Amy Hamm: WNBA’s Sophie Cunningham should embrace her culture warrior status

The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) has never been more popular than it is right now. Somewhat regrettably, this sudden WNBA craze has less to do with basketball than it does with a fresh culture war icon: Sophie Cunningham.

It started when Cunningham, that gorgeous Amazonian blonde and player for Indiana Fever, cheekily pointed her finger at an opposing player — for 22 long seconds, while maintaining eye contact — after her teammate was fouled. It was the stuff memes are made of. And it was indeed an immediate meme; even U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House staff shared a version of it on X. The WNBA then forbade brands and licensed merchandising partners from monetizing “the point” in any fashion, due to a rule about not cashing in on player conflict.

For weeks, Cunningham’s pointer finger was all over the algorithms, reminiscent of another blonde bombshell, Sydney Sweeney, and the notorious “white supremacist” blue jeans ad. Like Sweeney, Cunningham was accused — sometimes peripherally, and sometimes directly — of profiting from her skin colour and heterosexuality. “Her whiteness sells. Her whiteness and straightness in a time of nationwide anti-blackness and homophobia sell even more,” Guardian columnist Howard Bryant wrote, without a lick of evidence, of Cunningham. “She bathes in it,” he wrote.

(Is Cunningham supposed to apologize for being white and heterosexual? How could she possibly please anyone who detests her for her skin colour or sexual orientation? It’s impossible to say.)

Little did the public know, Cunningham’s pointer finger was only a prelude to a larger controversy over the inclusion of males in women’s sports.

Cunningham has been talking about protecting the women’s category since at least 2022. She first spoke out about swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological male who competed against women — and whose University of Pennsylvania swim records were rightfully expunged in 2025, following a lawsuit and deal with the U.S. Department of Education.

But the pointing incident, and a July 2026 ESPN feature article, convinced those with woke sensitivities that Cunningham was not just a devilish white woman, but also a bona fide “transphobe.” In the ESPN piece, Cunningham made her position explicit. “I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men,” she said.

Cunningham has since refused to retract her statement or adjust her position in any way. “I said what I said; I think it’s kinda common sense” she told one sports reporter. The subsequent calls for her cancellation, or even expulsion from the WNBA, have been raucous — but not, however, as raucous as the legions of fans supporting Cunningham’s reality-based views on biology and fairness. It is a joy to witness.

Wherever her team, the Indiana Fever play, rallies to support Cunningham follow. Her newly-released Adidas shoes sold out — in men and women’s sizes — in less than a single day last month.

She has inspired others to make her point (figuratively): American pundit Clay Travis has offered US$10 million (C$14 million) to WNBA defending champion team, the Las Vegas Aces, if they play and beat a boy’s high school basketball team of Travis’ choice, seemingly to make the obvious point that men have biological advantages. (Whether they take up his offer or not, his objective was met.)

For her part, Cunningham has proven to be a reluctant culture warrior. She has expressed that she feels “sad” that any political controversy is overshadowing her sport. While the sentiment is understandable, Cunningham should avoid looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Like it or not, women’s sports were already politicized by the widespread inclusion of males, all the way to the Olympic level. Thousands of women and girls across the globe have lost sporting opportunities and awards to males who have no business competing against them. We have to fight back.

And Cunningham is a spectacular pugilist. She is not “politicizing” sport — at all — by defending the female category; she is, in fact, arguing for the depoliticization of sport. Sports are about bodies, not gender identities. It is a twisted and obfuscating lie to suggest that politics only entered the ring when women decided to fight back against the invasion of our sports.

I hope that Cunningham will come to embrace that she can be an icon for two reasons: her athletic talent and her enormous appeal as a defender of women’s sports. That’s nothing to feel sorry about.

National Post