Source : ABC NEWS
Former NBA centre Enes Kanter Freedom has been ejected from an Indiana-Chicago WNBA game after Sky guard Natasha Cloud yelled and pointed in his direction late in the third quarter.
Freedom was sitting along the baseline on Sunday night (Monday AEST). He had on a black shirt that read “WOMAN noun. adult human female”.
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The Fever called for a timeout after Cloud scored with 1:22 left in the third. Cloud then went to confront Kanter, who held his arms out and took one step on the court. Security and a handful of Sky players stepped in between the two before the dispute escalated.
Freedom was then escorted from the court area. He displayed his shirt as he walked toward the lobby. He had a conversation with a group of police officers before departing Wintrust Arena.
Sky coach Tyler Marsh said the team had rallied around Cloud.
“Tash didn’t wanna feel like she was a distraction and I told her she wasn’t,” he said.
“I told her that we all embrace her as someone that protects our team and protects people that need to be protected. Tash is always going to stand on that, and we stand for Tash.”
Freedom and Royce White, another former NBA player, declared themselves eligible for the WNBA draft this month, saying they identified as women.
“I’m transgender. I’m a woman … I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for purposes of … professional basketball,” White previously said.
“I think I’d be unstoppable.”
Freedom said he and his team had reviewed the WNBA’s eligibility criteria and its approach to self-identification and inclusion, and argued that if declaring an identity were sufficient, then he met the requirements to compete.
The confrontation came in a game that Indiana star Sophie Cunningham was playing in. Cunningham previously voiced support for barring transgender girls and women from girls’ and women’s sports in an extensive ESPN profile.
“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans,” Cunningham said.
“And I’m like, ‘I never once said that.’ I 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’t have to go against biological men.”
Protesters from both sides of the argument have gathered outside a number of WNBA games, with fans at the Sky-Fever game calling out Kanter as he entered the arena.
Sophie Cunningham (left) has been at the centre of the controversy, highlighted by Enes Kanter’s (right) stunt. (Getty Images: Michael Reaves)
One was heard telling the former NBA centre to get his “bitch ass out of Chicago”, while another said “I’m not touching him I’m just saying f*** you, bitch”.
“Knowing that rallies are happening on both sides shows the platform that the W has and the stunts for attention are just continuing to try and ride the wave that we have,” New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart said.
“I want Liberty fans and even Indy fans that are going to come here tonight to be able to have this arena be a safe space.”
There has never been a transgender woman player in the WNBA.
Commissioner Cathy Engelbert last week denounced people she said were trying to “sow divisiveness” over the issue.
Engelbert’s comments in a pre-game gathering before a Fever-Wings game in Dallas were her first public remarks since the league called out what it said were bad faith efforts to use the debate to “demean or marginalise others”.
“People are trying to use the league to sow divisiveness,” Engelbert said.
“We’re being the centre of political football for people who have never watched the WNBA, never have written about the WNBA or reported on the WNBA.”
The league’s collective bargaining agreement states that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA”, but it does not include any more specific language about gender identity or sex assigned at birth.
Engelbert sent a memo this month to team presidents and general managers saying the league would discuss the subject of transgender women in women’s basketball.
“There’s always going to be haters out there and we denounce it,” Engelbert said last week.
“But that’s what happens when you have made it as a legitimate sports media and entertainment product.”
AP
