Sophie Cunningham’s rise says less about basketball than the incentives of a sports culture where outrage, identity politics and attention have become lucrative commodities
I find it particularly cynical that she’s working to increase her prominence on the back of a group of “fans” who would never be caught dead watching women’s sports
If Clark has lacked the courage and dexterity to say anything beyond the milky and ambiguous, Sophie Cunningham does not suffer from such internal conflicts. Largely anonymous politically or otherwise during her eight-year career, Cunningham – she of the viral finger-point which has been adopted as a symbol of the white animosity toward the WNBA culture – is in her moment. Her comments in a lengthy 21 July ESPN profile stating her opposition to transgender athletes has earned her hero status of the specious “Protect Our Girls” movement, even though you’d need a microscope to find any critical mass of transgender women participating in sports at any level.