Cheryl Reeve, head coach for the Minnesota Lynx, wore a shirt emblazoned with the message “Trans Kids Belong” over the weekend as an apparent troll of Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham.
ESPN highlighted Reeve’s shirt during the broadcast of Minnesota’s matchup against the Indiana Fever, praising the head coach for her “incredibly thoughtful” defense of transgender’s in women’s sports.
“We have some issues,” Reeve said. “Number one, we need to protect trans kids. Every kid — to me, it’s a human rights issue. Every kid has a right to sports regardless of (being) gender diverse, transgender.”
“… Now, what gets nuanced is when you’re beyond puberty, when you’re in Olympic sport, when … we have scholarships at stake and that sort of thing,” she added. “That’s where I say that common-sense people get together, and you find common ground to find a way to be inclusive. The answer isn’t no. It is not the case that we have ‘biological men in girls’ locker rooms,’ the way it’s being phrased, the innuendo there that somehow transgender women are predators. … There’s a lot of narrative that is problematic that we need to address. That is simply not what’s happening.”
Speaking with ESPN recently, Cunningham expressed support for keeping biological men out of women’s sports.
“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,’” Cunningham told ESPN.
“I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men,” she added.
Her comments sparked severe backlash from the online left, prompting her to double down in a press conference.
“I said what I said. I think it’s kind of common sense, and I think I will always believe in that. “I think it’s really important to protect children.” “
“I don’t dislike anyone,” she added. ” I’m there to love, but I’m also there to love biological women.”