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.CLUELESS WNBA ATTACKS 'BAD-FAITH' FANS WHO DON'T WANT BIOLOGICAL MEN RUINING WOMEN'S SPORTS"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)BILL MAHER CALLS OUT THE LUNACY OVER SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM'S TRANS COMMENTS BEING TWISTE...