spiked93%
Sophie Cunningham’s courage could be a game-changer for women’s sports 85%
By Jo Bartosch87%
7/24/2026, 7:02:27 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 34 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Appeal to Emotion, and Indoctrination, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 42.3% saturation with 307 hits. Analysis detected 1,676 faulty-reasoning hits from 725 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 76.6% and a BS Rank of 85% (3,388 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 84.50% of the article peer group.
Basketball isn’t my usual pastime, not least because I’m a podgy British midget.
Until this week, I’d never watched a game and couldn't have named a single basketball player.
Now I’m a Sophie Cunningham fan.
The WNBA star, whose pointed finger became an internet meme, has aimed it at the biggest injustice in women's sport: the trans takeover.
In an interview with ESPN this week, Cunningham explained why Title IX – the US law guaranteeing equal opportunities for women and girls in federally funded education – still matters: ‘I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.’
When the inevitable backlash arrived, the Indiana Fevers guard refused to budge.
In doing so, she changed the game for women and girls across the US sporting world.
She has now become one of the highest-profile active female athletes in America to say the bloody obvious: men have an inherent sporting advantage over women and, whatever their identity, males have no place competing in the women's game.
Cunningham insists this is simply common sense and says she is ‘not a very political person’.
Predictably, though, her comments have been bounced between opposing teams: applauded by the White House and denounced as a transphobic ‘MAGA Barbie’ by the #BeKind bullies.
How her remarks have been reported is revealing.
A female athlete spoke about protecting women's sport.
Yet the headlines almost invariably turned the story into one about the feelings of a minority of mentally ill men.
The Athletic, a subsidiary of the New York Times, declared: ‘Sophie Cunningham says it's “common sense” to keep trans athletes out of women's sports.’
The Washington Post announced: ‘WNBA player Sophie Cunningham won't stop talking about trans athletes.’
Yahoo Sports offered: ‘Fever's Sophie Cunningham clarifies stance on trans participation.’
Even when women speak about women, the mainstream media's instinct is to centre the men.
Pretending men have no sporting advantage over women is as absurd as insisting they can give birth.
At 6’1”, Cunningham is exceptionally tall, even by elite female standards.
Yet the average male professional basketball player stands around 6’7”.
She knows that if sex categories disappear, women's sport won't become more inclusive; it will become more male.
Without single-sex competition, mediocre men won't merely enter the women's game; they'll eventually dominate it.
Of course, men's sport has nothing to fear from 5’5” women athletes who identify as male.
The dismantling of sex-based protections affects every part of public life, but sport, with its intense focus on the body, is where the lie that men and women are interchangeable is hardest to sustain.
When Lia Thomas (6’1”) shares women's changing rooms before racing against female swimmers, and Imane Khelif is allowed to punch women in the face, elite women's sport ceases to be a celebration of female excellence.
It becomes a public lesson in female submission, where athletes face the reality of having their funding stripped should they speak out.
Consequently, it is unsurprising that most women athletes who find their voices do so only after retiring.
That is what makes Cunningham so refreshing.
At 29, she is still competing at the highest level.
The same competitive instinct that leads her to stick up for teammates on the court now extends to women's sport itself.
She has never been the sort of player to wait for the referee's whistle before meting out a little justice of her own, earning technical fouls, fights and suspensions along the way.
Cunningham's coach, Stephanie White, once said of her:
‘You know she's going to have your back.
That kind of fearlessness, that toughness, it's contagious.
When you see somebody do it, then you want to do it.’
Elite female athletes have spent years learning that silence is safer than honesty.
Sponsors disappear, governing bodies look the other way and journalists ask why women can't simply be kinder.
Cunningham has broken the rules and refused to apologise.
White is correct.
Bravery is contagious.
Every active athlete who speaks up in favour of female rights makes it easier for the next one to do the same.
Sophie Cunningham has taken the shot.
Now the rest of women's sport needs to get off the bench.
Jo Bartosch is co-author of Pornocracy.
Order it here.
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