Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom is calling on Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve to step down after she said critics of transgender participation in women’s sports “don’t want transgender people to exist.”
Reeve made the comment following the Lynx’s 86-66 win over the Indiana Fever at Target Center on Thursday, the team’s final regular-season game. The matchup drew competing demonstrations outside the arena over transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports.
“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.”
Freedom responded in a social media post Saturday, rejecting Reeve’s characterization of women’s-sports advocates.
“Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve should step down immediately. You can’t lead women’s basketball while refusing to stand up for women’s sports. Can someone, for the love of God, please explain to her that: Protecting women’s sports is not an attack on anyone’s existence, nor does it erase a community. Coach, if you truly mean what you just said, then put your hypocrisy aside and prove it by drafting me in the 2027 WNBA Draft.”
A Season of Repeated Comments
Reeve, a four-time WNBA champion coach, said the reaction she received after wearing a “Trans Kids Belong” T-shirt during a nationally televised game against Indiana on Aug. 2 was 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.”
Thursday’s remarks marked at least the fourth time this season that Reeve has addressed transgender issues during WNBA media availability. She first spoke about the topic after Supreme Court rulings upheld state laws protecting women’s and girls’ sports, and later said before the Lynx’s first home game against Indiana that “every kid has a right to sports,” while acknowledging eligibility questions become more complicated after puberty.
Reeve also spoke privately with Fever guard Sophie Cunningham ahead of the Aug. 2 game. Cunningham has said she wants to protect girls from having to compete against or share locker rooms with biological males, while stressing she does not harbor hatred toward transgender people.
“I think that I am here to extend love,” Cunningham 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.”
Freedom’s Draft Bid
Freedom inserted himself into the WNBA’s transgender debate in August when he announced plans to enter the 2027 WNBA Draft under the name “Enisa Freedom,” saying the move was meant to test the league’s eligibility standards. The WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement states that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA” but does not publicly define eligibility based on biological sex.
Freedom has repeatedly said he is raising the issue seriously and not trying to demean transgender people. “I’m not here to mock, make fun of, or disrespect any group or anyone’s personal decisions,” he wrote in an earlier statement. “What I’m trying to do is bigger than clicks or attention.” He has also distanced his effort from other former male basketball players who joined similar draft campaigns, saying his goal had “never been publicity, political theater, cheap attention, or stunts.”
Former NBA player Royce White also responded to Reeve’s comments, but with a satirical statement promoting his alter ego “Roysha,” suggesting the Lynx could become “the new transgender capital of America.”
The WNBA has said there are no immediate transgender eligibility matters affecting the league and has condemned what it calls “bad-faith efforts” to demean or marginalize others. No transgender woman has ever played on a WNBA roster. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has said the league will continue discussions with team leaders and the players’ union while treating competitive integrity, fairness and inclusion as priorities.
