The WNBA has determined that Enes Kanter and Royce White are not eligible to join the league.
A few weeks ago, Freedom Kanter (the name under which she has appeared on U.S. civil records for several years) declared herself eligible for the upcoming WNBA Draft, claiming that she was a woman. Shortly after, White did the same, taking it a step further by accompanying the announcement with attire that he believed embodied the female gender roles.
These announcements were intended to address the issue surrounding transgender athletes in women’s sports. Which, it must be said, had never existed at any point in the WNBA, where there are zero players with those biological characteristics and only distant and hypothetical debates had emerged. Not as in other sports where it has indeed been a focus of discussions and deep rule changes.
After Kanter decided to show up at the game between the Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky with clearly provocative intentions, wearing a shirt bearing the dictionary’s definition of ‘woman’ as “adult human,” the League decided to draw a firm line. In the information gathered by Front Office Sports, spokespersons for the competition described the conduct of both as “publicity stunts.” In other words, a call for public attention without much substance.
The vehemence of Natasha Cloud with her mere presence in the stands marks the agenda and the path to be followed by the WNBA. Obviously, security escorted her out of the arena.
In parallel, it leaks that the league will continue discussing and addressing the issue together with the union, but that it will not allow this type of provocation to push them into those decisions.
