The WNBA’s Moment of Truth

Not until recently have I noticed how clearly sports mirror the culture around them. Nowhere is the debate over biological men in women’s sports louder than in the WNBA. I still find it hard to believe we’re even having this conversation.

Gay and lesbian people, and men in drag, have always existed. Most lived quietly without demanding that basic reality be rewritten. Everyone understood the biological difference between males and females. Everyone knew what a woman was.

So when did that change — and more importantly, why?

Right now the WNBA is reflecting something uncomfortable: a league created for women is being asked to pretend biological sex doesn’t matter, and many who once fought to protect women’s categories are either silent or attacking those who still defend them.

Pause for a moment. Turn off the noise. Sit with that.

The WNBA was established in 1996 and began play in 1997. The “W,” naturally, stands for women. At the time, everyone knew what that meant, and it was based on biology. The idea that a man could compete in a women’s professional league was not seriously considered. Across the political spectrum, the consensus was clear: women’s sports were for women.

Sophie Cunningham said the quiet part out loud: “I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” She later added, “I said what I said. I think it’s kind of common sense.”

Thirty years ago that would have been unnecessary. She wouldn’t have needed to say it at all.

But not today.

The reaction to her statements has been louder than the basketball itself. For stating a fact understood for as long as humans have existed, she is taking the heat while the other side claims the moral high ground. That double standard is the real story.

Morality isn’t the main focus of this piece, though it sits at the center of everything. Those in power get to define what counts as moral and they make the rules. The strange part is that the people currently redefining those rules are a minority — yet through careful, determined effort they have gained outsized cultural influence. I believe the roots go deeper, into something spiritual.

Something happened in the 1960s that forever changed the course of our society: women’s liberation.

Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem remain the two most recognizable pioneers of the second wave of feminism. In 1963, Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. It became a massive bestseller and is still credited with sparking the second wave in the United States. Its central idea was “the problem that has no name” — the quiet dissatisfaction of many middle-class, educated housewives who had been told that marriage, children, and domesticity should be enough. Friedan later co-founded the National Organization for Women and served as its first president.

Two of her better-known lines:

“The feminine mystique says that the highest value and the only commitment for women is the fulfillment of their own femininity.”

And the one still quoted most often: “No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor.”

Steinem rose to prominence in the late 1960s and 1970s. She co-founded Ms. magazine and became a leading voice for the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion rights.

Two of her better-known statements:

“A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.”

“The problem with all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.”

They had real differences. Friedan focused more on legal and economic equality and was often critical of the more radical, anti-family strains. Steinem leaned harder into cultural and identity questions. Still, both remain central figures in any serious history of second-wave feminism.

One thing they shared: they knew what a woman was. It is hard to imagine either of them looking at today’s claims — that a man can simply declare himself a woman and claim the rights and spaces they fought so hard to secure — without finding the whole idea absurd.

Steinem, now 92, made a clear shift in 2013. She apologized for earlier comments from the 1970s that some viewed as critical of transgender identities, writing that transgender people live “real, authentic lives” that should be celebrated rather than questioned.

In her defense, the issue was not forced on her the way it is today. How she would have answered then is mostly academic. As of now, she has not publicly addressed the specific questions of what a woman is, whether transgender women belong in women’s sports, or access to women’s private spaces.

What is a woman?

I didn’t want to go here. The question has been forced into the open for the better part of a decade, especially since 2020. Transgender participation in women’s sports, access to women’s spaces, and the legal definitions of sex and gender moved from quiet side discussions into the center of mainstream politics. Title IX sits at the top of the list. Courts, schools, and the media have taken the reins and have not slowed down.

The definition depends, remarkably, on who you ask.

Most conservatives hold that a woman is an adult human female — someone with two X chromosomes, regardless of whether she can or chooses to bear children. The fact that some women cannot have children does not change the biological category; it only shows that fertility is not the sole marker of womanhood.

Many progressives treat the definition as fluid: a woman is whoever says they are one. When pressed for a clearer standard, the answers usually dissolve into circular language or a demand to know why you are asking. A single, consistent definition is rarely offered.

Nowhere has this debate been more heated than in the WNBA. In 1996, when the league was founded, there was no confusion about what a woman was. When they tipped off in 1997, there were no biological males in the league. No one expected this to become an issue thirty years later. Everyone could define the word.

Right now the league faces an uncomfortable reality: the real possibility of biological males competing in the WNBA. Some players and coaches have already said they would accept it. Their reasoning is simple — if a person believes they are a woman, then they are one. That view is not grounded in biology, but those who hold it see the other side as being unreasonable.

Trying to change their minds is almost always futile. For many, the current understanding of gender has settled so deeply it is no longer just an opinion. It has become part of how they see reality itself. Challenging it does not feel like a debate. It feels like asking them to tear up the foundation of their world. That is why so many of these conversations go nowhere.

Commissioner Cathy Engelbert recently sent a memo acknowledging the growing attention. A task force of team presidents and general managers will discuss the issue. The collective bargaining agreement says only “women” are eligible, yet it never defines the word.

In 2026, in the United States, a professional sports league is holding a meeting to decide what “woman” means — as if after thousands of years of human existence, we have suddenly forgotten. You cannot make this up.

I am sure the league, and Engelbert in particular, would have preferred to avoid this moment. But this is what happens when order finally pushes back against chaos.

This is a moment of truth for the league — and for the broader ideology that has driven the conversation. There is no easy exit. The rubber has met the road. The league will have to take responsibility for the beliefs it has promoted. One way or another, a working definition of what a woman is will come out of this. The WNBA did not create the problem, but it now has to face it.

Former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White publicly declared themselves eligible for the 2027 WNBA Draft, framing it as a challenge to the league’s inclusion language. Freedom said that if self-identification is enough, he meets the requirements. White said he identifies as a woman “for the purposes of professional basketball.”

Most people are not taking them seriously — except the WNBA itself, and anyone who already accepts that being a woman is simply whatever someone claims. Left-wing ideology never expected this level of pushback. The “time-out” generation has rarely been told a firm no. This is what happens when one side spends years letting the other define the terms, as long as it did not seem to affect them directly. Live and let live — until the consequences show up on the court.

Sophie Cunningham has been clear: she wants to protect young girls in locker rooms and in sports from competing against biological males. She called it “common sense,” doubled down when pressed, and framed it as defending the integrity of women’s sports and the safety of girls. Critics claim her position equals hate yet offer no real evidence. Cunningham herself has said she will “welcome them at her table” — just not on the court or in women’s locker rooms.

Cheryl Reeve, coach of the Minnesota Lynx, has long supported the gender-ideology position. On August 2, 2026, during a game against the Indiana Fever, she wore a shirt that read “Trans Kids Belong.” She has called protecting transgender kids a “human rights issue” and said every child has a right to sports regardless of gender identity. No one — including Sophie Cunningham — disagrees that children should be protected. Reeve knows this. Cunningham’s actual position is specific: biological males should not compete in women’s sports or share women’s private spaces. She has never said transgender kids should be banned from sports. Yet by answering with a slogan like “Trans Kids Belong,” Reeve reframes a limited argument about fairness and safety into a broader charge that Cunningham wants to exclude transgender children entirely. Before the game, she confronted Cunningham at midcourt, making that reframed disagreement visible to everyone in the arena and on television.

Sports have always reflected the culture that surrounds them. Right now the WNBA is holding up a clear and uncomfortable mirror. A league built on the category of “woman” is being forced to decide whether that word still means anything.

Sophie Cunningham stated the obvious and was treated as the problem. Cheryl Reeve answered with a slogan that reframed a narrow concern about fairness into a moral accusation. Former NBA players tested the language the league has been using and suddenly the abstract debate became concrete. A task force now has to sit down and define a word that, until recently, needed no definition.

This is not really about two retired players or one coach’s T-shirt. It is about whether a society can still say that biological reality matters when it collides with an ideology that insists it does not. The WNBA did not invent the conflict, but it can no longer pretend the conflict is someone else’s problem.

One way or another, the league will have to answer the question it has spent years avoiding:

What is a woman?

The rest of us already know. The only question left is whether the people running women’s sports are still willing to say it out loud.