For a league that has built its brand on empowerment and inclusion, the WNBA found itself in an awkward spot this week: unable to answer the most basic question about its own existence. According to a report at American Thinker, a league meeting held on August 12 to resolve a controversy over men seeking to join the women’s teams ended in deadlock—the league could not agree on what qualifies as a woman.
The trouble began when NBA veterans Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White went public with demands to play in the WNBA. Kanter Freedom claimed he met “every single requirement” to join the women’s league, noting that the league has no formal definition of what a woman is. White, for his part, said his “thick eyelashes” were all the qualifications he needed. Both were immediately criticized by sportswriters, academics, and others as carrying out a “political stunt” designed to embarrass the league—a characterization that, as American Thinker points out, is probably accurate. The two were speaking out in response to the treatment received by WNBA star Sophie Cunningham for her comments about transgender participation in women’s sports a couple of weeks earlier.
No definition, no resolution
The August 12 meeting was meant to clear the air. Instead, it apparently only deepened the confusion. According to the American Thinker report, the league’s leadership couldn’t decide among themselves what a woman is—a failure that, the author notes, proved Kanter Freedom right when he said the league lacks a clear standard.
The editorial, written by J.R. Dunn, does not mince words: “So the league held a meeting on August 12 to sort things out and, guess what. They couldn’t for the life of them decide what a woman was.” This, the piece argues, is emblematic of a league that has embraced the “wildest excesses of wokism” long after the public has turned against them, while remaining silent as its own stars are “brutalized.”
The American Thinker column goes further, asserting that the WNBA is “largely a lesbian organization” and that if “the manly girls can’t figure out what a woman is, they’ve got problems.” It also laments that the league is now “exhibit A for the pre-feminist school of thought that women can’t run anything.”
A mission undermined
The WNBA was founded, according to the piece, to give female athletes a platform to showcase their talents—a mission that is now “an absolute joke” if the league cannot even define who qualifies as female. “Kowtowing to the trannies,” as the author puts it, undermines the entire reason for the league’s existence. The conclusion is blunt: “It’s time for the WNBA to either woman up or close up shop.”
The article is a strongly worded opinion piece, and its language is deliberately provocative. But the underlying factual claims—that two NBA veterans publicly demanded to play in the WNBA, that the league held a meeting that failed to produce a definition of “woman,” and that the controversy stems from earlier comments by Sophie Cunningham—are central to the story. American Thinker is a conservative outlet, and its framing is explicitly critical of the WNBA’s policies on transgender inclusion.
What is undeniable is that the WNBA has stumbled into a debate that is not going away. As the league tries to balance its stated values with the realities of its locker rooms and its fan base, it may find that the hardest question to answer is also the most basic: who gets to play?
This report is based on an editorial from American Thinker and reflects its perspective. The WNBA has not publicly responded to the claims in the article at the time of writing.
Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/08/how-the-wnba-cancelled-itself/