After politicians, activists, and ex-NBA players, another voice outside the WNBA community has now expressed his opinion on trans athletes competing in women’s sports, since Sophie Cunningham opposed the idea in a July 21 ESPN profile. With the WNBA leadership finally starting discussions on the league’s eligibility policies following former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Larry Sanders declaring themselves for the 2027 WNBA drafts, UFC color commentator Joe Rogan has now questioned the league’s official stance.
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“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. Your ideology is so stupid you can’t define the difference between a male and a female,” he said in episode #2539 of the Joe Rogan Experience.
“And so you’ve decided that people identifying with something means it’s a real thing. And you have to say it because everybody else says it, and they scare you, and they’ll cancel you and go after you. So everyone’s agreed to nonsense.”
Joe Rogan discussed this issue with his guest Shane Gillis following the WNBA finally addressing the debate directly. While WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert had revealed the league would discuss the eligibility issue after forming a special task force, their official statement came after the members met on August 12.
Headed by the WNBA commissioner herself and representatives of the league’s anti-hate task force, they explained how the W plans to handle the issue and also denounced former Boston Celtics player Enes Kanter Freedom and ex-Milwaukee Bucks player Larry Sanders for declaring themselves eligible for the 2027 WNBA draft.
“Today’s meeting covered a wide range of topics, including ongoing discussions on transgender athletes and the continued hate and vitriol directed at players online,” read the official statement.
However, the league clarified that this was the first of many meetings where they would discuss the issue and attempt to come up with a solution to the debate that’s been raging on since Sophie Cunningham first spoke about the issue last month.
Interestingly, the task force defended the eligibility policy, saying the league saw no immediate need to amend or add to the existing policy, and the CBA, which states “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.”
“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.”
However, since the league does not explicitly define a ‘woman’, ex-NBA stars like Enes Kanter Freedom have suggested that they did not violate any rules when making their declaration.
“The WNBA says a woman is anyone who claims to be one. So if I say I’m a woman, you have to accept it. Those are the rules the WNBA created,” Freedom wrote on X after the league’s official statement.
This technical loophole is exactly why Joe Rogan was also critical of how the W handled things so far.