Sophie Cunningham’s ESPN interview has turned into the biggest circus of the WNBA season. While Cunningham has decided to focus on basketball, her comments about the need to “protect girls in the locker room,” coupled with her posing with anti-trans activist Riley Gaines have caused the right-wing media landscape to become obsessed with the imaginary existential threat of trans women competing in professional basketball.
No trans women are competing in the WNBA, and no trans women are playing in the NCAA who would be selected in the 2027 WNBA Draft. Fox News tried to manufacture a story where there was none, reaching out to Julie Tetart, a trans woman playing in the French second division, asking if she would declare for the draft. Tetart herself said she was too old (she’s 34) and not skilled enough to play in the WNBA — but that didn’t stop Fox from spinning the story to make it sound like there was a real chance a trans woman might try and play in the WNBA.
When the Tetart story failed to garner much attention beyond social media, two grifters stepped up to assume the mantle. Former NBA players turned right-wing media darlings, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White both said they would declare for the WNBA draft. Now the snake is eating its own tail, with the right getting so twisted into logical knots over the imagined threat of trans women competing in the WNBA that they’re championing two men who are disingenuously pretending to be trans to compete in the WNBA.
The whole situation is akin to being so afraid of bombs that you call in a bomb threat, build your own bomb, then put it in the lobby of a building to justify the fear of bombs. Yet, Riley Gaines is preening as if her side has come up with a brilliant 4D chess Kobayashi Maru that’s forcing the WNBA to either define what a woman is, or allow Kanter Freedom and White to play.
The problem with Gaines’ logic is there’s a third option: The league simply ignores these two blown out losers, not because they’re men, but because they suck and are undraftable.
This entire imagined Kanter Freedom/White scenario operates under the assumption that men of any age have to be better than any woman who could enter the league. It’s couched in the most unbelievable sexist of premises, and it’s also total horse shit. If we get down to brass tacks and ignore that Kanter Freedom and White are grifters, they’re still undraftable in 2027 as basketball players.
Kanter Freedom is 34-years-old, White is 35 — an entry-level contract in the WNBA is for four years, meaning that a team which chooses to draft either player will commit to an old player until they’re almost 40, rather than getting a prospect in their early-2os who the team can build around. That’s also assuming for a split-second that either of these men are serious, which they aren’t. They have absolutely no intention of playing professional basketball again, because if they did they would be playing in a foreign league right now — not putting on wigs and cosplaying as a woman as part of their grifting role.
When it comes to Royce White he would also be the most obvious threat to women the WNBA has ever seen. He is the only prospect in the history of the sport to have a 50-year restraining order against him for abusing his wife and son, which was granted in April. There are mammoth character concerns surrounding White independent of myriad other issues with him trying to play in the WNBA.
- White hasn’t played competitive basketball in almost a decade
- White signed a contract in Italy in 2018, but quit on the team and didnt turn up for training camp
- White tried to become an MMA fighter, but quit that too after losing his first and only fight
- White’s 2024 election fund spent over $1,200 at a strip club in Miami, raising more character concerns
The man is a perennial quitter, loser, and he’s unstable. There is no planet in which he would be drafted by any professional team in any sport as a mid-30s former athlete who peaked in college and has been on a downward trajectory ever since.
Unlike White, at least Enes Kanter Freedom had an NBA career. In fact, he was solid as a big man off the bench and even garnered 6th Man of the Year votes in several seasons. However, he was out of the NBA in 2022, which he falsely blamed on criticizing China. In reality, Kanter Freedom was a dinosaur in an evolving league — and that caused him to not have a place in the NBA anymore.
While Kanter Freedom was gifted at stuffing the stat sheet when it came to points and rebounds, he was a minus-level defender his entire career. This is why he was relegated to being a bench player for the majority of his time in the NBA. This only became more pronounced as the league moved away from static paint players and progressed towards stretch bigs who could defend at the perimeter and offer an outside game. As a bad defender and 28.9% shooter from beyond the arc he brought neither to the table.
The WNBA operates on the same model. Basketball as a whole has moved to the stretch bigs and numerous shooters on one team. A’ja Wilson is so dominant because she is a not only an elite player in the paint, but shoots over 40% from beyond the arc.
If we just look at the basketball side there’s just no place for him on a modern roster. He’s old, slow, can’t defend the perimeter — and it doesn’t matter that he would have unmatched size inside when teams around the league are scoring from deep and essentially have free reign to score at will from three when he’s on the court. Again, all this still assumes that Kanter Freedom is serious about trying to play professional basketball again — which he isn’t either.
When it comes to the imagined threat of trans women ruining the WNBA the call is coming from inside the house. A coordinated effort to undermine the league is being perpetuated by bad actors who claim it’s about protecting the WNBA, when in reality it’s about discriminating against transgender individuals. We know this because for all the bloviating that Riley Gaines does about transgender women, she also routinely makes fun of the revenue of the WNBA and gleefully mocks how the league is “losing money.” Gaines, Kanter Freedom, White — none of them care about women’s basketball. They care about their grift business, and this whole scenario has shown that business is good.
