{"id":825644,"date":"2026-08-25T19:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T19:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/825644\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T19:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T19:34:10","slug":"enes-kanter-kicked-out-of-wnba-game-after-argument-with-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/825644\/","title":{"rendered":"Enes Kanter kicked out of WNBA game after argument with player"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ryan Foley<\/a>, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, August 25, 2026\"FormerFormer NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom and Natasha Cloud #9 of the Chicago Sky yell at one another during the second half between the Chicago Sky and the Indiana Fever at Wintrust Arena on August 23, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois. | Michael Reaves\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Former NBA center Enes Kanter Freedom was ejected from a WNBA game after a confrontation with a player while wearing a shirt displaying the definition of the word \u201cwoman.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kanter Freedom, who played more than a decade in the NBA, posted several times on X on Sunday during a game in Chicago between the Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky as the league continues to face scrutiny over its position on trans-identified males in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

In the first post<\/a>, he shared video of protesters confronting him outside the arena. The footage, captioned \u201cWe are getting attacked before the @WNBA game in Chicago,\u201d showed fans making obscene gestures and shouting at him as Chicago police officers surrounded him.<\/p>\n

In another post, Kanter Freedom shared an image<\/a> of the shirt he wore to the game. It identifies \u201cwoman\u201d as a \u201cnoun\u201d meaning \u201cadult human female.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCareful what you wish for, @WNBA,\u201d he wrote alongside a photo of himself wearing the shirt in the stands. Declaring that \u201cFreedom of speech never looked this good,\u201d Kanter Freedom expressed bewilderment that the stance reflected on his shirt was \u201csomehow controversial.\u201d<\/p>\n

A third post<\/a> showed him standing joyfully in the shirt, with the caption \u201cIt\u2019s halftime and I need to use the restroom.\u201d He remained for much of the game but said on X Sunday night that he was eventually ejected.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just got kicked out of a @WNBA game for supporting WOMEN!\u201d Kanter Freedom wrote in an X post<\/a>. \u201cLet that sink in, AMERICA.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with Fox News, Kanter Freedom said his ejection followed a confrontation with Sky guard Natasha Cloud.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was towards the end of the third quarter,\u201d he recalled. \u201c[Indiana Fever guard] Sophie Cunningham shot a three and I put my hands up to celebrate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple possessions later, Natasha came back and started screaming and yelling and said, \u2018She\u2019s not going to sleep with you,\u2019\u201d Kanter Freedom added. \u201cI was like, \u2018I am not trying to sleep with her, I\u2019m just here to protect women and support her.\u2019 And then obviously after that, she started yapping, and she started to walk towards me, and literally I just got up, and then I was like, \u2018I\u2019m just here to protect women and that\u2019s all.\u2019 Right? And then she started to yell; she started to use some very heavy language; she started to actually cuss.\u201d<\/p>\n

A security guard then told him, \u201cYou need to leave,\u201d Kanter Freedom said. When he asked why, the guard repeated, \u201cYou just need to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a postgame press conference<\/a>, Sky head coach Tyler Marsh defended Cloud as \u201csomeone that protects our team and protects people that need to be protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

League sources told TMZ<\/a> that it doesn’t plan to ban Kanter Freedom from attending games because he didn’t step onto the court and didn’t do anything egregious.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The confrontation comes shortly after Kanter Freedom responded<\/a> to the WNBA\u2019s decision not to explicitly bar trans-identified males from the league by announcing that he intends to enter next spring\u2019s draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf simply declaring who you are is all that\u2019s required, then I meet every single requirement necessary to compete in the WNBA,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n

The WNBA\u2019s collective bargaining agreement states that \u201conly players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.\u201d The league dismissed the draft vows by Kanter Freedom and fellow former NBA player Royce White as \u201cbad-faith efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The league\u2019s policy has drawn renewed attention since Cunningham reaffirmed in a recent interview<\/a> with ESPN that female athletes should not have to compete against trans-identified males.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I\u2019m like, \u2018I never once said that,\u2019\u201d Cunningham told the outlet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn\u2019t have to go against biological men,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Since Cunningham made those comments, activism on both sides of the issue has become common at WNBA games. The league previously faced criticism<\/a> after security officials told a mother and daughter at a game between the Fever and the Atlanta Dream to cover their XX-XY shirts, threatening ejection if they refused. XX-XY Athletics is an apparel company that opposes the participation of trans-identified males in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

The WNBA and the Atlanta Dream later apologized. The Dream said the team \u201cbelieves in creating a safe and inclusive environment for everyone\u201d and acknowledged that WNBA security\u2019s actions \u201cfell short of that standard.\u201d The WNBA said the incident \u201cshould not have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, August 25, 2026Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom and Natasha Cloud…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":825645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[349819,7788,4805,99,434],"class_list":["post-825644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-enes-kanter-freedom","tag-natasha-cloud","tag-sophie-cunningham","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825644","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=825644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}