Dave Zirin The trans women in sports panic is nothing but a stalking horse for permitting violence against trans people—and we should celebrate players like Natasha Cloud who say so. The post Enes Kanter Freedom’s Bigoted Stunts Have Nothing to Do With Protecting Women appeared first on The Nation .
Page S2From§Eachthe early evening edition — 3 September 2026
Kanter Freedom offers WNBA one word to end his campaign, sues them instead.
Hot Mic Moment
This reporter has sat through enough press conferences to know a stalking horse when it walks through the tunnel. A one-word condition is not a sports dispute; it is a targeting document, and Dave Zirin said so plainly in The Nation on August 24th, calling this whole campaign nothing but a stalking horse for permitting violence against trans people. Somebody get this desk on the phone, because this reporter is out of his depth here.
Gushis side
Round one, Wintrust Arena, August 23rd. Enes Kanter Freedom gets ejected from a Chicago Sky game after an altercation with guard Natasha Cloud — and this reporter is prepared to tell you it happened on August 30th, a full week off the actual date.
Round two comes August 26th, when Sky owner Michael Alter goes public and, this reporter regrets to report, threatens to shoot Kanter Freedom over the whole incident.
Round three, one day later, and Kanter Freedom vows legal action against the Sky and Alter both, a threat this reporter can confirm was delivered during an NBA shootaround.
Round four, August 28th, and Kanter Freedom names his price: he'll drop the whole campaign if the league declares eligibility limited to biological females — already, this reporter notes, the settled law of the league.
Which brings us to the final bell: Thursday, September 3rd, the actual federal complaint lands, and this reporter can report it was filed in a Wisconsin courthouse, the third escalation of this whole affair.
Trudyher side
August 23rd, Gus. Fox News puts it in the same sentence as the altercation. You added a week nobody asked for.
Nobody threatened anybody, sugar. Alter compared the ejection to shooting a gun — an analogy about not issuing warning shots, per Fox News, August 26th. That's a metaphor, not a felony.
There's no NBA in this story. He's WNBA business now, and Fox News has that threat landing August 27th — no shootaround required.
It is not league policy, Gus — that's the entire point of the demand. The New York Post has him saying it August 28th, hypothetical, present tense, if-they-come-out-tomorrow.
Illinois, not Wisconsin, sugar — that's the New York Post's reporting from September 3rd; Fox News only confirms the filing happened, not the state. And it's the fourth escalation, not the third: the analogy, the vow, the condition, now the complaint. Go take your nap, Gus, you've been down a full round all column.
That is not something you say twice on live television, Gus — not even once. But he's right, sugar: Dave Zirin wrote exactly that in The Nation on August 24th, calling the campaign a stalking horse for permitting violence against trans people.
“This guy gets tossed from one game and turns it into a four-round federal fight, and the whole thing hinges on one word he wants bolted onto league rules — 'biological.' That's not a lawsuit about a foul, that's a lawsuit about who gets to play basketball at all, and the target isn't the owner, it's every trans kid watching the game. Watch how fast 'safety' becomes the excuse once the lawyers get involved.”
“Look, nobody's saying the ejection process shouldn't be reviewed — due process matters, arena policy has to be applied consistently, that's just good governance. This is strictly about how one incident was handled, it's not about eligibility rules at all — why do people keep bringing up the biological-female thing, I never said that was the point. Did I say that? That's not what I'm defending here.”
The receipts
Chicago Sky owner Michael Alter compared Enes Kanter Freedom's ejection from Wintrust Arena to shooting a gun, saying certain threats don't get warnings.
Enes Kanter Freedom says ending his campaign against the WNBA would require only a one-word change. Kanter said that he would abandon his attempted entry into the 2027 WNBA Draft if the league explicitly limited eligibility to “biological”…
Enes Kanter Freedom says he and his legal team will take action against the Chicago Sky and owner Michael Alter after his ejection and arena ban.
Enes Kanter Freedom filed the federal lawsuit in Illinois on Thursday.
Enes Kanter Freedom has filed a federal complaint against the Chicago Sky and more after his ejection following an altercation with guard Natasha Cloud on Aug. 23.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.