According to multiple reports, neither Enes Kanter Freedom nor Royce White will eligible for the WNBA Draft. However, the league has yet to define a woman.
Therein lies the issue.
The former NBA players-turned-political pundits are making a mockery of the WNBA but the league is choosing not to give them the attention they so crave. The league is feeding right into the controversy by ignoring them. It is a never-ending cycle.
Enes Kanter and Royce White are not eligible for the WNBA Draft.
If you are not up to date on this saga, lets break it down. These are two grown men who are claiming to be women.
Enes Kanter was drafted No. 3 overall by the Utah Jazz in the 2011 NBA Draft. He played 11 years with the Jazz, Thunder, Knicks, Trail Blazers and Celtics. He averaged 11.2 points and 7.8 rebounds per game.
Royce White was drafted No. 16 overall by the Houston Rockets in the 2012 NBA Draft. The former First Team All-Big 12 player spent one year with the Sacramento Kings before he moved north to Canada and became a star in the National Basketball League.
Kanter, who changed his last name to Freedom after he became an American citizen, has become an outspoken human rights activist. He often appears on Fox News. White has become a politician. He was the Republican Party’s nominee in the 2024 U.S. Senate election in Minnesota and is currently a Republican candidate for the 2028 presidential election.
Both Kanter and White “came out” as women in wake of the Sophie Cunningham drama. Cunningham, a WNBA veteran, said last month that she wants to protect young women and keep biological men out of women’s sports. The fallout has been exhausting. There have been protests, rallies, arguments, heated discussions among players and coaches, and a lot of hostility.
One side of the conversation is focused on the inclusion of transgender athletes. The other wants to prevent biological men from being allowed to play women’s sports.
To help make their point, White and Kanter both “came out” as women and declared for the WNBA Draft. If the league is in support of transgender athletes like it says it is, the former NBA players should be eligible now that they are women. Right?
As first reported by Colin Salao of Front Office Sports, they are not!
What is a woman?
League sources told FOS that the WNBA “does not have any legitimate and immediate eligibility matters that require action.” Enes Kanter and Royce White’s draft declarations are “simply publicity stunts.” The league is “not going to give oxygen to the efforts designed to mock the league or use this topic to demean and marginalize others.” Nor will it “allow outside pressure or manufactured controversy to dictate league processes.”
Fair enough. Kanter and White choosing to declare for the WNBA Draft as “women” is a publicity stunt.
But it’s working…
The WNBA does not define a woman and is not willing to do so. It won’t explain why Kanter and White are not eligible to be drafted even though they claim to be transgender women. That is their whole point. That is exactly why they are doing this.
The WNBA collective bargaining agreement signed in March says that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.” It does not expand further.
If the WNBA won’t define a woman, who is to say that Kanter and White are not women? And if they are women, why are they not eligible to play women’s basketball?
This entire discourse is exhausting, and takes away from basketball, but there is no end in sight. The league won’t do what Kanter and White (and others) want it to do, which allows Kanter and White to continue with their mockery.