The league issued a statement<\/a> last week criticizing efforts to make an issue about the eligibility of transgender athletes in the WNBA. Engelbert\u2019s comments in a pregame gathering in Dallas were her first since the league called out what it said were bad faith efforts to use the debate to \u201cdemean or marginalize others.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cPeople are trying to use the league to sow divisiveness,\u201d Engelbert said Thursday while sitting alongside Wings CEO and managing partner Greg Bibb.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re being the center of political football for people who have never watched the WNBA, never have written about the WNBA or reported on the WNBA,\u201d Engelbert said, echoing NBA Commissioner Adam Silver\u2019s recent use of \u201cpolitical football\u201d to describe the debate that has engulfed the WNBA.<\/p>\n
The league\u2019s collective bargaining agreement states that \u201conly players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA,\u201d but it does not include any more specific language about gender identity or sex assigned at birth. Earlier this month, two former NBA players, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, declared themselves eligible for the WNBA draft, saying they identify as women.<\/p>\n
Engelbert sent a memo this month to team presidents and general managers saying the league would discuss the subject of transgender women in women\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always going to be haters out there and we denounce it,\u201d Engelebert said Thursday. \u201cBut that\u2019s what happens when you have made it as a legitimate sports media and entertainment product.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS \u2014 WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert denounced people she said are trying to \u201csow divisiveness\u201d as the league…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[348189,323252,20242,15861,15862,983,168221,3,2833,4805,99,31477,434],"class_list":["post-821331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-caitlan-clark","tag-cathy-englebert","tag-connecticut-news","tag-ct-news","tag-hartford-courant","tag-local-news","tag-max-image-preview","tag-news","tag-paige-bueckers","tag-sophie-cunningham","tag-sports","tag-uconn-womens-basketball","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}