The fallout from WNBA guard Sophie Cunningham’s comments about protecting women’s sports continued over the weekend when not one but two former NBA players declared their intention to enter the 2027 WNBA draft.
Enes Kanter Freedom, a 6-foot-10 center who was the third overall pick in the 2011 NBA draft and played 11 years in the league, made his intentions known in an X post on Friday. “After careful consideration and reviewing the current eligibility guidelines, I am officially declaring myself a WNBA prospect. If simply declaring who you are is all that’s required, then I meet every single requirement necessary to compete in the WNBA,” he said.
“I am definitely not here to mock, make fun of, or disrespect any community or personal choices. I am simply asking that the current rules be applied equally to everyone,” he continued. “The rules that represent the very values many WNBA players and coaches have publicly advocated for. My team and I are prepared to ensure these guidelines are applied equally, consistently, and without exception. And I look forward to the WNBA honoring its stated principles. See you at training camp.”
The WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement states that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA,” but it does not define what a woman is. So, are men who self-declare as women eligible? Kanter Freedom isn’t the only one that wants to find out.
Kanter’s Got Company
Following Kanter Freedom’s announcement, Royce White, the number 16 pick in the 2012 NBA draft, also declared for the 2027 WNBA Draft. “Earlier this week I made the announcement. I’m transgender… I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for purposes of basketball, professional basketball. So I’ll be declaring for the WNBA draft in 2027 as well,” he told Outkick.
“I think I’d be unstoppable,” he added. “But I’m a team-first guy, you know. I’m a pass-first kind of player. I do the little things, you know. I led my team in all five major stat categories at Iowa State University, so I do a little bit of everything. I’ll do whatever the coach needs me to do. I’ll do whatever the girls need me to do.”
On X, White, who is also running to be the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Minnesota in Tuesday’s primary, posted highlights of himself playing professional basketball in Canada and wrote: “I haven’t even been publicly trans for 72 hours and I’m already getting so much hate. I just want to hoop with my girls in my feminine era! Why can’t y’all be happy for me?”
White returned to X on Sunday with a photo of himself sporting longer locks. “It came y’all… My 1st wig! Tomorrow I test it on the court. This is my feminine era glow up, did I slay? If y’all don’t ‘yassss queen’ you’re transphobic. I really don’t understand all the hatred, I just want to play some hoops with my fellow ladies,” he captioned the post.
It might sound like a joke, but the situation is now forcing the WNBA to take ‘transgender’ participation seriously. The Associated Press obtained a memo sent to teams from WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert calling it a “complex and nuanced topic” that will be discussed by a task force of team presidents and general managers at a previously scheduled meeting next week.
Relevant Controversy
The WNBA also found itself in the headlines this weekend after Chicago Sky player DiJonai Carrington was ejected from Saturday’s game against the Indiana Fever after being assessed a flagrant 2 foul for essentially catching Cunningham in a headlock as she went for a layup. After heading to the locker room, Carrington posted “White Privilege” on Threads and tagged the Fever.
That set off a firestorm of its own, but, on Monday’s Megyn Kelly Show, UnHerd editor Sohrab Ahmari told Megyn the only controversy involving the now-perpetually controversial league that “rises to actual serious national attention” is the issue of who is eligible to play women’s basketball.
“A significant share of important personalities, coaches, players, etc. in the WNBA seem to be rooting for their own successors in the game, younger girls, having to play against biological males who have much greater stamina, much greater muscle mass, all the things that that we know,” Ahmari said.
While Ahmari acknowledged some on the left “now know it’s a bad issue” that has 80-20 or 90-10 support, he noted that they’ve instead taken to trying to downplay the problem. “They’ll be like it’s such a small portion. It’s such a little bit of America. It’s a slice of American life,” he said.
The numbers, as Megyn explained, are actually pretty staggering when you look at recent data. “The UCLA School of Law did a study and said that it estimated the number of trans youth in high school sports right now to be over 120,000, so do not let them get away with saying it is such a small issue,” she noted.
“It was argued before the Supreme Court in an effort to stop the bans, saying, ‘look how many thousands of youth you are going to affect if you allow states to issue these bans [on ‘trans’ athletes],’ and the Supreme Court said, ‘Not our problem. They’re allowed to issue these bans,'” Megyn explained. “But that is from UCLA School of Law and trans advocates who say it’s over 120,000 at the high school level. It’s not a small issue.”
Start of Something?
Megyn believes the WNBA is “in quite a pickle now” because “all these coaches and players are on the record saying they are pro-trans athletes playing in women’s sports,” while “heroes” like Kanter Freedom and White try to prove a point.
But Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, wasn’t convinced this is where the rubber will meet the road for the league. “I don’t think they’re going to have a hard time dismissing this,” he speculated.
For starters, Davis said he could see the WNBA defining a ‘woman’ as “someone who’s never played in a professional men’s sports league.” That would eliminate White and Kanter Freedom’s eligibility. “They’ll say, ‘Yeah, yeah, obviously we only want women, and of course trans women are women. But if you played in a men’s professional league, you know, clearly you’re not trans,'” he posited.
Another tactic, which he called “more likely,” is that the teams gang up and simply choose not to draft either player next spring. “They’re just going to have a collusive environment where they refuse to draft anyone like Royce White or Enes Kanter Freedom,” Davis suggested.
“There is clearly some sort of implicit kind of coordinating going on. That is how you end up with that coach [Stephanie White] defending the assault of her own player,” Davis theorized. “Whether it’s Stockholm Syndrome or they’re all in on it ideologically, I don’t know. But I suspect if you had those guys go into the draft, they’re just simply not going to get drafted if they’re even allowed to sit for the draft.”
While Davis may be right that Kanter Freedom and White will never suit up in the WNBA, Megyn was more optimistic about their impact. “I think they’ve started something, and you can get them out, but you’re not going to get the next ones out. These guys are becoming wise to how to push this battle, and I love it,” she said.
“No one cares about the WNBA, including me. Could you care less about this group of spoiled, woke, pathetic, talentless brats? Same,” Megyn concluded. “But I am interested in what happens over there to the extent it is a little microcosm of like this woke world; what what would the world look like if we actually went along with these woke lunatics and reduced ourselves to this hierarchy based on race and LGBTQ status only.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Ahmari and Davis by tuning in to episode 1,376 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.