Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve again voiced support for the transgender community Thursday, as competing rallies over trans athletes in women’s sports raged outside her team’s game for the third time this season.
Reeve addressed the issue after Minnesota closed the regular season with an 86-66 victory over the Indiana Fever at Target Center. The remarks marked at least the fourth time this season that Reeve has discussed transgender issues during a WNBA media session.
“I think that’s probably one of the more meaningful things that would mark the season for me,” Reeve said. “It’s that the transgender community is one that deserves our support, and what is happening in the name of some issues of transgender in sports — it’s really an attack on all transgender community. They don’t want transgender people to exist.”
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Reeve previously wore a “Trans Kids Belong” T-shirt during the Lynx’s previous home game against Indiana on Aug. 2. That game came shortly after Fever guard Sophie Cunningham publicly supported keeping biological males out of women’s and girls’ sports.
“Save Women’s Sports” activists then held another rally in support of Fever star Sophie Cunningham outside of the Target Center for the second time this season on Thursday, again prompting pro-trans counterprotesters. A similar rally took place outside of the Lynx’s game against the Golden State Valkyries on Aug. 19.
During the Aug. 2 game between the Lynx and Fever, Reeve and Cunningham were seen speaking at midcourt before that contest. Reeve later said the two understood they had platforms and shared an interest in educating people despite disagreeing on the issue.
Reeve said Thursday that wearing the shirt was a “small gesture,” but messages from transgender people and their families made it one of the most meaningful moments of her season.
“The amount of communication of people who were affected by something as simple as wearing a T-shirt in support of them and helping them be seen — with the platform that we have in professional sports, it was a small gesture by me,” Reeve said. “It’s something I believe in, obviously, wholeheartedly.”
“If I could have helped just one to feel differently about themselves, because for the transgender community this really is about life and death for them,” she continued. “The number of parents of transgender kids that I heard from and how it helped them and their families, it helped their child think differently about themselves and that there is someone in our position, like we have as a leader. To know that there are people out there that believe in them, that they belong.”
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Reeve first addressed the subject during a July media availability following the Supreme Court’s rulings upholding state laws restricting transgender participation in women’s sports. She called the political focus on the issue “sort of sickening” and said “exclusion is never the answer.”
She returned to it before the Lynx’s Aug. 2 meeting with Indiana, when a rally supporting Cunningham’s position was held outside Target Center. Reeve defended the demonstrators’ right to assemble but rejected the argument that transgender athletes represented one of the most pressing problems facing women’s sports.
“Every kid has a right to sports, regardless of gender diverse, transgender,” Reeve said at the time, while acknowledging that eligibility questions become more nuanced after puberty.
Following the game, Reeve addressed her conversation with Cunningham and reiterated her belief that transgender children should have access to sports. She also said activists focusing on transgender participation were overlooking other obstacles facing female athletes, including inadequate facilities, uniforms and locker rooms.
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Cunningham has maintained that her position is not rooted in hatred.
“I think that I am here to extend love,” Cunningham previously said. “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.”
The debate prompted the WNBA to convene discussions with team leaders during the season. The league said there were no immediate transgender eligibility matters affecting the WNBA, while maintaining that fairness, competitive integrity and inclusion were among its priorities. No transgender woman has played in the league.
Minnesota finished the regular season with a league-best 33-11 record after Thursday’s victory. Indiana fell to 28-16 and entered the playoffs as the No. 6 seed.
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