Cheryl Reeve's WNBA Coach of the Year win shouldn't distract from her dangerous accusations
Cheryl Reeve added another WNBA Coach of the Year award to her collection Monday. Unfortunately, winning basketball games hasn't stopped her from treating disagreement with her politics as evidence of hatred.
The Minnesota Lynx coach received 40 of 74 votes from a national panel of sportswriters and broadcasters, earning the honor for a record fifth time. Her team finished with the WNBA's best record at 33-11, so there is an obvious basketball argument for the selection.
Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve, who has openly pushed for males to be included in women's sports, won the 2026 WNBA Coach of the Year award. (Star Tribune via Getty Images)
But it's worth remembering who votes on this award. I've written repeatedly about the largely left-wing women's basketball media and its tendency to celebrate progressive activism, while treating dissent as something that needs to be shut down. I doubt Reeve's politics hurt her standing with that crowd.
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Before anyone explains that Reeve deserved to win simply because Minnesota finished with the best record in the WNBA, let's check that theory against, well, last season.
The best record doesn't guarantee Coach of the Year
The Lynx went 34-10 in 2025, four games ahead of second-seeded Las Vegas, and Reeve received just two Coach of the Year votes. This season, Minnesota won one fewer game and finished one game ahead of Golden State.
Reeve's previous award came in 2024, when Minnesota finished second. In fact, she is the first coach of the No. 1 seed to win since Becky Hammon in 2022, when Las Vegas tied Chicago for the best record and held the tiebreaker.
Reeve had a legitimate case this season, including guiding Minnesota through Napheesa Collier's extended absence. But her team lucking into Rookie of the Year Olivia Miles in the 2026 WNBA Draft definitely didn't hurt. The Dallas Wings could have (and should have) taken Miles, but elected to draft Paige Bueckers' girlfriend, Azzi Fudd, with the No. 1 pick instead.
And Reeve's politics certainly don't make her an outsider among the largely left-wing women's basketball media, a culture I've written about from firsthand experience.
Neither do Natalie Nakase's – the Golden State coach, who won the award last year, finished second with 20 votes.
"I’m all about women, little girls deserving to play, and that includes trans women. So I’m all about inclusivity," Nakase said in August.
"Deserving to play" is a convenient way to dodge the actual disagreement. The argument for protecting the female category is that male athletes should compete in the male category, regardless of "gender identity."
Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase, another outspoken left-wing activist, finished second in WNBA Coach of the Year voting in 2026 after winning the award in 2025. (Getty Images)
Nakase presents the choice as including people or excluding them from sports altogether.
Cheryl Reeve puts words in her critics' mouths
After Thursday's regular-season finale, Reeve discussed her advocacy for "transgender people" and the response to the "Trans Kids Belong" shirt she wore earlier this season. As OutKick previously reported, she portrayed the controversy as something much larger than sports.
"They don't want transgender people to exist," Reeve said.
That's a strong and sweeping accusation.
The dispute that brought this issue to the WNBA involved whether males should compete in girls' and women's sports and have access to female locker rooms.
But Reeve turned that into a claim that opponents want "transgender people" erased from existence.
Those are wildly different arguments.
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I believe women's sports should be reserved for females and that girls deserve privacy in their locker rooms. Neither position requires me to hate anyone, much less wish that person would stop existing.
That's a classic straw man. Reeve should be able to defend her position without pretending she doesn't understand mine.
A demonstrator protests before a WNBA game between the Indiana Fever and Minnesota Lynx on Aug. 2. (Getty Images)
The irony is that Reeve makes her living coaching in a league that exists because there is a separate category for female athletes.
She also knows that the presence of a boundary doesn't establish hatred of the people outside it. If she wants to argue for a different boundary, she can explain why. Accusing opponents of wanting people not to exist is a way to avoid the tougher position of arguing why males should be allowed in women's sports.
Anecdotal gratitude isn't scientific evidence
Reeve also discussed the response to her advocacy.
"With the platform that we have in professional sports, it was a small gesture by me, it’s something I believe in obviously wholeheartedly and so 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," Reeve said about wearing a "Trans Kids Belong" shirt during a game against Sophie Cunningham and the Indiana Fever earlier this season.
"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."
First, find someone who pats you on the back as hard as Cheryl Reeve pats herself on the back. My goodness, you can practically feel the self-congratulations through the camera.
But listen carefully to what she's saying. People thanking her for agreeing with them doesn't establish that her position is correct. It definitely doesn't establish that the people who disagree with her are a threat to their children.
The most telling part of her comments was this: "for the transgender community this really is about life and death."
While Reeve didn't openly say it, her implication is clear. A major left-wing talking point is that children will commit suicide without "gender-affirming care." Some parents say they've even heard that warning from their children's doctors.
In written testimony submitted to Connecticut lawmakers last year, Simon Amaya Price said a doctor asked his father: "Would you like a dead son, or a trans daughter?"
Imagine hearing that as a parent from a trusted physician. You're worried about your child, and now you're being told the choice could be between agreeing with the doctor and burying your son. Of course that language is powerful.
Pro-woman advocate Riley Gaines has described similar pressure on female athletes who object to males competing in women's sports.
"They told us that we would be murderers if we spoke out because we would be complicit in a potential death," Gaines said.
Riley Gaines is sworn in during a House Oversight Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services hearing on Capitol Hill Dec. 5, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Gaines has called this "emotional blackmail," and she's right. Tell people they'll be responsible for someone's death if they speak up, and plenty will keep their mouths shut. That doesn't make their concerns go away. It makes them afraid to raise them.
And the truth is that the science doesn't favor their fearmongering tactics.
A 2025 systematic review of puberty blockers found very low certainty evidence for several psychological and physical outcomes. A separate 2025 study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine found higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts among adults with gender dysphoria who underwent surgery compared with those who did not.
A Finnish study published this year also raises questions about the promised mental-health benefits. Researchers found that use of specialist psychiatric care increased during follow-up among adolescents and young adults who underwent medical transition. Their conclusion: "Psychiatric needs do not subside after medical gender reassignment."
People like Reeve reach for emotional arguments because the evidence doesn't justify their certainty. It's much easier to advertise your compassion than defend dubious claims about mental health and suicidal ideation.
Calling yourself compassionate doesn't excuse dangerous accusations
What, exactly, is hateful about a mother or father wanting their daughter to have a female-only locker room? I'd like Reeve to answer that. What have those parents said or done to justify accusing them of not wanting other people to exist?
Think about what that accusation encourages Reeve's supporters to believe about those parents. Why listen to their valid concerns if you've already decided that they're evil people?
I've seen a version of that dynamic firsthand. When I asked Dawn Staley about males competing in women's college basketball, some media members were more interested in attacking the question (or the reporter) than examining the answer. The premise seemed to be that asking it was, itself, the offense.
Reeve is telling people their opponents don't want them to exist. Once you have framed the other side as an existential threat, treating those people with contempt becomes much easier to justify. Wrapping that message in talk of love doesn't make it less inflammatory.
It just gives the speaker a ready-made defense whenever someone objects: How could you possibly have a problem with compassion?
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Reeve is entitled to advocate for her position, even if it defies reasonable common sense, rational logic and basic biology. But she doesn't get to dismiss all opponents as hateful bigots so she doesn't have to defend her position.
Congratulations on Coach of the Year, Cheryl. Just remember that you only won that award because women's sports exist.
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