WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert denounced those she claims are using the league to “sow divisiveness” over the topic of transgender athletes.
Engelbert commented on the matter in Dallas on Thursday, a week after the league issued a statement criticizing concerns about transgender participation in the WNBA.
“People are trying to use the league to sow divisiveness,” Engelbert said Thursday while standing next to Wings CEO and managing partner Greg Bibb.
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“We’re being the center of political football for people who have never watched the WNBA, never have written about the WNBA or reported on the WNBA,” Engelbert added.
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert speaks before the WNBA basketball draft in New York on April 13, 2026. (Pamela Smith/AP)
For background, various WNBA players and media members condemned Fever star Sophie Cunningham for stating in an ESPN profile last month that efforts should be made to protect little girls from competing against biological males.
The backlash within the WNBA to Cunningham’s remarks prompted former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White to ask how women in the league would feel about having to compete against men. To find out, Freedom and White declared themselves eligible for the WNBA draft, saying they identify as women.
The league’s collective bargaining agreement states that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.” The agreement does not include any more specific language about men who identify as women.
Clearly, Engelbert and co. see Freedom, White, and XX-XY Athletics as the ones “sowing divisiveness.” We disagree.
The people who have turned the WNBA into a site of divisiveness are the players and media members openly hostile toward Caitlin Clark as a straight White woman and Cunningham as a proponent of keeping female athletes safe.
DiJonai Carrington of the Chicago Sky was ejected after a brutal foul on Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever. (Kamil Krzaczynski/Imagn Images)
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Let us not forget Cunningham’s actual comments. In February, in an interview that was not published until July, she told ESPN:
“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.”
That’s it.
She said she wanted to extend love while also protecting young girls from having to change next to and compete against biological males. According to polling data, around 78% of adults agree with her that males should not be allowed to compete against females in the name of transgenderism.
And yet, those benign, commonsense remarks stirred league-wide backlash, protests, hostility from players, coaches, and talk show hosts, plus the usual blue-haired weirdos outside Fever games.
Likewise, outsiders defend Clark because the mistreatment she receives from the league, players, officials, marketing campaigns, and media is too blatant to ignore. But because so few in the WNBA or sports media would dare stand up for a straight White woman experiencing racism from Black and queer players, it forced those who traditionally do not cover sports or the WNBA to weigh in.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert speaks prior to the 2026 WNBA Draft at The Shed on April 13, 2026, in New York City. (Getty Images)
To understand how WNBA insiders cover the league, consider that Cindy Brunson argued DiJonai Carrington should not have been ejected for clotheslining Cunningham. Instead, Brunson said Cunningham should have been ejected for confronting Carrington after Carrington left her bloodied in the mouth.
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Defenders of Cunningham and Clark are not the villains in this story. The problem for Engelbert is that the true bad-faith actors in this saga are of a skin color and political bent that the WNBA is not comfortable identifying as villains.
Or, as Engelbert would say, “sowing divisiveness” for personal gain.