A Day After the WNBA Called Him a Man, Enes Kanter Freedom Got Thrown Out of the Finals for Defending Women

Enes Kanter Freedom, the former NBA center best known for calling out China's Communist Party and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was removed from Game 3 of the WNBA Finals in Atlanta on Wednesday night. His offense: he wanted to sit in the seats he paid for.

For the second time this season, he didn't make it through a WNBA game, the Associated Press reported. Both times, the backdrop was the same. Freedom has spent months pressing the league to say plainly that women's basketball is for women, and both times he's the one who ended up outside.

He posted the video from outside State Farm Arena at halftime:

"I would like to sit in my seat"

The video shows Freedom at the entry gate being told, "If you come in you have to agree to go to the suite." He answered: "I purchased tickets, right? Just because I purchased tickets, I would like to sit in my seat. That's all I want," per the AP.

An Atlanta police officer then laid out his options. "You're free to go to the city of Atlanta streets," the officer said. "He just can't be here."

Hours earlier, State Farm Arena put out a statement saying Freedom had contacted federal, state and local authorities about threats to his safety. Its answer, "following consultations with the WNBA, Dream ownership, State Farm Arena leadership and security officials," was to have "directed Mr. Freedom to watch tonight's game from a private luxury suite," which would be "his designated viewing location," ESPN reported. After he was turned away, an arena spokesman said Freedom "was offered the suite for his safety and he rejected it."

Read that again. A man asks for protection because of death threats, and the solution is to take away his seats. The people threatening him didn't lose anything.

Conservative commentator Benny Johnson, who was with Freedom, said NBA security officials called before the game and told them the shirts they planned to wear, reading "What is a woman" and "Christ is King," were a security threat that could "target" and "harm" players. They were told they could only come in through the player entrance and go to a box "as far away from the game as possible," Johnson wrote.

"The next Charlie Kirk"

The threats were real enough that Georgia got involved. Freedom told OutKick he had received "thousands of death threats" after announcing he'd attend. "My DMs are full of pictures and videos of the moment that Charlie Kirk got shot, and they're saying that you're going to be next very soon," he said. Gov. Brian Kemp's office confirmed it "connected their team with the appropriate law enforcement resources."

Freedom also promised there would be no scene. "If a player gets in my face, I'm not planning to do anything," he told OutKick. "I'm not going to cross the baseline or the sideline." He said he was there "to support women, protect women, and make sure that I enjoy the game." He even picked Atlanta to win.

How this started

In May, Golden State Valkyries star Gabby Williams said, "I would welcome a trans athlete on my team or against my team, anytime. I don't think it's a problem in the world," the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Freedom took her at her word. In August, he and fellow former NBA player Royce White declared for the 2027 WNBA Draft, saying they identify as women. The point was to make the league pick a lane. The WNBA's labor deal says, "Only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA," but never defines the word, OutKick noted.

On Aug. 23, he sat courtside at a Chicago Sky game in a shirt reading "WOMAN noun. adult human female." During a timeout, Sky guard Natasha Cloud walked toward him yelling and pointing, the AP reported. He was the one thrown out. Two days later, Sky owner Michael Alter banned him from the arena "unless sometime in the future he's able to prove to us to our satisfaction that he is able to abide by our rules without being a potential threat," per the AP.

Cloud wasn't punished. When House Republicans asked the league why, comparing it to a five-game suspension handed to a Seattle Storm co-owner over a run-in with fans, the commissioner didn't explain the difference, OutKick reported. Freedom has sued the Sky, the arena's owner and the city of Chicago in federal court, saying they punished him for his speech.

The league knows what a man is

Then came the letter. On Sept. 17, Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana and four other House Republicans asked the WNBA how it defines "women." Commissioner Cathy Engelbert wrote back on Oct. 16: "Only women are eligible to play in the WNBA and the individuals you cite in your letter are both men," OutKick reported. She still didn't give a definition.

"Cathy Engelbert cannot clearly define what a woman is, but she's absolutely certain that I'm a man," Freedom said. "I mean, how does that make sense?" Stutzman called the letter "the first step in defining what a woman is for the sports community." Sen. Marsha Blackburn put it more bluntly on 𝕏: "The @WNBA can't define what a woman is. Yet it just told Congress that @EnesFreedom can't play in a women's league because he's a man."

That letter became public Tuesday. By Wednesday night, the man the WNBA calls a man was out on an Atlanta street, turned away for standing up for women.

What's next

The game went on without him. Atlanta beat Golden State 97-71 to take a 2-1 series lead, per the AP. His lawsuit against the Sky is still pending.

Engelbert retires at the end of the year, and Freedom says her replacement can end this with one word. "We are adding the word biological next to the word female, this whole thing will end the next day," he told OutKick. "I will walk to the sunset. They will not hear from me ever again."

Until then, he has a warning for the league: "If they do not change the rules, they better select me in a WNBA draft in 2027."