Rush Limbaugh had a saying to explain how he would drive a point home about the left that perfectly applies to what we’re seeing in the WNBA today. He said that sometimes you have to illustrate the absurd through absurdity.
In other words, you have to take the left’s premise to its ultimate conclusion to more fully see just how messed up it is.
That would be a perfect description of how the WNBA is totally blowing its current men-in-women's-sports crisis.
My colleagues David Manney and Robert Spencer both wrote separate stories about this trend, which is getting increasingly absurd: We now have former NBA stars declaring their intent to enter the WNBA draft as women.
After careful consideration and reviewing the current eligibility guidelines,
— Enes Kanter FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) August 7, 2026
I’m officially declaring myself a @WNBA prospect.
If simply declaring who you are is all that’s required, then I meet every single requirement necessary to compete in the WNBA.
My team and I have… pic.twitter.com/msncUZUT1J
EXCLUSIVE: Former NBA first-round pick Royce White says he's declaring for the 2027 WNBA Draft, claiming he now identifies as transgender for the purpose of playing professional basketball.
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 8, 2026
The 6-foot-8 former Houston Rockets draft pick follows fellow former NBA player Enes… pic.twitter.com/yUI8NdoiaX
Rush Limbaugh would be proud of these guys. Illustrate the absurd through absurdity. But what makes it all truly absurd is the amount of reality involved here. Both Royce White and Enes Freedom are simply following the rules the left has created, and in the process, they can legitimately claim to have a shot at getting a roster spot in the WNBA.
But it’s not just that. It’s the reaction they’re getting from the left, which in unison is saying, “No fair, you can’t do that!”
The left forgets that yes, in the past, you couldn’t do that. But now, thanks to the left, you can. And the WNBA hasn’t taken a hard line on any of this yet, which is not only hurting the league, but is also hurting the transgender movement.
Reports are that the league is now reaching out to its teams to address, as US News and World Report reports, “ongoing discussions around transgender athletes in women's basketball.”
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Englebert said, “I know many of you have received questions in recent weeks regarding transgender athlete participation in women’s basketball, and I expect this topic will continue to receive significant attention….I wanted to reach out to share how we are approaching these conversations at the league office and to thank those of you who have responded to questions from the media with thoughtfulness and professionalism.”
According to reports, a task force of team presidents and general managers will take this issue up in the near future.
This comes on the heels of flare-ups on the same issue, most recently sparked by Indiana Fever player Sophie Cunningham, who said loudly and proudly that she’s against men playing in the WNBA. For some reason, this was received by the WNBA as a controversial statement, even though the league wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for the “W” in its name, which stands for “Women's,” obviously.
In an ESPN article on Cunningham that was published on July 21, Cunningham said: “I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. 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.”
While you can be sure that the powers that be in the league made it clear to her that what she said is not the company line, unlike so many celebrities in her position, she refused to follow the apology template.
It goes something like this. First, the athlete speaks a universal truth. Then the athlete gets backlash from the woke left, which can’t accept the truth. Third, the athlete or the celebrity gets threatened with consequences if he or she doesn’t change their tune. Right after that, the celebrity walks the original comment back and apologizes “to anyone who may have been offended by my thoughtless comments.”
Cunningham didn’t do any of that. Instead, she doubled down, framing her position not as anti-trans but rather just “common sense.”
Hmmm. Common sense. How’d that find its way into this discussion?
Cunningham’s common sense was enough to trigger protests against her in Seattle and Portland when she was in those towns to play. While Cunningham was in Seattle, a couple of sign-carrying teenage fans were on hand to cheer her on, along with her common-sense position. They were verbally attacked by one of the owners of the Seattle Storm, who allegedly used foul language and was later disciplined for her actions.
Seattle Storm owner CURSED OUT a teenage girl over her pro-Sophie Cunningham sign.
— BrickCenter (@BrickCenter_) July 29, 2026
The fan was forced to put it away and was left in tears.
The fan with an anti-Sophie sign that read “NO HATE IN THE UNITED STATES” was allowed to keep theirs up. pic.twitter.com/ZX8siLeUC3
It got worse from there. As the issue brewed and the league did not take a definitive stance on any of this, news media started to ask other coaches and players their opinions on men playing in the WNBA. This is Cunningham’s coach’s bungled response.
WNBA Indiana Fever coach on whether men should play in women’s sports: “I’m not educated enough in terms of transgender and transitioning” to give an answer. pic.twitter.com/83n71xZLTS
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 1, 2026
Are we to believe that a mature, female head coach of a women’s basketball team in a league called the WNBA does not see herself as qualified to know what a woman is? Or are we to assume that she’s purposefully obfuscating because she knows that there are many things she could have said in response to that question, but the one thing she knew she wasn’t permitted to say was the truth?
The WNBA players’ union then decided to get in on the action, and it only threw gasoline on a raging fire that is now the WNBA’s full-fledged crisis. In the union’s statement, it fruitlessly tried to make the issue one of “hate, abuse, and demonization of any person or group of people,” when that’s not at all the issue. The issue is simply whether men should be permitted to play in the league. It’s not hateful to ask for a determination, or to come up with your own determination, which is in keeping with the league's brand, which is that the WNBA is for women only.
The WNBA player's union the WNBPA has released a statement:
— Jackson Thompson (@JackThompsonFOX) August 7, 2026
"Hate, abuse, and demonization of any person, including transgender people, only fuel fear, division, and harm. We will continue to have hard conversations. But we will not be used as political pawns." pic.twitter.com/QuCZrupihs
Now, without any clear direction or leadership from the league, another coach decided to put her spin on the issue. Cheryl Reeve, who is the head coach and president of the Minnesota Lynx, decided to wear a T-shirt when her team played Cunningham’s Indiana Fever, which said, “Trans kids belong.”
ESPN broadcast "encourages" viewers to go listen to Cheryl Reeve's "incredibly thoughtful" comments about how biological males should be allowed in girl's sports and locker rooms and how children should have their bodies mutilated to support "gender ideology." pic.twitter.com/UJvN4Av2BJ
— Dan Zaksheske (@RealDanZak) August 2, 2026
I’m sorry, but since when did transgender children enter this discussion? What started as a legitimate debate over league policy on whether male athletes should be permitted to compete against females has now devolved into a discussion of “transgender children,” who have nothing to do with this issue.
I’d argue that you wouldn’t have “transgender kids” if there wasn’t a certain degree of despicable adult manipulation, but that’s a column for another day. And Reeve’s T-shirt should have been a shirt for another day, but hey, we’re now neck-deep into the absurdity.
To counterbalance the Cunningham side of the story, someone decided — I'm guessing a PR flack — that another player had to be the voice for men playing in the WNBA. That responsibility fell upon the broad shoulders of Gabby Williams, a star player with the Golden State Valkyries.
She said to a reporter, “I would welcome a trans athlete on my team or against my team.”
WNBA star Gabby Williams supports trans women playing in the league:
— BrickCenter (@BrickCenter_) August 6, 2026
“I would welcome a trans athlete on my team or against my team.” pic.twitter.com/5DKMjXC040
Whoever is handling the crisis management for the WNBA, if anyone, is making one fatal mistake, which is that they are treating this like a “both sides” crisis. In other words, the strategy is based on the assumption that the crisis is over an issue where there are simply two opposing points of view, neither more factually legitimate than the other. But that’s not the case at all.
In this case, the crisis is over a fundamental truth and a leftist political movement that knows it can't change the truth. So, what it is trying to do is change a societally accepted truth and turn it into a lie.
Because this issue is societal, it’s far bigger than the WNBA. Because of the WNBA’s refusal to simply insist that only women play in a women’s league, it has opened itself up to serve as the battlefield where much larger forces are already squaring off to face each other.
Politicians, the federal government, and media organizations that do more than cover sports from a leftist angle are all now paying attention. The general public, thanks to Cunningham, and now Enes Freedom and Royce White, is paying attention and starting to laugh at and ridicule the foolishness of it all.
The WNBA has turned itself into a punchline, a silly sideshow, and people are laughing at it, not with it. In the process, the transgenderism issue itself is suffering severely. The longer the WNBA continues to screw this situation up, the more damage it will do to the LGBTQ movement’s efforts to normalize transgenderism in society.
What’s happening is that people no longer fear ridiculing the league and men and women pretending to be the opposite sex. Mockery of forced transgenderism acceptance is no longer taboo.
Transgenderism as a normalization movement will have a tough time coming back from this, and it all started within the WNBA.
Some are saying that transgenderism may kill the WNBA, but how can you kill something that never could stand on its own two feet anyway? The WNBA is subsidized by the NBA and will exist as long as the NBA sees the merit in it. I suspect, however, that what will happen is that the transgender movement will now fade more quickly into irrelevance. That movement will have the WNBA and its bungling of the transgender issue to thank for charting its current course into oblivion.
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