{"id":43502,"date":"2026-08-14T04:03:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T23:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=43502"},"modified":"2026-08-14T04:03:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T23:03:51","slug":"why-cant-the-wnba-just-say-what-a-woman-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=43502","title":{"rendered":"Why can&#8217;t the WNBA just say what a woman is?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F08%2Fcrop-40332046_2fd868.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>An organization with the word \u201cwomen\u201d in its name <em>should <\/em>be able to say what a woman is, but the Women\u2019s National Basketball Association can\u2019t bring itself to affirm something so basic, for fear of defying progressive pieties about \u201cgender identity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Former NBA players Enes Kanter and <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/08\/08\/sports\/ex-nba-player-royce-white-to-declare-for-wnba-draft-as-transgender\/\">Royce White<\/a> have pushed the issue by <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/08\/08\/sports\/wnba-task-force-to-discuss-growing-drama-around-transgender-athletes\/\">announcing their intention<\/a> to enter the WNBA draft as women; the league held an emergency meeting to try to draw up a policy that would clearly exclude them \u2014 and found it couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, it announced a lack of \u201cimmediate eligibility matters affecting the WNBA\u201d while denouncing \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/08\/12\/sports\/wnba-slams-bad-faith-efforts-to-marginalize-others-amid-trans-athlete-debate-task-force\/\">bad-faith efforts<\/a> to use these topics to demean or marginalize others.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Kanter and White <em>aren\u2019t<\/em> acting in bad faith, exactly; they\u2019re calling out the hypocrisy of a women\u2019s sports league bowing to a perverse ideology that allows some depraved men to pose as women.<\/p>\n<p>Letting men play would destroy the WNBA, and everyone knows it \u2014 as they know that neither Kanter nor White is truly sincere.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<div class=\"inline-module inline-module--more inline-module--author inline-module--more--thirds\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n<h2 class=\"inline-module__heading subsection-heading subsection-heading--underline subsection-heading--underline--indent-30 \">\n\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"subsection-heading__sub\">Post Editorial Board<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>But the same is true of male rapists who claim to identify as female in order to be placed in women\u2019s prisons, and of <em>other <\/em>predators who seek to invade women\u2019s spaces.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s insane to say such claims must not be denied, but the extreme \u201cpro trans\u201d position <em>is<\/em> insane. <\/p>\n<div class=\"single__inline-module inline-module inline-module--newsletter aligncenter inline-module--nypostbusinessunit aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-newsletter\" data-source-unit=\"Inline Newsletter Module Post Opinion\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__title-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__unsubmitted-title-wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"inline-module__title headline headline--combo-sm-md\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h3>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"inline-module__title headline headline--combo-sm-md\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\t\t\t\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>So it\u2019s the WNBA that\u2019s acting in bad faith, refusing to stand up for <em>actual <\/em>women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n<p>In this, the league is <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/03\/14\/sports\/ncaa-athletes-seek-to-ban-transgender-women-from-competing-in-womens-sports\/\">way behind the curve<\/a>: The International Olympic Committee, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/26\/us-news\/ncaa-athletes-say-after-olympic-trans-ban-its-time-for-change-in-us\/\">the NCAA<\/a>, World Athletics, World Aquatics, the International Cycling Union, USA Powerlifting . . . heck, even FIDE, the governing body for <em>chess<\/em>, have all landed squarely on the side of sanity by restricting participation in women\u2019s sports to women.<\/p>\n<p>A couple of near 7-foot-tall men are embarrassing the WNBA by exposing its <em>pretend <\/em>agnosticism about biological sex.<\/p>\n<p>Facing reality here isn\u2019t anti-trans nor anti-gay; it\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/08\/03\/opinion\/i-know-exactly-why-sophie-cunningham-is-being-demonized-for-her-views-on-men-in-girls-sports\/\">just common sense<\/a>, and as the WNBA breaks big into the mainstream, it\u2019s going have to let go of its woke mentality.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An organization with the word \u201cwomen\u201d in its name should be able to say what a woman is, but the Women\u2019s National Basketball Association can\u2019t bring itself to affirm something so basic, for fear of defying progressive pieties about \u201cgender identity.\u201d Former NBA players Enes Kanter and Royce White have pushed the issue by announcing&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/crop-40332046_2fd868.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}