Enes Kanter Freedom wore a shirt defining woman as a human female and the Chicago Sky threw him out of the arena.
Now five members of Congress are demanding the WNBA answer the one question it has spent an entire season ducking.
Congress looked at the WNBA's own rulebook and found something the league cannot explain.
Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White Were Denied the WNBA Draft Without a Definition
The Women's National Basketball Association's collective bargaining agreement contains exactly one sentence about who can play in the league.
"Only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA."
The CBA offers no definition of "woman," no biological standard, and no eligibility criteria – just that one sentence in a legal document the league never felt the need to clarify.
When former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom – a Turkish-born center and outspoken human rights activist – and Royce White declared themselves women and announced plans to enter the 2027 WNBA draft, league sources told reporters that neither man was eligible and never explained why.
If there's no definition of "woman" in the CBA, what standard did the league use to reject them?
The WNBA that spent months dodging the question turned out to have a working definition of woman after all. It just refused to say what it was.
Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., noticed.
"If the WNBA has no definition of 'women,' why were Freedom and White deemed ineligible to join the 2027 WNBA draft?" Stutzman's letter to Commissioner Cathy Engelbert asked.
It's a question that answers itself – the league knows what a woman is and refuses to say so.
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Stutzman sent the letter last week, signed by four fellow Republican representatives – Erin Houchin of Indiana, John Rose of Tennessee, Zach Nunn of Iowa, and Sheri Biggs of South Carolina.
The letter demands Engelbert answer four questions before Oct. 16, starting with the most basic: how does the league define "women," and if it has no definition, why were Freedom and White barred from the draft? The other two cover the league's response to repeated physical play against specific players and whether the WNBA applies the same rules to players who confront fans as it does to fans who confront players.
When Kanter Freedom showed up at Wintrust Arena wearing a shirt that read "WOMAN noun. adult human female," Chicago Sky guard Natasha Cloud charged at him during a third-quarter timeout and had to be physically restrained by her teammates.
Cloud received no discipline from the league. The Chicago Sky banned Kanter Freedom from the arena permanently – a fan removed for a T-shirt while the player who charged him faced no consequences from the league office.
Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham – the same Cunningham who publicly said biological men don't belong in women's sports – was on the receiving end of a Flagrant 2 from DiJonai Carrington on Aug. 8, a hit hard enough to get Carrington ejected.
Carrington went to the locker room and tweeted that her ejection was about white privilege. The league said nothing, suspended nobody, and four days later Golden State's Tiffany Hayes fouled Cunningham again. Draymond Green has been suspended by the NBA for less than any one of those incidents.
"The WNBA cannot run from the transparency and accountability the American people are demanding," Stutzman said. "We want to see our favorite players protected on the court and want to see fans stop being targeted for practicing their First Amendment rights."
The timing of the letter is deliberate. Engelbert announced her retirement on Sept. 4 and will be gone by year's end – Stutzman wants answers before she walks out the door.
The NCAA answered this same question in 2025. After President Trump signed an executive order barring biological males from women's sports and threatened to pull federal funding from institutions that refused to comply, the NCAA banned transgender athletes from women's competition entirely.
The International Olympic Committee followed, announcing it would limit women's Olympic competition to biological females starting at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
By 2026, every major athletic body in the world had drawn that line. The WNBA is the last league standing with a rulebook that says "women only" and no definition of who qualifies.
Engelbert's league spent the summer calling the entire debate a "bad-faith" controversy, convened a task force in August that announced exactly nothing, and dismissed Kanter Freedom's draft declaration as a "publicity stunt" not worth addressing.
Then it quietly ruled him ineligible – using a definition of "woman" it still won't put in writing.
"I am asking the WNBA a simple question: What is a woman?" Stutzman wrote. "The league has continually failed its players and fans by ignoring basic science."
Engelbert has until Oct. 16.
Sources:
- Amber Harding, "GOP Congressman Presses WNBA to Define 'Women' After Enes Kanter Freedom, Royce White Ruled Ineligible," OutKick, September 17, 2026.
- Pedro Rodriguez, "Conservatives in Congress Demand the WNBA Define What a Woman Is," The Daily Signal, September 21, 2026.
- Bob Hoge, "Five GOP Lawmakers Demand WNBA Answer a Simple Question: What Is a Woman?" RedState, September 17, 2026.
- "Stutzman to Newsmax: WNBA Must Protect Women's Sport," Newsmax, August 8, 2026.