Sophie Cunningham seemed to have it all. As a guard for the Indiana Fever in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), Cunningham’s star power was on the rise. She boasts 5 million Instagram followers, countless brand partnerships, and appeared as a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model.
Then in a July interview with ESPN, Cunningham said that biological men shouldn’t be in women and girls’ sports or private spaces. She is now receiving the backlash from far-left activists we’ve come to expect. Despite it, she hasn’t backed down.
“I said what I said,” she told reporters questioning her position. “I think it’s kind of common sense … it’s really important to protect children, and that’s little girls who are also involved in that category.” She later doubled down on her stance saying, “That’s why you have Title IX. That’s why you have some of the greats in women’s sports. If Title IX and women’s sports weren’t protected, then you wouldn’t hear about any type of women in sport. And so, I think in the future, it’s just really important to protect.”
Most people agree. A majority of Americans believe biological males should not be permitted in female private spaces like locker rooms, dorm rooms, or bathrooms. And nearly 80% of Americans oppose biological males competing on women’s sports teams.
Those numbers reflect something people understand intuitively: biological males have physical advantages over their female peers. In fact, the United Nations, American Parents Coalition (APC), and He Cheated, have each documented countless incidents in which biological males competing in female sports have cost female athletes of trophies, podium spots, and even championship titles. In some cases, the consequences have gone beyond lost opportunities and resulted in physical injuries.
But you’d never know that from looking at the mainstream coverage of Cunningham’s remarks. Instead, the WNBA, the public, and the mainstream media, are allowing a small but loud segment of the population to bully Cunningham for speaking the truth.
The aggression of Cunningham’s opponents has made recent WNBA games look more like violent brawls than professional basketball. Just last week, Cunningham was flagrantly fouled and could have been seriously injured. Some responded by calling it “karma.” She has also been protested and booed at games and even branded as a “MAGA Barbie.” Despite this, the physical, personal, and political attacks have failed to diminish Cunningham’s courage.
“I think that I am here to extend love,” Cunningham has said. “But I also think that with love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in a sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
These words from a professional athlete like Cunningham, or a former top collegiate athlete like Riley Gaines, carry enormous weight. But Cunningham and Gaines should be amplifiers for what we already know the public overwhelmingly supports, not the only ones willing to speak up.
It’s our duty as parents to support their courage, not leave them to stand as the sole advocates for our daughters. We must defend the future of women’s sports as well as the safety, privacy, and opportunities of girls in our own communities. Whether in youth sports leagues, high schools, or even at the collegiate level, parents have an obligation to speak truth, stand up for our daughters, and hold the line. We cannot be afraid of or intimidated by pushback within our community and social circles and idly stand by expecting others to fight these battles for our daughters. We cannot afford to be the silent majority any longer.
That anyone would attack a woman for defending women’s sports, Title IX, and the safety and privacy of female athletes is an outrage. That so few have come to her defense is equally appalling, especially when we know where the public stands. Parents should ask themselves why they are letting her hang out to dry. If more of us were willing to speak up, would Cunningham’s words even seem so remarkable?
As a former athlete and coach, I know firsthand how important being on a sports team can be to the development of young girls. The benefits extend far beyond their athletic careers, giving girls the confidence and skills to thrive later in life. If a boy takes a spot on the team that could have gone to a girl, that girl misses out on crucial opportunities during a formative period of her life. She loses opportunities to develop teamwork, build healthy eating and exercise habits, form friendships, benefit from mentorship, and learn how to win and lose with grace. Allowing boys into female sports threatens the very opportunities those teams were created to provide.
Cunningham stuck her neck out for your daughters. We need parents, coaches, and our community to stand up too.
Nearly half of high school seniors are not proficient in reading or math, and one-third of eighth graders cannot read at a basic level. The aftershocks of pandemic-era school closures are still playing out, with students regressing to levels not seen in more than 25 years, and one in four now chronically absent from the classroom. An overreliance on technology, lax policies around personal devices like cell phones, and weakened discipline standards have only deepened the problem, eroding focus, accountability, and real learning.
The current challenges also extend beyond students. Nearly eight in 10 teachers say they have considered leaving the profession, citing burnout as their pay continues to fall behind that of other college-educated workers. The system is strained at every level, and every person with skin in the game knows it.
Who is at the center of it all? America’s teachers’ unions. While students slip to historic lows in reading and math and classrooms struggle to recover from union-driven school shutdowns, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and its president Randi Weingarten appear focused elsewhere, pouring time, money, and political muscle into ideological conflicts and partisan campaigns instead of fixing the schools they supposedly represent.
As president of the nation’s largest teacher’s union, Weingarten represents 1.8 million educators and plays a central role in shaping K-12 policy and the direction of American education. At a moment of historic academic decline, one might expect her influence to be directed toward fixing it.
It’s not. She is focused on her own political ambitions.
Weingarten has directed the AFT’s resources toward organizing and amplifying explicitly political activism, including the anti-Trump “No Kings” rallies. There, she took the spotlight to declare that “we are not going to let Donald Trump continue to do what he has been doing” and ignoring the fact that Americans voted to elect Donald Trump as President, boldly claimed that “we, the people, have to have the ultimate say.”
Unfortunately, this latest spectacle is nothing new. The AFT has a long record of channeling resources into left-wing political campaigns, protests, and advocacy efforts that have little to do with whether students can read, write, do basic math, or are proficient in these core competencies.
The AFT has funneled tens of millions of dollars to left-wing aligned groups and candidates since 2022, and spent most of last year engaged in aggressive legal and activist campaigns against Trump administration-directed education reforms aimed at restoring parental oversight in curricula and de-politicizing the classroom.
This ideological activism was on full display during the pandemic, when Weingarten advocated and defended keeping schools closed far longer than necessary, even as evidence showed it was safe to reopen. After these devastating setbacks from school closures and virtual learning, the average student is less than halfway to a full academic recovery. In some grades, there has been little to no improvement in reading since classrooms reopened. Chronic absenteeism has surged, especially among lower-income students; in 2024, rates were 57 percent higher than before the pandemic, and Weingarten is directly responsible for this generational learning loss.
Even after nearly $200 billion in emergency federal spending on K-12 education, student performance continues to decline. Students are doing worse than they were a decade ago, and lower-performing students are now further behind than their counterparts were more than 30 years ago. National test scores have fallen to their lowest levels in decades, while The Nation’s Report Card data shows the gap between high- and low-performing students continuing to widen.
At a moment when student outcomes are deteriorating at record levels, the priorities for educational leadership like Weingarten should not be difficult to identify. It begins in the classroom: ensuring children are given foundational tools for critical thinking and can learn how to think (not what to think) and supporting teachers and parents as they help students achieve their full potential.
At the American Parents Coalition, we will continue to educate parents on the blatant partisan actions academic leaders like Weingarten are doing, at the expense of our children. It’s time to reclaim parental authority, and to demand teachers’ unions focus on academic success and not divisive ideologies.
Our children do not get another chance at learning. Their childhood is finite. The major setbacks taking hold now will shape not only academic prospects in their immediate future, but also their confidence, opportunity, and quality of life.
Randi Weingarten prioritizes a political agenda over our kids. She promotes policies that cut parents out of their children’s lives. She uses her platform to advocate for herself, not teachers or students. It’s time for Randi Weingarten to be replaced with a true advocate for education.
