{"id":846351,"date":"2026-08-05T00:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T00:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/846351\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T00:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T00:30:11","slug":"espns-stephen-a-smith-rips-wnbas-cheryl-reeve-to-shreds-for-wearing-trans-kids-belong-shirt-to-troll-sophie-cunningham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/846351\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN&#8217;s Stephen A. Smith Rips WNBA&#8217;S Cheryl Reeve To Shreds For Wearing &#8216;Trans Kids Belong&#8217; Shirt To Troll Sophie Cunningham"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24099276\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MixCollage-04-Aug-2026-05-57-PM-1213.jpg\" alt=\"ESPN's Stephen A Smith trashes Cheryl Reeve\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n<p>ESPN\u2019s Stephen A. Smith is not happy with Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve.<\/p>\n<p>Over the weekend, Reeve wore a \u201ctrans kids belong\u201d shirt during her team\u2019s game against the Indiana Fever to protest Sophie Cunningham\u2019s comments about excluding trans athletes from women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve is wearing a \u201cTrans Kids Belong\u201d shirt during their game against the Indiana Fever and Sophie Cunningham. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NcrulHmfGI\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/NcrulHmfGI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Greg Price (@greg_price11) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/greg_price11\/status\/2083965695440683038?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">August 2, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Reeve said she wore the shirt to \u201ceducate\u201d fans on the issue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBoth of us understand that we have platforms and we both talked about wanting to, more than anything, educate,\u201d Reeve said. \u201cThere are some things that we have in common, and maybe some things you differ on, just like any issues. I think it\u2019s how you handle things. It was nice to be in person, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday on his Sirius XM show, Smith went scorched Earth on Reeve over the shirt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are Cheryl Reeve, Head Coach of the Minnesota Lynx. That is an IRRESPONSIBLE thing to do. You are coach for a female basketball team. Do you not think that the females are being screwed over if they have to compete against an individual who\u2019s born as a male. What are you talking about??\u2026 No regard for the WNBA, the sponsors who may be put off by that\u2026 HOW is that ok??\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Stephen smith goes a off on \ud83d\ude21Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve for her trans shirt, <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HWM3bT89g5\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/HWM3bT89g5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBA Hoops (@Thechat101) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Thechat101\/status\/2084732400982995188?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">August 4, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Smith doubled down on his comments on social media.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I\u2019m not backing down from this one.<\/p>\n<p>You can support people\u2019s rights AND believe biological men shouldn\u2019t compete in women\u2019s sports. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.<\/p>\n<p>My issue isn\u2019t hate. It\u2019s protecting women, protecting girls, and asking why a WNBA coach chose to\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/stephenasmith\/status\/2084723639140892956?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">August 4, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect ESPN\u2019s Stephen A. Smith is not happy with Minnesota Lynx head coach&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,10946,1161,82,35518,630],"class_list":["post-846351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cheryl-reeve","tag-espn","tag-sports","tag-stephen-a-smith","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}