A male protester put a megaphone in Kendall Kotzmacher's face and told her she should have been aborted.
Her mother was standing right next to her.
What that man didn't know is what it already cost Kotzmacher to be standing there.
The Girl Who Already Paid a Price
Kotzmacher didn't show up to the Sophie Cunningham rally as a random activist.
She drove to Minneapolis from Colorado specifically because she knows what losing to a biological male in women's sports actually feels like.
Last June, she was catching for the White Bear Lake High School softball team in the Minnesota state semifinals when Champlin Park's transgender pitcher – a biological male named Marissa Rothenberger – shut her team down for seven innings and then stepped to the plate and hit the double that set up the winning run.
Kotzmacher fell into her little sister's arms sobbing after the loss.
It was the last game she ever played in Minnesota.
https://twitter.com/JackThompsonFOX/status/2085013455203934707?s=20
The Trump DOJ later filed a Title IX lawsuit against Minnesota's education agencies, in part over exactly this kind of situation.
Now Kotzmacher is at Colorado Christian, wearing the XX-XY Athletics brand ambassador shirt, standing next to Riley Gaines and Michelle Tafoya – the former NFL sideline reporter now running for Minnesota Senate – outside Target Center when a man with a megaphone walked straight up to her and told her in front of her own mother that she should never have been born.
"He had a megaphone and was just yelling everything about how awful people we are," Kotzmacher told Fox News Digital. "At one point, I got told that I should've been aborted when I was younger."
What the Left Does When They Can't Win the Argument
Kotzmacher had a direct answer for why the counterprotesters went straight to personal attacks.
"They have no rebuttal to what we're standing for," she said. "They have nothing to go against what we're trying to say, and so they just go back to calling us names."
That's the whole game.
When you can't defend the policy, you attack the person.
Minneapolis police officers reportedly watched the confrontation unfold and did not step in – a bystander had to physically remove the agitator while the cops stood there.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Minneapolis Police Department and had not received a response.
https://twitter.com/KKotzmacher/status/2084685168908828985?s=20
Meanwhile, Riley Gaines – who had originally planned to attend the entire rally – arrived late because her personal security team told her conditions outside Target Center had become too dangerous.
Inside the arena, a Target Center staffer approached Gaines and told her to take down her sign reading "Sophie, thank you – a girl mom."
The stated reason: the sign had Sophie Cunningham's name on it.
Other fans were holding signs with player names throughout the game.
The staffer later returned, apologized, and confirmed Gaines could keep it.
This Is What the Movement Looks Like From the Inside
Here is the part the media won't show you.
Once inside Target Center, Kotzmacher said strangers approached her repeatedly to express support – the same crowd the cameras weren't pointing at.
The arena's video board featured fan after fan in pro-transgender apparel throughout the game.
Supporters of Cunningham were largely absent from the screen.
"There were so many people that were supportive of us," Kotzmacher said. "But in the media, they go to show everyone against us, which is kind of funny to see, because if you were there, it wasn't that way at all."
Cunningham called her stance "common sense" and said the rallies don't distract her.
"I love inspiring the next generation," she told reporters in Portland last week. "That doesn't even cross my mind."
Who's Actually Winning This Fight
The counterprotesters showed up in Minneapolis with bullhorns and a message that a young woman defending girls' sports should never have been born.
Kotzmacher showed up with her mother and her little sister and a T-shirt.
https://twitter.com/KKotzmacher/status/2084329088055984485?s=20
The Cunningham rallies have now hit Seattle, Portland, and Minneapolis in a single week.
The Department of Justice has a Title IX lawsuit pending against Minnesota.
And Kotzmacher isn't going anywhere.
She's been on television, signed the NIL deal with XX-XY Athletics, and said she plans to keep fighting for the protection of women's sports.
"I never thought that I would be in a place to play a biological male," she said after the state championship loss last year. "After that, I was like, I have nothing to lose."
They're trying to make it cost too much to speak.
They haven't figured out yet that for the girls who already paid the price – the ones who sobbed into their little sisters' arms after a championship was taken from them – the math doesn't work anymore.
Sources:
- Jackson Thompson, "NCAA softball player reveals alleged encounter with pro-trans counterprotesters at Sophie Cunningham rally," OutKick/Fox News Digital, August 5, 2026.
- OutKick Staff, "Riley Gaines says Target Center staffer tried to shut down her Sophie Cunningham sign," OutKick, August 3, 2026.
- Jackson Thompson, "Minnesota Softball Standout Doubles Down, Calls Out Unfairness Of Playing Against Trans Pitcher," OutKick, June 2025.
- Jackson Thompson, "Female athletes speak out as trans pitcher returns to Minnesota softball," Fox News, April 8, 2026.