Former NBA center Enes Kanter Freedom was escorted out of Sunday night’s Indiana Fever-Chicago Sky game after a courtside faceoff with Sky guard Natasha Cloud turned his “woman” shirt into the main event at Wintrust Arena.
Freedom was seated near the baseline in a T-shirt carrying the definition of the word “woman” when the exchange erupted late in the third quarter.
Cloud had scored with 1:22 left before an Indiana timeout stopped play. She walked toward Freedom’s seat, pointed and shouted at him, and Freedom raised both arms as he moved toward the court.
Players and officials stepped between them before the moment could build.
The Natasha Cloud interaction with Enes Kanter Freedom that led to his removal from the arena pic.twitter.com/yg4FXDXTOk
— OutKick (@Outkick) August 24, 2026
Freedom had a brief conversation with police before leaving, then took his removal straight to X.
“I just got kicked out of a @WNBA game for supporting WOMEN! Let that sink in, AMERICA!” Freedom tweeted.
He followed with another post about the reaction around him. “It’s always women hating on other women,” Freedom wrote.
I just got kicked out of a @WNBA game for supporting WOMEN!
Let that sink in, AMERICA! 🇺🇸
— Enes Kanter FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) August 24, 2026
The arena scene unfolded while Freedom was already pressing the WNBA over the league’s eligibility rules.
Article XIII of the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement says only women are eligible to play, and Freedom has argued that the league has not plainly stated how that rule would be applied.
😷 Hold Anthony Fauci accountable for the Wuhan lab, the COVID cover-up, and the questions he refused to answer. 😷 Help Freedom Watch take the fight to federal court! ➡️➡️➡️ DONATE NOW!!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Freedom entered the 2027 WNBA draft earlier this month, placing that eligibility question in front of the league.
Former NBA player Royce White also entered the draft and said he was “a sometimes identifying transgender woman.” White said that if he was not drafted, he would “have to file a discrimination lawsuit, right?”
Freedom told former Auburn coach Bruce Pearl that he believes the WNBA’s wording allows his move if he identifies as a woman.
“By their rules,” Freedom said, if he steps on the court and identifies as a woman, he is allowed to play. “I’m not breaking any rules here. I know the rules really well.”
He also pictured a scenario with Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark throwing him lobs, with the two becoming “modern Kobe and Shaq.” Freedom said they could chest-bump afterward because “I am now a woman.”
Freedom later told Fox News Channel’s “My View with Lara Trump” that Golden State Valkyries star Gabby Williams’ support for trans athletes and Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve’s “support trans kids” shirt helped push him toward the draft move.
He said other major sports had added terms such as “biological female” or “born female” to their collective bargaining language, while the WNBA had not.
“The WNBA has no idea what they’re about to face,” Freedom said. “They’re still trying to figure out what a woman is.”
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert answered critics in Dallas while standing next to Wings CEO and managing partner Greg Bibb, saying the league was being pulled into a political fight by people outside its fan base.
“People are trying to use the league to sow divisiveness,” Engelbert said.
She said the WNBA had become “the center of political football” for people who had never watched, written about or reported on the league.
The league had released a statement a week earlier criticizing concerns about transgender participation in the WNBA.
Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham was one reason Freedom came to the game and the pregame rally.
Cunningham told ESPN she had received negative feedback after speaking about women’s sports, but said she was not attacking trans people.
“I think that I am here to extend love,” Cunningham said. “But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
Freedom called Cunningham an “American hero” on Lara Trump’s show and said people have been coming out to defend her.
Outside the game, fans confronted the 6-foot-10 former NBA player, and security created space around him.
One spectator flipped him off, while another shouted, “You were sorry in the league!”
Freedom posted video from the scene and wrote, “We are getting attacked before the @WNBA game in Chicago.”
At halftime, Freedom turned a restroom stop into another shot at the league.
“It’s halftime and I need to use the restroom… Rules are rules @WNBA,” he wrote with a photo outside the restroom.
Cloud and Freedom had already traded words before Sunday’s game.
Cloud previously called America “trash,” and Freedom responded by offering to buy her a ticket to China, Russia or Turkey.
After the game, Chicago Sky players Azura Stevens and Aicha Coulibaly were asked about Freedom’s removal.
Stevens kept the answer short and steered reporters back to basketball.
“There was just a fan incident and the security handled it,” Stevens told reporters. “We’re going to just focus on the game.”
She did not take follow-up questions about Kanter Freedom.
He later told Fox News that Cloud verbally berated him after he celebrated Cunningham’s 3-pointer.
“Sophie Cunningham shot a three, and I put my hands up to celebrate,” Freedom explained. “Literally, a couple possessions later, Natasha came back and started screaming and yelling and said, ‘She’s not gonna sleep with you.’”
“And I was like, ‘I am not trying to sleep with her. I’m just here to protect women and support her.’ And then, obviously, after that she started yapping, and she started to walk towards me, and literally I just got up, and then I was like, ‘I’m just here to protect women, and that’s all,’” he added.
At that point, he said Cloud got vulgar and began cussing at him.
“She started to yell. She started to use some very heavy language. She started to actually cuss, and I was very shocked that there were a lot of kids and that there were a lot of teenagers at that game,” Freedom noted.
“I just cannot believe that she was just cussing and using those F-bombs in front of all these kids. I’m sure she’s loved in Chicago and many kids are idolizing her and stuff, but that’s not how a WNBA athlete should react.”