{"id":871023,"date":"2026-08-25T15:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T15:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/871023\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T15:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T15:12:16","slug":"charles-barkley-weighs-in-on-transgender-athlete-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/871023\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Barkley weighs in on transgender athlete debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

The WNBA has turned into a political football<\/a>, and Enes Kanter Freedom\u2019s stunt at Sunday\u2019s game<\/a> between the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky seemed to make it clear that that fact would not be changing any time soon.<\/p>\n

Speaking as a guest on Michael Smerconish\u2019s radio show, Charles Barkley weighed in on the conversation surrounding the WNBA and Kanter\u2019s recent antics.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, I always support the gay community. I always support the transgender community,\u201d Barkley began. \u201cI got nothing but love and respect for gay people and transgender people, but under no circumstances do I think men should play against women. Zero. I\u2019m disappointed in Adam Silver and Cathy [Engelbert], the commissioner.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Barkley lamented that the league has lost control of the conversation, allowing itself to be hijacked by bad actors hoping to further their political agenda, and said he wishes that Silver and Engelbert came out strong against including transgender athletes in the WNBA and ended the conversation there.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are looking for attention now,\u201d Barkley said of Kanter and others who are looking to capitalize on the politicization of the league. \u201cBut he has a point though.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued:<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause Cathy and Adam haven\u2019t said, \u2018Hey, it\u2019s in the title. WNBA. We\u2019re not going to have transgender people in the WNBA, and we\u2019re not going to discuss it again. That\u2019s what Adam and Cathy should have done two or three weeks ago before they turned it over to the internet and every fool, idiot, and jackass to have an opinion on. Adam should come out [and say], and Cathy, I like both of them a lot \u2014 \u2018There\u2019s no transgender people going to play in the WNBA. If you don\u2019t like it, kick rocks. And we\u2019re not going to discuss it anymore.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cEnes is trying to get attention. Listen, if he did all the operations things \u2014 no, we\u2019re not doing that either. [Silver and Engelbert should have said] \u2018The WNBA is for women, and listen, this is the last time we\u2019re going to discuss it. We\u2019re not going to turn it over to the fools on the internet. We\u2019re not going to turn it over to Congress. The WNBA is for women only, period. And we\u2019re not going to discuss it again.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Barkley expressed frustration that attention was being taken away from some of the great basketball stories coming from the league this year, shouting out the phenomenal rookie season of Olivia Miles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a great summer for them,\u201d he said. \u201cThey all got raises. They started making the money that they deserve. They expanded. They\u2019re going to increase games next season. But I can\u2019t remember the last time I heard something positive about the WNBA.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also expressed surprise that Sophie Cunningham, whose comments regarding high school transgender athletes sparked the culture war<\/a> that the league currently finds itself in, faced any backlash at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cSophie Cunningham, who, I can\u2019t believe people got mad at her for telling the truth. She said, \u2018No, I\u2019m protecting girls. No transvestites in the [WNBA].’\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear if Barkley simply misspoke or misunderstood Cunningham\u2019s original comments when suggesting the Fever player used the word \u201ctransvestites\u201d in her remarks. She did not use that word, which is an outdated term to describe someone who wears the clothing of another sex.<\/p>\n

Barkley then criticized DiJonai Carrington, who committed a hard foul against Cunningham<\/a> and posted a message that read \u201cWHITE PRIVILEGE\u201d on social media after she was ejected, sparking another media cycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason they made it black and white [was] when that girl tweeted \u2018White privilege.\u2019 That was stupid on her part. That\u2019s why I say, we can\u2019t turn our world over to the internet fools. When she tweeted \u2018White privilege\u2019 that was 100% a mistake. It was a dirty play. Period. That would have been the end of it. But when you turn stuff, the internet, all the race hustlers start coming out. They have a ton of race hustlers out there, white and black. We can\u2019t ever let them fools win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barkley went on to suggest that he believes that many WNBA players don\u2019t like Caitlin Clark or Sophie Cunningham. When Smerconish attempted to clarify that that dislike was not about race, Barkley hedged.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to get on here and call somebody a racist because I don\u2019t have any proof. Whether it\u2019s race, sexuality, or whatever, there\u2019s something going on there. Because most of the time when you see something, it has something to do with Caitlin or Sophie. I think those other women in the WNBA don\u2019t like them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barkley believes that there are multiple factors at play with regard to his take on the rest of the league\u2019s feelings about Clark and Cunningham.<\/p>\n

\u201cJealousy I think is a part of it. Race is a part of it, and sexuality is a part of it. Now, I don\u2019t know how much, but I\u2019m comfortable saying they don\u2019t like Caitlin. I have no idea why, she\u2019s just a really good basketball player. Same thing with Sophie, she\u2019s a good player. But I think it has something to do with sexuality, race, and jealousy. I think it\u2019s all three of them. I don\u2019t know how you break up the percentages.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can watch Barkley\u2019s comments in their entirety below.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WNBA has turned into a political football, and Enes Kanter Freedom\u2019s stunt at Sunday\u2019s game between the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,735,48,24791,10947,302443,10879,82,146823,630],"class_list":["post-871023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-canada","tag-charles-barkley","tag-dijonai-carrington","tag-michael-smerconish","tag-sophie-cunningham","tag-sports","tag-transgender-athletes","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}