Today, I want to talk about Let Women Speak.
Those of you who have been following me know that I’ve been traveling to multiple cities for the Sophie Cunningham pre-game fan rallies, celebrating women and girls’ sports and standing up for sex-based protections in athletics.
The idea began with a woman named Jean from an organization called Women Are Reals in California. She called me and asked if I’d like to help organize these events. Soon, many other women joined in. Brandi Kruse and Jennifer Sey participated. I took the event to Portland, where Kara Dansky and three-time Olympic cyclist Inga Thompson joined us. From there we traveled to Minneapolis, where Riley Gaines met with us. Jennifer Sey and Riley were even able to meet Sophie Cunningham and take a photo with her.
With each city, the support has grown. More women have attended. More women have stood together. And, at times, the opposition has grown louder as well.
In Minneapolis, they attempted to drown us out with amplified sound.
At every rally, we’ve gathered to explain who we are and what we stand for. We are pro-Sophie. We are pro-women. We are pro-girls. That is our message. Yet when we tried to say those simple words in Minneapolis, our voices were overwhelmed by noise.
So I began chanting:
“Let women speak.”
It’s a chant I’m deeply familiar with, and I want to talk about where it came from.
That moment has now gone viral. Other women have begun using the chant in their own videos. But the chant itself has a history.
Back in 2020, there was an event at the Seattle Public Library called Fight the New Misogyny, organized by WOLF—the Women’s Liberation Front. Longtime feminist advocates including Lierre Keith, Kara Dansky, Sabra Malik, and Meghan Murphy were there to speak.
The women in attendance had gathered to listen, learn, and hear these speakers’ analysis. Instead, the event was repeatedly interrupted by men identifying as transgender women who shouted over the panel and refused to allow the discussion to continue.
Something remarkable happened organically in the audience.
Women began chanting:
“Let women speak.”
The chant spread through the room until it became impossible to ignore.
Eventually, the police removed the disruptive individuals from the event. As they were escorted out, the audience broke into a familiar refrain:
“Na na na na... hey hey hey... goodbye.”
I had to include that memory because I sincerely hope we someday sing it again—not out of malice, but because women once again have the right to gather, speak, and maintain our own spaces without disruption.
Since then, Let Women Speak has become an international movement led by women’s rights advocate Kelly J. Keen. Many people know Kelly for her memorable line:
“I may not be a vet, but I know what a dog is.”
I first met Kelly during the NCAA championships when Riley Gaines competed against Lia Thomas. Kelly has since organized Let Women Speak events throughout the United Kingdom and completed a multi-city tour across the United States, where many of us helped organize and spoke at those events.
I could spend hours sharing footage from those rallies and everything that happened there, but that’s not my point today.
My point is much simpler.
Women have never been consulted about whether we are willing to share sex-based language with males who reject their sex.
We were never asked.
And we do not consent.
We do not consent to the co-option of language that has always described our embodied reality.
Nor do we consent to males entering our private spaces—spaces where women are often vulnerable or undressed—on the basis of an internal identity claim.
Nor do we consent to males competing in our sports.
Women deserve to be heard on issues that affect us as a sex class.
That should not be controversial.
I often hear coaches dismiss this as a non-issue by saying there are currently no men in the WNBA.
But that misses the point entirely.
We are standing up for the girls.
We are standing up for the high school and college athletes who are increasingly expected to compete against boys and young men. These are the athletes living through this reality.
Many of today’s coaches benefited from Title IX throughout their own athletic careers. They enjoyed sex-separated competition. But many girls growing up today have never known that experience. Throughout their athletic lives, they have been expected to compete against male athletes who possess physical advantages rooted in biological differences.
This is not a complicated issue.
It is not confusing.
It is a straightforward question of physical reality.
I’ll leave you with something Kara Dansky has said many times:
“If we can be heard, we will win.”
So let women speak.
