Who would have imagined that the WNBA—the Women’s National Basketball Association—would become a major battleground in the fight for cultural sanity? Yet that is exactly what happened this week, with our own Chicago Sky at the center of the controversy.
Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom attended Sunday’s game between the Chicago Sky and Indiana Fever to support his friend, Fever shooting guard Sophie Cunningham. He wore a shirt bearing a simple biological definition:
“WOMAN: noun. adult human female.”
Cunningham has become one of the WNBA’s most prominent voices defending women’s sports. In an ESPN interview published last month, she explained:
“I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
During the third quarter, Chicago Sky point guard Natasha Cloud, who identifies as a lesbian, confronted Freedom with insults and obscenities, including f-bombs. We can only assume that her angry outburst was in response to the message on his shirt. The real controversy had nothing to do with Cunningham’s three-point shot. It centered on Freedom’s willingness to state the biological truth that even U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson famously declined to define: A woman is an adult human female.
After Freedom was removed from Sunday’s game, the Chicago Sky banned him from the arena. Team owner Michael Alter claimed that Freedom had demonstrated he was a “potential threat” and could not control himself sufficiently to ensure the safety and comfort of players and fans. If you would like to respectfully express your concerns about the team’s decision to ban Freedom, email the Chicago Sky at: media@chicagosky.net.
The Chicago Sky lost the game by a score of 90 to 113.
During an interview on the Fox Business program The Bottom Line, host Dagen McDowell highlighted the glaring irony of the team’s response:
“The irony in all of this is that that the one team has a problem with you being courtside, but people who advocate for biological men playing in the sport, they don’t have a problem with men being in the locker room with women without their consent.”
Watch the entire 9 minute segment here:
During this interview, Freedom made it clear that he is not finished pushing this issue to the forefront of the WNBA—and, consequently, our culture. Unless the league clearly defines what a woman is, he intends to follow through on his formal letter to the WNBA, which states:
“Please accept this formal document as my official written notification of my voluntary decision to enter the player pool for the 2027 WNBA Draft.”
And he is not alone. Freedom said he has been speaking with “European players, three college players, and two former NBA players” who are also considering entering the 2027 WNBA Draft.
Such a move would force the league to confront the issue directly. If biological sex is irrelevant, on what grounds could the WNBA exclude male basketball players—including former NBA athletes? Their participation would expose the absurdity of gender ideology while potentially destroying the very concept of a women’s basketball league.
Ironically, the WNBA has reportedly relied on millions of dollars in annual NBA subsidies to help cover its operating deficits since the league’s founding in 1997.
The Chicago Sky finished the 2025 season with a dismal 10–34 record while averaging 9,073 fans per game. So far this year, the team stands at 15–24. By comparison, the Chicago Bulls averaged 20,243 fans per game—although the NBA plays an 82-game regular season, compared with the WNBA’s 44 games.
It is also interesting to note that Freedom, a practicing Muslim, legally changed his surname to “Freedom,” keeping “Kanter” as a middle name after becoming a U.S. citizen. In an interview with CNN, he explained:
“Here [in the US] there is freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of the press. I didn’t have any of those with Turkey. Freedom is the greatest thing a human being can have. That’s why I wanted to make that word a part of me, and carry it wherever I go.”
What Freedom is doing should not be extraordinary. He is simply standing for biological truth and exposing those who seek to erase the God-given distinction between male and female. Yet in our increasingly confused culture, even stating the obvious requires courage.
Christians are commanded to “buy the truth, and do not sell it” (Proverbs 23:23). We are also commissioned to disciple the nations, “teaching them to observe all things” Christ has commanded (Matthew 28:19–20). That includes proclaiming the truth revealed in Genesis 1:27 and affirmed by Jesus in Matthew 19:4:
“He who created them from the beginning
made them male and female…”
And in the very next verse, Jesus connects that to God’s definition of marriage, finishing His question in which He sarcastically asks, “Have you not read…“:
“For this reason a man shall leave his father
and mother and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh?”
Our culture desperately needs to hear this truth. We cannot remain silent while left-wing activists intentionally deceive our neighbors and children. Christians should be leading the way and pointing others to Jesus Christ, who unequivocally declared in John 14:6:
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life;
no one comes to the Father except through Me.“
You and I must be willing to boldly stand and publicly declare the truth about God’s created order.
