common sense thanks to Sophie because she's one of the few professional athletes that has come out and spoken up."
Slusser indicated she would support the WNBA if the league acknowledged the "W" in its name as standing for women, referencing a recent team meeting. "I would prefer they acknowledge what the W means in the WNBA. I know they had a meeting last week and couldn't quite figure out what the W stood for so they're going to have to reconvene," she said.
The "Sophie Nights" rallies, which began in July in Seattle, have become a notable aspect of the WNBA season. These demonstrations have highlighted a national debate on the inclusion of transgender athletes in women's sports and have led to various incidents and discussions within the league. These include the suspension of a co-owner for confronting young supporters of Cunningham, scrutiny of coaches' responses to questions about women's sports policies, and WNBA statements addressing fan attire at games.
The ongoing protests have positioned the WNBA as a prominent venue for discussions surrounding the broader national debate on women's sports, influencing the league's narrative as it progresses toward the playoffs.