WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has given Congress a direct answer: the league's eligibility rule is a rule about women, and the two former NBA players at the center of the dispute — Royce White and Enes Kanter Freedom — are, in the league's own words, men.
The response came in an October 16 letter to Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) and four Republican colleagues who had asked the league to explain how it defines "women" under its collective bargaining agreement and why White and Freedom had been ruled ineligible. The letter, first reported by Breitbart and Fox News/OutKick, states: "With respect to your questions regarding eligibility, only women are eligible to play in the WNBA and the individuals you cite in your letter are both men."
The lawmakers — Stutzman, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Rep. Erin Houchin (R-IN) and Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA) — sent their original inquiry on September 17 and set an October 16 deadline for a reply. Their questions covered eligibility, player safety and confrontations with fans, according to Fox News/OutKick.
Stutzman treated the answer as a victory. "In a reply to my letter to the WNBA about @Enesfreedom and @Highway_30's eligibility, the @WNBA declared they are 'both men,'" he wrote in a post on X. "This is their clear acknowledgment that simply identifying as a woman does not change basic human biology!"
The underlying fight is over White and Freedom's effort to enter the 2027 WNBA draft after declaring that they identify as women. During an interview with OutKick, White agreed when asked whether that declaration was "for basketball purposes." The CBA contains the "only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA" language but does not spell out definitions of gender identity or sex assigned at birth, Front Office Sports reported in August.
Freedom mocked the league's letter on X, writing: "Apparently, the WNBA still can't define what a WOMAN is, but they're absolutely certain they know what a MAN is! How convenient!" In comments reported by Fox News/OutKick, he said Engelbert had "declared" that he is a man and asked who gave her the authority to decide.
White, for his part, is not satisfied with the league's answer. "No, we're not letting them off that easy," he told OutKick. "She has to define, and the WNBA has to define, what a man and a woman is and why." Asked whether Engelbert's letter had triggered the discrimination lawsuit his side had discussed, White said he could not discuss particulars; he announced no filing and gave no timetable, but said, "We plan to explore every legal avenue possible to hold the WNBA and NBA community to their stated standards and values."
He also framed his interest in the league in ordinary terms. "I'm a fan of the WNBA. I think the women have come a long way," White told OutKick. "I'd love to see it not as politicized as it is, because I think it takes away from the be[auty of the game]."
For the league, the letter settles the eligibility question on paper without resolving the definitional one. Engelbert asserted an outcome — only women play, and these two individuals are not women — but the CBA text she cited does not define the terms, and neither the letter nor the league has published a definition. That gap is exactly where White says the next round will be fought, and it leaves the WNBA exposed to the argument that its rule rests on an unstated premise it would rather not write down.
What the letter does establish is that a sitting congressional delegation asked, and the league answered in plain language rather than issuing a statement through a public relations office. The response arrived on the lawmakers' deadline, and it says what it says.
Our Take
Notice what just happened here. Four members of Congress sent a letter, and the WNBA — a private league that has spent years lecturing the country about inclusivity — wrote back that only women are eligible and that the two men in question are men. You cannot get that sentence out of the league's own PR machine. It took a Republican-led inquiry with a deadline to force it onto paper, and that is the part the legacy outlets covering this story will skip.
But read the letter carefully, because the fight is not over. Engelbert gave an answer, not a definition. She said the two individuals are men; she did not say what a woman is or where the line is drawn, and the CBA she cited doesn't either. That is how you satisfy a congressional deadline while keeping your options open — and White knows it, which is why he isn't celebrating. "We're not letting them off that easy." He's right not to. A rule that cannot be stated as a rule is not a rule; it is discretion, and discretion in the hands of a league that has spent years treating biology as a subject of debate is exactly what the American people have learned to distrust.
The other half of this story is player safety, and it is the part the sports press has treated as an afterthought. A woman's league exists because the athletes competing in it are women. The minute that becomes negotiable, the physical stakes for the players in the paint are real, and everyone in that locker room knows it. Stutzman and his colleagues asked about it. The letter didn't answer it.
Here is the bottom line for the fans: the league has now said in writing, to Congress, that its women's league is for women. If that is the standard, WNBA leadership should say so plainly, in public, and stop hiding behind CBA language that leaves the door cracked. So here's the question every American who buys a ticket should ask: if the WNBA is certain enough of its own rule to tell Congress about it, why is it so afraid to define the words it's built on?
