There isn’t a transgender woman waiting in a WNBA locker room or sitting on a team’s roster. Yet this week, league executives were preparing to discuss who should be allowed into the women’s game. The conversation had already been simmering since Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham had expressed her opinions on the matter. But suddenly, former NBA players were turning the hypothetical into something far more tangible. 

Enes Kanter Freedom declared himself eligible for the 2027 WNBA Draft. Royce White followed. Larry Sanders joined in. With three declarations already made and more potentially to come, Joe Rogan’s reaction was hard to miss.

“The WNBA painted themselves into the most loony position where they can’t define what a woman is,” Rogan said on a recent episode of his podcast, reacting specifically to Kanter’s move, which he saw as a way of putting the league’s eligibility language under pressure.

“This thing that he’s doing where he’s pretending that he’s a woman is very smart. In this day and age, we almost need someone that’s a public figure to do something like that to show everyone how ridiculous it is that some psychopath can just pretend that they’re a woman and knock women over on the court.”

Kanter’s declaration came on August 7, when he said he and his team had reviewed the WNBA’s eligibility rules and the league’s framework around self-identification and inclusion.

“My team and I have carefully examined the WNBA’s eligibility criteria and governing framework surrounding self-identification and inclusion. Based on the current guidelines, I can and am officially declaring my eligibility for the upcoming WNBA draft in April 2027,” Kanter posted on August 7.

The former NBA center then made clear that he was framing the move as a test of whether the WNBA would apply its stated principles consistently, rather than simply announcing a conventional attempt to join the league.

Hours later, Royce White, a former Houston Rockets first-round pick, followed Enes Kanter and stated his intention of entering the 2027 WNBA draft.

“I’m transgender. I’m a woman… I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for purpose…of basketball, professional basketball,” White said in an interview with Fox News. “So I’ll be declaring for the WNBA draft in 2027 as well.”

White, who was selected 16th overall by Houston in 2012 but played only three NBA games, went further than Kanter in spelling out what he intended to challenge. He said he would pursue a discrimination lawsuit if the WNBA refused to let him play after he declared.

The declarations also carried a political edge. White is now a Republican Senate candidate in Minnesota, while Kanter has spent years using sports as a platform for political and human-rights causes. That helped push what might otherwise have been a league-rule dispute into a much wider culture-war conversation.

Since then, White has worn a wig, mocked critics and questioned why the WNBA would not accept his stated identity. “It’s better. Why wouldn’t they let me play? It’s completely bigoted to deny my trans existence,” White said on Free People Radio.

After White and Kanter, former NBA player Larry Sanders also posted a video from his car declaring for the 2027 WNBA Draft.

“My name is Larry Sanders, and I would like to officially declare for the WNBA draft. I understand that the rules to get in are somewhat controversial, but I’m going to take advantage of those rules.”

None of those declarations, however, means the players have been accepted as WNBA prospects or that the league has ruled them eligible. The WNBA’s latest position is that there are currently no immediate eligibility matters involving transgender players.

That distinction matters because the controversy did not begin with Kanter. It began weeks earlier with Cunningham, who said she wanted to “protect young girls” and women’s sports from having to compete against what she called “biological men.”

“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,’” Cunningham said. “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.”

Cunningham later called her position “kind of common sense” and said she would “always believe” in protecting young girls in sports. She has repeatedly stressed that her position is not rooted in hatred toward transgender people, saying there is “room for absolutely everyone” while arguing that the rights of biological women also need protection.

Her comments soon escaped the WNBA’s usual basketball conversation. President Donald Trump expressed support for Cunningham, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt praised her for speaking out. Small protests and counter-protests also appeared around Fever games, turning Cunningham into one of the most visible faces of the national debate over transgender participation in women’s sports.

Last Friday, August 7, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert sent a memo to teams saying transgender participation would be discussed with team presidents and general managers. Engelbert stressed that player-eligibility rules are collectively bargained and that maintaining competitive integrity remains a priority.

“We will approach these important conversations thoughtfully and in alignment with the values of our league. There are no immediate eligibility matters affecting the WNBA, and we strongly denounce the bad-faith efforts to use these topics to demean or marginalize others.”

The league and the WNBPA subsequently reiterated that position after a virtual meeting of the WNBA’s anti-hate task force on Wednesday. The WNBA said there were “no immediate eligibility matters affecting the WNBA” and condemned what it called “bad-faith efforts” to use the subject to demean or marginalize others.

But the main issue is that the 2026 CBA, whose terms were ratified in March and whose final long-form version was signed on May 22, does not publicly clarify how the league determines gender eligibility. It only states, “Only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.”

That sentence appears in Article XIII, alongside detailed rules covering the age, college and professional eligibility required to enter the WNBA Draft. The document is far more specific about those requirements than it is about what qualifies someone as a “woman” for league eligibility. It does not publicly spell out whether self-identification alone is sufficient or establish a separate transgender-specific eligibility test. Joe Rogan made sure to call it out.

“Well, the thing is, can you define what a woman is? If you can’t define what a woman is, then you’re an idiot, and this is nonsense, and that’s what your ideology is.”

That is the opening Kanter’s declaration was designed to exploit: not a rule saying that every person who declares an identity is automatically eligible, but a publicly available eligibility clause that leaves the league’s precise standard unstated. Whether that is intentional or an omission is something the WNBA has not publicly clarified.

The WNBPA, meanwhile, has stopped short of taking a position on who should be eligible. In its statement, the union said it represents more than 200 players with different experiences and opinions, while reaffirming its commitment to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. It also said it would continue having “hard conversations” but would not be used as a “political pawn.”

For now, the league has not accepted Kanter, White or Sanders as WNBA players, and there is no current transgender eligibility case involving an actual WNBA roster spot. But three former NBA players have turned a previously abstract question into a public test of the league’s rules. And that is precisely what Rogan found “very smart” about Kanter’s move.