Being tossed from a WNBA game is peanuts to Enes Kanter Freedom. Freedom, after all, has been threatened by an authoritarian government, had his passport revoked and seen his family punished for his political views.
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The former NBA center was sitting courtside Sunday at the Chicago Sky-Indiana Fever game wearing a shirt that read, “WOMAN noun. Adult human female.” According to the New York Post, Sky guard Natasha Cloud began yelling and pointing at Freedom after scoring late in the third quarter. Freedom stood, spread his arms and took one step onto the court as security and several Sky players moved between the two. Security then removed him from Wintrust Arena.
Freedom later said the exchange began after he celebrated a 3-pointer by Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, who has publicly opposed allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports. According to Freedom, Cloud told him Cunningham was “not gonna sleep with you.” Freedom says he replied that he was there to support women, after which Cloud began cursing at him.
In 2023, Cloud declared that “our country is trash in so many ways” after Supreme Court rulings she disliked. Freedom, who became an American citizen in 2021 and added “Freedom” to his legal name, pushed back. He offered to buy Cloud a ticket to China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba or Turkey so she could see what actual political repression looks like.
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Freedom knows something about that subject. His criticism of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan led Turkey to revoke his passport; his father was detained and prosecuted, and Turkish authorities sought to prosecute Freedom himself. He later became one of professional basketball’s loudest critics of Communist China, wearing “Free Tibet” and “Free Uyghur” shoes. After his pro-Tibet comments, Chinese broadcaster and NBA partner Tencent stopped showing current and archived Celtics games.
Now Freedom is using satire to expose the unresolved question of males in women’s sports. Earlier this month, the 6-foot-10 former NBA player declared himself eligible for the 2027 WNBA Draft, saying he identifies as a woman and arguing that the league’s current rules leave the issue unresolved. The league’s collective bargaining agreement says only women may play but, as the Los Angeles Times reported, does not specifically address transgender women or define eligibility by sex at birth. No publicly known transgender woman has ever played in the league.
Freedom has spent years asking institutions whether their devotion to “freedom” survives contact with an unpopular opinion. The WNBA just gave him another reason to keep asking.
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