The WNBA’s transgender eligibility debate has now reached some of the NBA’s biggest stars, even though neither LeBron James nor Stephen Curry has publicly addressed the issue.
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Sage Steele has repeatedly criticized the silence of male athletes and coaches over the issue, including those with daughters who play sports, while also publicly backing sex-segregated sports categories.
“What is LeBron going to say? What is Stephen Curry going to say? What are any of the stars going to say? Stars who have daughters who play sports, what are they going to say? These men better act like men and do the right thing. We shall see,” Steele said.
Steele’s comments put James and Curry in the spotlight because both have publicly supported women’s basketball, while neither has addressed this specific controversy.
Both players have documented ties to women’s basketball and the WNBA, but the research found no public comments from either James or Curry on Sophie Cunningham’s remarks, the Freedom and White declarations, or the WNBA’s transgender eligibility rules.
The current WNBA debate intensified after Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham addressed transgender participation in women’s sports in an ESPN profile published July 21.
“I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham later doubled down, calling her position “common sense” and saying she wanted to “protect children.”
The comments drew political attention and protests on both sides before the debate took another turn on August 7, when former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White declared for the 2027 WNBA Draft.
Freedom and White said they were testing whether the WNBA’s rules on women’s eligibility are applied consistently with self-identification.
“If simply declaring who you are is all that’s required, then I meet every single requirement,” Freedom wrote. “I am definitely not here to mock… I’m simply asking that the current rules be applied equally.”
On August 23, Freedom was ejected from a Chicago Sky game after an interaction with guard Natasha Cloud while wearing a shirt that read, “WOMAN noun. adult human female.”
“I just got kicked out of a WNBA game for supporting WOMEN! Let that sink in, AMERICA!” Freedom wrote after the ejection.
Article XIII of the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement states, “Only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.” The publicly discussed language does not define “women” or specify criteria based on sex assigned at birth, gender identity, transgender status, hormones or medical requirements.
No openly transgender woman has played in a WNBA game.
On August 24, multiple outlets reported that Freedom and White were ineligible for the draft, citing anonymous sources familiar with the league’s decision. The WNBA has not publicly issued a formal ruling naming either man.
The WNBA said, “There are no immediate eligibility matters affecting the WNBA,” while condemning “bad-faith efforts to use these topics to demean or marginalize others.”
The WNBA Players Association said, “We will continue to have hard conversations. But we will not be used as political pawns,” while denouncing hate, abuse and the demonization of transgender people.
For now, the WNBA has announced no policy change, and neither James nor Curry has publicly addressed the controversy. With NBA training camps approaching in late September, Steele’s comments have made the two NBA stars part of the conversation even as the eligibility debate remains centered on the WNBA.