Jonathan Alpert: Women were told to speak up. Except about women’s sports

Sophie Cunningham did exactly what women have been told to do for generations: She spoke up when she thought something was unfair.

Apparently, that advice comes with an exception.

Women have spent decades being told to trust their judgment, use their voices and refuse to stay quiet simply because an opinion makes someone uncomfortable.

But when Cunningham said women’s sports should be for women, speaking up suddenly became the problem.

That’s what makes her story bigger than basketball.

Cunningham is willing to say publicly what plenty of women are more comfortable saying privately: They can support transgender people, treat them with dignity and respect, and still believe that women’s sports should be based on biological sex.

Women fought for generations to have their voices taken seriously.

So why, when the subject is their own sports, are some of them afraid to use them? CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM Women’s sports exist because biological differences matter in athletic competition.

That’s why we have women’s teams, records, scholarships and championships in the first place.

The separation wasn’t incidental.

It was the point.

Sports also require choices.

Someone makes the roster and someone doesn’t.

Someone gets the scholarship and someone doesn’t.