Lucifer was gender-swapped, too. I read that the choice was made in part for practical reasons in order to distinguish her from the version in the Lucifer TV show, which was male but eventually diverged too much from the source material. I think it works well enough. Neil Gaiman gave similar reasons for Johanna Constantine: they used her for two different roles to save on actors - as her own ancestress and as the Constantine in the Sandman universe. I remember her from Doctor Who and really liked her as in this role. Again, there seems to be a different (chain-smoking, unkempt) Constantine in one of the DC shows.
All the gender and race swapping works in this universe because Sandman is about archetypes, which are fairly neutral to begin with.
I still wouldn't read too much into it though. A lot of the woke-ness in todays media is glaring because very often it's way too "in-your-face" and over the top. I think it's because the producers don't quite know how to properly deal with it yet. So instead of having stories that simply flow and just are, there is a lot of finger-pointing going on, both from the producers' and the viewers' sides. From the producers' side it's awkward because they are inexperienced and are working with tools they are not familiar with, so they tend to over-represent new themes. From the viewers' side it's awkward because the woke sticks out and everything feels off.
Today there also seems to be a whole anti-woke movement, which looks very much like an allergic reaction and is, by definition, too extreme. It also makes people point their finger at every little detail rather than enjoy something as a whole for what it is (supposed to be).
In Star Trek: Discovery I thought the woke was too much and cringey. In The Magicians the themes were handled very well and felt natural, in that I didn't notice them at all. And just today I read about a huge backlash for Disney's new The Little Mermaid trailer, because Ariel is played by Halle Bailey. That's an instance where it seems obvious to me that the problem probably lies firmly with the viewers, not with the film.