- 33 minutes ago
The conversation around gender, leadership, and public criticism in professional sports often becomes intense quickly, especially when a respected coach or commentator is involved.
In this case, the discussion involving Stephen A. Smith and Cheryl Reeve has attracted attention because it sits at the intersection of sports media, women’s basketball, and the broader debate over accountability.
When a phrase such as “That’s irresponsible” enters the public discourse, it usually signals more than disagreement; it reflects a clash over tone, power, and the way narratives are framed in real time.
In this case, the discussion involving Stephen A. Smith and Cheryl Reeve has attracted attention because it sits at the intersection of sports media, women’s basketball, and the broader debate over accountability.
When a phrase such as “That’s irresponsible” enters the public discourse, it usually signals more than disagreement; it reflects a clash over tone, power, and the way narratives are framed in real time.
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00:00Stephen A. Smith doesn't stay quiet on hot topics, and this week, he picked a side in one of the
00:05loudest fights in the WNBA right now. The fight is between Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham,
00:11who's been vocal about keeping trans athletes out of women's sports, and Minnesota Lynx head coach
00:16Cheryl Reeve, who wore a shirt on the sideline that said trans kids belong. During a nationally
00:22televised matchup against Cunningham's team, Smith went on the air and called Reeve's move
00:27irresponsible. So let's get into exactly what he said, why he said it, and what's happened since.
00:33Let's start with the moment that set all of this off, Reeve's shirt. This wasn't some random Tuesday
00:38practice. This was a marquee matchup, the Minnesota Lynx hosting the Indiana Fever,
00:43Sophie Cunningham on the opposing bench. ESPN cameras rolling for the national broadcast,
00:49and Reeve took a not-so-subtle shot at Sophie Cunningham. By wearing a t-shirt declaring,
00:53trans kids belong on Sunday when her team played Cunningham's Indiana Fever. The shirt was an obvious
00:59dig at Cunningham, who has been both praised and condemned. Since telling ESPN last month,
01:05she does not believe biological boys who have transitioned should be allowed to play against
01:10girl athletes. Here's the thing, Reeve didn't try to hide it either. She wore the shirt under her
01:15sports coat, and it was clearly visible on the ESPN broadcast, with play-by-play announcer Ryan
01:20Ruaco noting she was wearing it in support of trans kids. ESPN then rolled footage of Cunningham
01:27and Reeve locked in what looked like a pretty intense back-and-forth at center court before
01:31the opening tip. Now this is exactly where Stephen A. Smith stepped in. On his Tuesday show,
01:37he didn't hold back at all. He looked at the camera and basically put Reeve on trial.
01:42You are Cheryl Reeve, the head coach of the Minnesota Lynx. That is an irresponsible thing to do.
01:47You are a coach for a female basketball team. Do you not think that the females are being screwed
01:52over? If they have to compete against an individual born as a male, what are you talking about? Smith
01:57said. He wasn't done there either. Smith made sure to clarify what he thought the actual argument was
02:03about. Nobody said you can't transition from male to female, he said. The issue here is competing
02:08against the women. That's what Sophie Cunningham was talking about. And this wasn't some spur-of-the-moment
02:14reaction for Smith either. He'd already planted his flag on this a month earlier, right when
02:18Cunningham first went public with her stance. Smith's remarks echoed the position he took last
02:24month after Cunningham first addressed the issue publicly. At the time, he argued that if an NBA
02:29player transitioned to the WNBA, the competitive imbalance would be obvious. Based on that analogy,
02:35Smith said Cunningham was 1-0% correct. But he took it a step further this time, and this is
02:41the part
02:42that really got people talking. Smith didn't just defend Cunningham, he went after the people
02:47attacking her and anyone like her. We gotta stop acting like somebody that's speaking up on behalf
02:52of girls, like the Sophie Cunninghams, like the Riley Gaineses, are scourges of the earth, he said,
02:58before circling right back to Reeve. And then he really twisted the knife, questioning the entire
03:03premise of a male athlete competing in the league at all. What are you talking about, trying to tell me
03:08that a college player a man, at a college program anywhere in the country, or an NBA player, should
03:14transition to being a woman, and be allowed to compete in the WNBA? Now here's the thing about
03:20Smith's argument that a lot of people picked up on. It wasn't just about Reeve's opinion. It was about
03:25her platform. Smith made the case that Cunningham, and other women who speak up, are the ones eating
03:30the public backlash. While it's the coaches, the ones with real power in the leg, who get to swing the
03:36conversation the other way with almost none of the risk. Smith argued that Cunningham and other women
03:41speaking out are taking the public heat, while influential coaches like Reeve use the spotlight
03:46to push the opposite message. Even if it risks alienating fans and sponsors that the WNBA needs
03:53to keep growing. That's the blow-up, Smith, one of the biggest names in sports media, standing behind
03:58Cunningham, and calling out one of the league's most respected head coaches by name, on air, calling her
04:04irresponsible. But to actually understand why this hit as hard as it did, you've got to go back to
04:10where the whole thing started. Because this didn't begin with a t-shirt. It began with an interview a
04:14month earlier that Cunningham gave to ESPN, and it's been building ever since. To get why Smith went off
04:21the way he did, you need the timeline. This whole storyline traces back to a feature ESPN ran on
04:27Cunningham. On July 21, shortly before the launch of a bright pink basketball shoot, she designed in
04:33collaboration with Adidas. Cunningham spoke out about her belief that transgender athletes shouldn't be
04:39allowed to play in women's sports. She wasn't shy about explaining her reasoning either. She talked
04:44about wanting to protect the people coming up behind her. I got a lot of negative feedback about me
04:49hating trans, and I'm like, I never once said that, Cunningham told ESPN. I think that I am here to
04:56extend love, but I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls
05:01in
05:02a locker room, or young girls in sport, who shouldn't have to go against biological men. The backlash was
05:07immediate, and so was the support. Cunningham didn't back off, if anything she leaned into it. A few days later
05:14she doubled down publicly. I said what I said, I think it's kind of common sense, Cunningham said on July
05:2022.
05:20And I think I'll always believe in that. I think it's really important to protect children. And that's little
05:26girls who are also involved in that category. I stand on what I said. From there, the story stopped
05:31being about one interview, and turned into a full-blown movement following her around her leg.
05:36After the WNBA All-Star Game, an organization that is dedicated to pushing for legislation that bans
05:43transgender people from women and girls' sports, began hosting small, well-organized, and highly
05:49publicized rallies outside of road fever games, beginning in Seattle. That Seattle stop is where things got
05:55genuinely ugly. Two teenage girls showed up courtside wearing shirts from an advocacy brand
06:00and holding handmade signs thanking Cunningham. During the game, a pair of young girls sat courtside
06:06wearing shirts from XXXY Athletics, a brand that explicitly states its opposition to trans
06:12athletes participating in women's sports. And a Seattle Storm co-owner confronted them. The WNBA
06:18suspended Celeste Keaton, a minority co-owner of the Seattle Storm, from attending the next five home games.
06:25And fined the team an undisclosed amount, after Keaton directed expletives at two teenage fans
06:30sitting courtside during the Storm's loss to the Indiana Fever. The fans were part of a pre-game
06:35rally held in support of Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, and her recent statements about banning
06:41transgender athletes from women's sports. Cunningham found out and went straight to social media
06:46in defense of the girls. Cunningham took to social media to express support for the girls,
06:51writing that she truly believes there is a safe space and love for everybody. Biological girls,
06:57biological boys, trans women and trans men, adding that everyone is welcome at her table,
07:03and that you can disagree and still be kind, calling it a bravo moment for the girls standing
07:07up for what they believe. The Storm's ownership group had to publicly apologize for their co-owner's
07:13conduct. Storm majority owner Ginny Gilder said, in a statement released that week,
07:17that they were aware one of their co-owners made comments to two fans in attendance at that game,
07:23and apologized that it happened. And it didn't stop in Seattle. The rallies followed Cunningham
07:28on the road, and so did the ugliness. Another rally took place in Portland before the Fever's win,
07:33where a season ticket holder reported being spat on by a fan yelling slurs during the game,
07:39with the incident being investigated by police. By the time the road trip landed in Minneapolis for the
07:45matchup against Reeve's Lynx, this wasn't a one-off story anymore. It was a full-blown national
07:50conversation, trailing one player from city to city. Which brings us to the moment that actually
07:55pushed Reeve to put her opinion on her chest, literally. And that's where the next chapter of
08:00this story takes shape. Before Reeve ever put that shirt on, she'd already made her position clear
08:05with her words. The day before the Lynx Fever game, she sat down with reporters and gave what
08:11turned into one of the more talked-about answers of the entire saga. She opened by describing where
08:16she was coming from philosophically. I come from a space of inclusion. And the narrative that I think
08:21that is problematic, is to suggest that, number one, that transgender athletes are the biggest
08:27problem in women's sports. And I think this is what's bothersome, is that there's a faction of
08:32people in our country that are making this a massive issue, Reeve said. She then laid out what
08:37she saw as a human rights issue for her. Reeve went on to say that it's important to protect
08:42trans kids, saying every kid, to her. It's a human rights issue, has a right to sports regardless of
08:48being gender diverse or transgender. And that every kid has the right to access. But she also tried to
08:54draw a line, saying the conversation gets more complicated once you're talking about older athletes
08:59and higher stakes. Now what gets nuanced is, you know, when you're beyond puberty, when you're an
09:04Olympic sport, when you're we have scholarships at stake and that sort of thing. That's where I say
09:09that common sense people get together, and you find common ground to find a way to be inclusive,
09:14Reeve continued. And she pushed back directly on the idea that trans inclusion posed any kind of
09:20safety risk in locker rooms. The answer isn't no. It is not the case that we have, quote, biological men
09:26in girls' locker rooms, the way it's being phrased. The innuendo there that somehow transgender women
09:32are predators of some kind in the locker room, she said. That whole answer got glowing reviews
09:37from the ESPN broadcast crew the next day. Rebecca Lobo pointed viewers toward it directly on air,
09:43telling everyone, I would encourage anyone to go and listen to Cheryl Reeve's comments.
09:48Incredibly thoughtful, easy to find online, and I would just encourage anyone to go and listen,
09:54ESPN's Rebecca Lobo added. Ryan Riwako backed her up on the call, walking the audience through
09:59exactly what they were seeing on Reeve's chest and why. We see Cheryl Reeve wearing a shirt today in
10:05support of trans kids, trans kids belong on the shirt. This in the aftermath of Sophie Cunningham's
10:10recent comments, ESPN's Ryan Riwako said during the broadcast. That praise from the broadcast booth
10:16is what really lit the fuse for a second wave of reaction. Because plenty of people watching thought
10:21Reeve's answer wasn't nearly as clean as ESPN made it sound. Outlets pointed out that to Reeve's credit,
10:27she acknowledged before the game that the issue becomes more complicated after puberty and when
10:33Olympic spots or scholarships are involved, arguing that people should find common ground rather than
10:38make exclusion the answer. But that was a more nuanced argument than the shirt conveyed. And
10:43Cunningham never actually said trans kids don't belong, meaning Reeve answered the argument she
10:48wanted Cunningham to make rather than the one Cunningham actually made. And that's exactly the gap
10:54Stephen A. Smith zeroed in on when he went on his show. He wasn't just annoyed about a shirt,
10:59he was annoyed that a head coach, someone with real institutional weight in the leg,
11:03chose that specific game against that specific player to make her statement as loud as possible.
11:09Which set the stage for a much bigger pylon than just one ESPN commentator. Because once Smith spoke,
11:15the floodgates opened, and a lot of other big names jumped in with their own version of the same
11:20argument. Once Smith's comments went public, they didn't exist in a vacuum. They landed right in
11:26the middle of an already packed field of media figures who'd been circling this story for days.
11:31And three of the loudest voices didn't hold back either. Start with Medjin Kelly. She'd already been
11:36building toward this before Smith even opened his mouth. Kelly went after Reeve directly on her show,
11:42calling her out by name and telling her to sit down. Kelly unloaded on Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl
11:47Reeve, calling the longtime WNBA coach an ignorant fool who needs to take a seat and stop lecturing
11:54America about transgender athletes invading women's sports and spaces. Kelly specifically zeroed in on
12:00Reeve's locker room comments, arguing Reeve was ignoring real testimony from athletes who'd already
12:06lived through this exact scenario. She accused the Lynx coach of ignoring the testimony of women
12:11who have already been required to compete or share spaces with trans athletes. Pushing what Kelly
12:17called the radical claim that biological men are not showing up in girls' locker rooms. Kelly didn't
12:23stop at Reeve either. She turned her attention to ESPN itself for the way the network's broadcast team
12:29had framed the whole thing. ESPN is worse than any left-wing news media outlet, she wrote, responding to
12:35Lobo's praise for Reeve. And she didn't spare Caitlin Clark from criticism either, going after the fever
12:40superstar for staying out of the fight entirely. Kelly also spoke out against Caitlin Clark, calling her a
12:47coward for declining to offer a stance on transgender women in sports. Then there's Greg Gutfeld, who took
12:53a slightly different angle, mocking the sheer size of the reaction to what was, physically, just three
12:58words on a shirt. He leaned into the biology argument directly, framing childhood gender identity as
13:04something that shifts over time, rather than something fixed. Childhood gender dysphoria is a
13:10transient developmental phenomenon, Gutfeld said. It's not a fixed identity. But even while making
13:15that argument, he acknowledged how far this had spiraled from a basketball story into something much
13:21bigger. Noting that the discussion has shifted away from the games being played on the court and toward a
13:26political debate that cannot be solved in a day, a week, or even a month or two. And then Caitlin
13:31Clark
13:32herself got pulled into the crossfire, whether she wanted to be there or not. She'd been dodging questions
13:37about the whole saga for days, and finally addressed it directly after a game in Minneapolis. Her answer
13:44was about as neutral as it gets. I think, for us, it's not really a discussion we really have in
13:49our
13:49locker room, Clark said. I think it's for leagues and the governing bodies to work with their athletes
13:54to find solutions, but our focus is on basketball. When a reporter pushed further, she shut it down flat.
14:01I just answered for you, Clark replied. That measured response split the room. Some thought Clark as the
14:07league's biggest star owed the conversation more than a shrug. Others, including outspoken media
14:12figure Dave Portnoy, thought she had every right to keep it to herself and stick to basketball.
14:17Either way, with Cunningham's comments continuing to dominate headlines, Clark's decision to stay
14:22above the political crossfire became arguably as big a story as Cunningham's stance itself.
14:27By this point, you've got Smith, Kelly, Gutfeld, and a chorus of Fox commentators all circling the
14:33same target. Reeve's shirt, Reeve's comments, and the question of whether a coach should be using her
14:38platform this way. Jesse Waters even said on air that he'd basically had enough of the league entirely
14:44over how the story had played out. That's how big this got, from a t-shirt during warm-ups to
14:49a
14:49multi-network pylon within days. But underneath all the media norms, there's still the actual
14:54relationship between the two women at the center of it, Cunningham and Reeve. And that part of the story
15:00is a lot quieter, and a lot more complicated, than any of the shouting matches on cable news.
15:06Here's the part that got buried under everything else, the actual conversation Cunningham and Reeve
15:11had before that Sunday game. Cameras caught them together at center court, clearly deep in it,
15:16and neither one would say much about it right away. When a reporter asked Reeve to share details
15:21afterward, she wasn't having it. Absolutely not, she replied when asked by a reporter to share.
15:27But she did offer a general sense of what the two of them talked about.
15:31Both of us understand that we have platforms and we both talked about wanting to
15:35educate, and there are some things we have in common and maybe some things we differ on,
15:39Reeve said. Cunningham later opened up a bit more about it herself, in her own words,
15:44describing the exchange as something closer to mutual respect than a confrontation.
15:49She talked about how Reeve came at her with her own experience and point of view,
15:53and how she walked away from it still respecting the coach, even where they disagreed.
15:57Reeve also explained her reasoning for the shirt itself once the game wrapped.
16:01She framed it less as a shot at Cunningham, and more as an attempt to communicate something to
16:06the crowd watching. After the win, Reeve told reporters she was trying to educate by wearing
16:11the shirt in a highly anticipated game, saying, I don't think we should feel like our safe spaces are
16:16being threatened. That's what I enjoy about the WNBA, and I think we have to continue to safeguard that.
16:22That's not the first time Reeve has used her platform this way either.
16:26Months earlier, on Transgender Day of Visibility, she'd made a similar public statement,
16:31this time invoking the political climate directly. On this Transgender Visibility Day,
16:36a time of escalating executive and legislative attacks attempting to deny healthcare, education,
16:42and basic freedoms. A time of epidemic violence, particularly against Black and brown trans women,
16:47we celebrate trans and non-binary people everywhere. You are seen and loved, Reeve's statement said.
16:53So this wasn't some one-off reaction to Cunningham specifically. It's a position Reeve has held
16:59publicly for a while. And Cunningham's comments just happened to be the moment it collided head-on
17:03with the other side of the argument, live, on national television, with Stephen A. Smith watching
17:09from his studio. As for Cunningham, she's kept saying the same thing over and over through all of it.
17:14Whether she's getting booed on the road or watching commentators fight over her name on national TV.
17:20She told reporters early on she wasn't going anywhere with her stance, and weeks later,
17:24facing hostile crowds on the road, she said it again in her own words.
17:28I'm here to play basketball, but I'm also here to be me, she said. That's really where this whole
17:33thing sits right now. You've got a player who says she's not backing down, a coach who says she's
17:38trying to educate, not provoke. A media landscape, Smith, Kelly, Gutfeld, and everyone else,
17:44that's turned every single moment of it into ammunition. In a locker room, Clark's included,
17:49that mostly just wants to get back to playing basketball. Nobody involved has walked back a
17:55single word. The rallies are still following the fever around the league. The shirt is still getting
17:59replayed on broadcasts, and Stephen A. Smith made it clear on his show that he's not backing off his
18:05position either, saying flatly that he isn't going anywhere on this. Whatever happens with the rest
18:10of the WNBA season, this argument isn't ending anytime soon. It's just moving to the next city,
18:16the next broadcast, and the next name willing to speak up about it.