NBA Players Enes Kanter and Royce White Excluded from WNBA Draft Due to Trans Identity
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NEW YORK (AP) — Former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White are not eligible for the WNBA draft, a person familiar with the decision said Monday.
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ESPNSources: Kanter not WNBA-eligible; arena ban TBD The WNBA has not announced any plans to ban Enes Kanter Freedom from attending future games but, according to multiple sources, the ex-NBA player will not be eligible to play in the league.
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Kanter had previously stated that he would enter the WNBA Draft as a trans woman. Fever reserve forward Sophie Cunningham started a firestorm with her comments on the potential for trans athletes to play in the WNBA last month to ESPN. There is not a trans athlete trying to play in the league, but that hasn’t stopped it from devolving into a circus in recent weeks.
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The Guardian SportKanter was sitting courtside at the Chicago Sky’s game against the Indiana Fever in a shirt reading: “WOMAN noun. adult human female.” He had joined a rally outside the arena in support of Sophie Cunningham, the Fever guard who opposes transgender participation in women’s sports. In recent weeks, Kanter had also declared himself eligible for the 2027 WNBA draft, claiming to identify as a woman and posting workout videos about beginning his “transition”. (League sources have since said he is not eligible to play and dismissed his declaration as a publicity stunt the WNBA would not “give oxygen” to.)
Bleacher ReportThe WNBA has been the subject of recent debates on whether transgender women — people assigned male at birth who transition to align with their gender identity — should be allowed to participate in the league. There has never been such a player in the WNBA.
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Late in the third quarter of Sunday’s game, Sky guard Natasha Cloud approached Kanter, yelling and pointing in his direction. Kanter stood, spread his arms and stepped on to the court before security intervened. As he was escorted away, he stopped near the basket to argue his case, then stretched out his shirt and tried to draw a response from the crowd. He had arrived ready to provoke and left performing martyrdom.
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SB NationKanter didn’t show up to watch a basketball game. He wanted to cause trouble, and he got his opportunity late in the third quarter after Sky guard Natasha Cloud drove and scored on Caitlin Clark.
2 details only one outlet reported
Independent claims that didn't surface elsewhere in our corpus. Treat as supplementary — not corroborated across outlets.
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01 Bleacher Report Freedom and White have declared their intention to enter next year's draft, but the WNBA has not publicly addressed their eligibility.
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02 The Guardian Sport Nine years ago, I watched Enes Kanter ask America to take him in. It was May 2017, inside the National Basketball Players Association’s offices in midtown Manhattan. Kanter had just returned from a frightening detention at Bucharest airport, where Romanian border police told him Turkey had canceled his passport. He’d just turned 25, an NBA center with a green card and no country he could safely call home.
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Sources (4)
- guardian-sport
- bleacherreport
- espn
- sbnation