by WorldTribune Staff, August 9, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
According to Article XIII, Section 1 of the WNBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement, "only players who are women are eligible to play" in the women's professional basketball league.
Of course, many of those who run the league's front office and the owners, coaches, and players for the teams are unable to define what a woman is.
Is that changing after two former NBA players declared themselves eligible for next year's WNBA draft?
The WNBA's powers that be have formed a task force to perhaps tackle the issue.
Following the debate over the league's trans inclusion policies, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White on Friday declared for the 2027 WNBA Draft.
Freedom, a 6'10", 250-pound center who played 748 regular-season games across 11 NBA seasons for the Utah Jazz, Oklahoma City Thunder, New York Knicks, Portland Trail Blazers, and Boston Celtics, announced his intention via social media.
"If simply declaring who you are is all that's required, then I meet every requirement necessary to compete in the WNBA," he wrote on X, adding that his advisers had "carefully reviewed the WNBA's eligibility criteria and government framework surrounding self-identification and inclusion."
"I am definitely not here to mock, make fun of, or disrespect any community or personal choices," Freedom added. "I'm simply asking that the current rules be applied equally to everyone — the rules that represent the very values many WNBA players and coaches have publicly advocated for."
Hours later, White — a 6'8″, 260-pound forward and Republican United States Senate candidate who was selected 16th overall in the 2012 NBA Draft but appeared in just three career games — made his own announcement on Fox News.
"I'm transgender. I'm a woman. I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for the purpose of basketball, professional basketball, so I'll be declaring for the WNBA Draft in 2027 as well," White said. "I think I'd be unstoppable. But I'm a team-first guy. … I think it's only fair."
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said a task force comprised of team presidents and general managers will be added to the agenda of a previously scheduled meeting.
"I know many of you have received questions in recent weeks regarding transgender athlete participation in women's basketball, and I expect this topic will continue to receive significant attention," Engelbert wrote in a memo to teams sent Friday afternoon and obtained by The Associated Press. "I wanted to reach out to share how we are approaching these conversations at the league office and to thank those of you who have responded to questions from the media with thoughtfulness and professionalism."
According to OutKick, the WNBA could reject Freedom and White without explanation — likely the cleanest outcome. It could reject them specifically as cisgender men, though that would invite questions about how a trans woman would be distinguished from Freedom or White.
The league could also create an objective trans-eligibility standard, such as hormone level requirements — a move that would kick the issue down the road without resolving it. Finally, and most controversially, it could accept both players as eligible, a decision OutKick described as potentially "the beginning of the end for the WNBA."
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