A courtside seat, a timeout, and security on the floor
The T-shirt read “WOMAN noun. Adult human female.” Enes Kanter Freedom was wearing it courtside at Wintrust Arena on Sunday night when he got into it with Natasha Cloud during the third quarter of Chicago’s loss to Indiana. He did not see the fourth.
It blew up during an Indiana timeout. Cloud turned toward him, pointed, raised her voice. The former NBA center stood up, spread his arms and took a couple of steps toward the floor. An official and arena security moved in. Cloud’s teammates pulled her back. The referee signalled for the fan to go, and Sky security walked him out.
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Twenty-three points down, and nobody wanted to talk about the basketball
Chicago lost 113-90. Cloud, 34, spoke with team and league security afterward but skipped the media. She went to social media instead, with a message aimed at young trans people, reported by CBS Sports: they are “seen,” and she will protect them.
Kanter Freedom, also 34, talked to police before leaving the building. Then came his post on X: “I just got kicked out of a WNBA game for supporting WOMEN.”
Sky head coach Tyler Marsh got the question in his news conference. “I told her she wasn’t a distraction,” he said of Cloud. “We welcome her as someone who protects our team and people who need protecting.” He had something for the crowd too: “If you come to a game, you should probably come to enjoy the basketball.”
A policy the league has never spelled out
The WNBA has never had an openly trans player, and it has not made its policy public. The collective bargaining agreement signed in March states that “only players who are women may play in the WNBA.” That is as far as the language goes. The argument has been running hot around the league for weeks, stoked partly by Indiana’s Sophie Cunningham, who has since walked her comments back and said she never said she hated anyone.
Both figures at the center of Sunday night have long resumes. Kanter Freedom played 11 NBA seasons from 2011-12 through 2021-22 across five teams, averaging 11.2 points and 7.8 rebounds in 21.5 minutes over 748 regular-season games, 259 of them starts. Cloud is in her 11th WNBA season and her first in Chicago, putting up 11.4 points, five assists and 3.6 rebounds in 36 games. Washington, Phoenix and New York came before the Sky.
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