![\"Turkish-American](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/c1_3307634_800.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPUBLISHED : 25 Aug 2026 at 10:42<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTurkish-American former basketball player and human rights activist Enes Kanter Freedom is seen prior to a game between the Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky at Wintrust Arena in Chicago, Illinois,\u00a0 on Aug 23, 2026. (Photo: Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images via Reuters)\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
NEW YORK \u2014 Former National Basketball Association (NBA) \u200bplayer Enes \u2060Kanter Freedom \u2060will not be \u200beligible to play in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) after declaring his intention to enter \u200bthe league’s 2027 draft, according \u200cto multiple reports Monday.<\/p>\n
Multiple outlets reported that the league considers Kanter Freedom ineligible, along with fellow former NBA player Royce White, who also recently said he planned to enter the draft and that\u00a0\u200bhe identifies as \u2060a woman.<\/p>\n
The WNBA has not formally announced eligibility rulings for either player. Its new collective bargaining agreement states that “only players who are women are \u200celigible to play in the WNBA,” but does not further define the term or include specific language addressing gender identity or sex assigned at birth.<\/p>\n
A league source \u2060characterised the declarations by Kanter Freedom and White as “simply publicity stunts” to Front Office Sports, which also reported that the league does not believe it currently faces any legitimate and immediate eligibility matter requiring action.<\/p>\n
The reports came one day \u200bafter Kanter Freedom was ejected from Wintrust Arena during Sunday’s game between the Chicago Sky and Indiana Fever.<\/p>\n
Kanter Freedom was seated \u200bcourtside \u200cwearing a shirt that read “WOMAN noun. adult human female.” During a timeout late in the third quarter, Sky guard Natasha Cloud \u200bexchanged \u2060words with him near the baseline. Kanter Freedom stood and moved toward the court before security intervened and \u2060escorted him from the arena.<\/p>\n
Cloud did not address the incident with reporters afterward. A Sky spokesperson told Front Office Sports that Cloud spoke with team and league security.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kanter Freedom, a 34-year-old Turkish and American human rights activist, played \u206011 NBA seasons and last appeared in the \u200bleague in 2022. He has remained politically active since the end of his playing career and recently joined the debate over transgender participation in women’s sports.<\/p>\n
It remains unclear whether Sunday’s removal \u200cwill affect Kanter \u2060Freedom’s ability to attend future WNBA games. \u200bThe league has not yet announced plans to bar him from its arenas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PUBLISHED : 25 Aug 2026 at 10:42 Turkish-American former basketball player and human rights activist Enes Kanter Freedom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,125590,590,422658,85,436468,436467,12632],"class_list":["post-867576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-enes-kanter-freedom","tag-nba","tag-royce-white","tag-sports","tag-wnba-collective-bargaining-agreement","tag-wnba-draft-eligibility","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}