CBS Scolds Enes Kanter Freedom for Ruckus at WNBA Game Amid League’s Trans Meltdown

Screenshot via CBS/Snapstream

Monday’s CBS Mornings closed its “Caught Our Eye” segment by chiding former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom for creating too much “noise” and “an inability to show restraint” by arguing about “what a woman is” on Sunday with WNBA player Natasha Cloud during a game between Cloud’s Chicago Sky and the Indiana Fever.

Saturday co-host Adriana Diaz cued up the clip by saying “the debate over transgender female athletes took center court” Sunday when “[f]ormer NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom was ejected from the arena” after Cloud started “shouting at him as he made his way toward the court.”

“It started after Freedom showed up at the game wearing a shirt that said, ‘Woman, noun, adult human female.’ Freedom, who legally changed his last name back in 2021, stirred up controversy...after he declared for the WNBA draft in an attempt to get the league to clarify its rules on transgender eligibility,” she continued, acknowledging the WNBA “found itself in the center of the debate after star player Sophie Cunningham said young girls should — ‘shouldn’t have to go against biological men.’”

In reality, the ruckus is due to the fanbase and many of the league’s players refusal to accept basic biology. At this point, transgenderism is the left’s new golden calf.

Also, fact-check: Where was this in March 2022 or November 2023 when the show gave glowing platforms to “transgender rights activist Raquel Willis” or this past June when it gushed over transgender model Laverne Cox? Or how about October 2024 when it partnered with the organization “Stand with Trans” for a meltdown over so-called anti-trans laws.

Fill-in co-host and chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett incredibly chose to argue its Freedom’s side — those in support of actual women — who want to litigate what makes someone a woman:

So, here’s what the collective bargaining agreement reads for the WNBA: “Only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.” That is exactly the same language that the collective bargaining agreement has for the National Women’s Soccer League and the Professional Women’s Hockey League. It does not, however, define to the satisfaction of those who are curious about this, like Enes Kanter, what a woman is.

Remarkably, liberal co-host and celebrity gal pal Gayle King proceeded to dive head-first into this bizarre, funhouse-mirrors attempt to claim the pro-trans press know full well what makes a woman: “What a woman is, exactly. You wouldn’t think you’d even have to have a conversation about what a woman is, but we are where it is.”

Garrett concurred, lamenting “we are in a place now where there are where there is this dialogue about what is that definition” since “you can’t leave it up to the players” what constitutes a woman and whether trans athletes can join the WNBA

Co-host and former NFL player Nate Burleson also framed Freedom as the aggressor, ignoring Cloud — a woke lesbian — could have easily ignored him.

Instead, Burleson insisted the former NBA player used his free speech rights to antagonize, arguing it showed a lack of “restraint” in public:

I know his shirt was pointing to his statement that he wanted to make, and my concern with him is not about his right to free speech. It’s — it’s his inability to have restraint when he’s in a professional setting. As a former athlete myself and him as a former NBA player, how can you go there, sit that close to the court, and then get that involved with the player doing her job?

So, for me, in him being an athlete, that’s been on the other side of that, that had to deal with fans stopping and harassing him while he’s playing, how come he didn’t just sit there, make your point with your shirt, enjoy the game, just like every other fan.

King insisted she “appreciat[ed] the point he wanted to make, but the way he did it, I think, has a lot of people going, I’m not so sure!”

“Yes, sometimes the noise and the energy you create will overshadow the point you’re trying to make,” Burleson concluded.

To see the relevant CBS transcript from August 24, click here.