Enes Kanter Freedom's WNBA Letter Only Has 1 Realistic Outcome

The WNBA must act quickly to move forward from the discourse surrounding transgender participation, and there's only one course of action to take.

Enes Kanter Freedom trains with BG Niederrheins junior basketball team | IMAGO / Funke Foto Services

Arguably the biggest story in sports over the past few days is the video and then ensuing letter that former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom wrote to the WNBA to declare for the 2027 WNBA Draft, which he did officially on Monday.

This is just the most recent chapter in the discourse surrounding transgender athletes participating in the WNBA, which has dominated the news cycle surrounding women's basketball ever since an article where Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham said she didn't believe transgender athletes should be allowed to play women's sports was published last month.

Now, Freedom (who is also a human rights activist and legally changed his last name to Freedom) has capitalized on this polarizing topic. And at this point, there only seems to be one end in sight: The WNBA needs to adopt a policy that cements its stance on transgender participation.

Boston Celtics center Enes Freedom (13) | USA TODAY Sports

What a WNBA Player Eligibility Policy Might Entail

Since chatter around this won't die down until the WNBA takes definitive action, creating and then instituting a policy will provide finality and allow the sport to move forward. And this policy will likely demand some sort of mandatory testing.

Thankfully for them, several sports organizations already have policies that they can learn from. The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Tour does a good job of handling this, as its policy is to enforce a mandatory, one-time genetic sex screening for every competitor on the women's tour, which looks for the SRY gene (which is found on the Y chromosome and triggers male sex development) to confirm the player's biological sex.

This is basically the same policy that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has adopted going forward. And while there are definitely some who oppose this, there are more supporters than detractors for both the WTA and the IOC policies.

Of course, in order for the WNBA to nail down its testing methods, the league will need to decide its stance on whether it will allow athletes with the SRY gene to compete in the league. According to ESPN, the league's new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) states that "only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA," but doesn't specify anything further than that.

Therefore, since Kanter Freedom said that he identifies as a woman, nothing is barring him from declaring for the 2027 WNBA Draft.

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert released a memo to teams last week that said the topic is continuing to be discussed among team presidents and general managers, who will hopefully come to a solution.

Clarity is the solution to quelling all the noise, and clarity means a policy (that probably includes testing). The league can't come to this conclusion soon enough if they want the focus to get back to being basketball.