The W.N.B.A. is having a moment.
As the league celebrates its 30th anniversary, the audience is growing exponentially, and the number of teams is expanding. After years of fighting tirelessly for fair wages and a successful strike authorization vote, the players’ union earned a collective bargaining agreement; for the first time, star players in the league have secured million-dollar contracts; the league minimum salary is now $270,000; and there are higher salary caps for teams.
For anyone watching the W.N.B.A. blossom over the past three decades, this has all been a long time coming, hard-earned and richly deserved. But alongside the growth and increased public attention, the league is also facing a pair of crises, not necessarily of its own making: how to welcome trans women, if and when it becomes necessary, and a rise in racism directed toward Black players. How the league and the players navigate that will determine its future, one made possible by a loyal fan base that is largely composed of the very people most vulnerable to those ideological attacks.
As L.A. Sparks courtside ticket holders, my wife and I take in as many games as we can each season. The W.N.B.A. athletes are fascinating both on and off the court. Unlike their male counterparts, many players are openly gay or bisexual. Some have dated one another and broken up, and their romantic dramas play out off the court but in the public eye. This year’s All-Star Weekend was particularly spicy. All of it only endears the W.N.B.A. to me more.
The players are generally progressive and willing to voice what they stand for. That is especially noteworthy because professional athletes, like musicians, actors and other celebrities, are often told to “stay in their lane,” to not be political.
Over the years, W.N.B.A. players have expressed support for Black Lives Matter, eradicating gun violence, gender equity, reproductive freedom and L.G.B.T.Q. rights. In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, the veteran player Nneka Ogwumike, a fierce champion for her fellow players and for social justice throughout her 15-season career, said, “Our league is made up of the people that require more rights in this world and our society.” Most players are keenly aware that they cannot just parcel out pieces of themselves in service of their professional lives.
The league, however, does not exist in a bubble. The former N.B.A. players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, in a bid to be provocative, declared in August for the 2027 W.N.B.A. draft. In doing so, they stated that they were going to identify as trans women so they could be eligible to play. Freedom has continued this farce, appearing on conservative media, desperately seeking the attention he was unable to garner in the N.B.A.
Freedom has mostly pushed the league to provide a definition of “woman,” a tired conservative talking point, presumably because he and White think they are cleverly revealing some flaw in inclusive logic. The W.N.B.A. has indicated that neither Freedom nor White is eligible, but the question of how to craft a fair and reasonable policy for trans women remains.
The Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham was vocal earlier this year about her beliefs that trans women shouldn’t play in the W.N.B.A. “I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men,” Cunningham said in an ESPN interview. Her claims exploit one of the most popular attacks against trans women — the idea that women and girls are not safe around trans women.
Cunningham supporters have staged small anti-trans protests at Indiana Fever games in several cities, presumably in solidarity with her and to keep the issue in the news. The White House press secretary at the time, Karoline Leavitt, even weighed in on Cunningham’s statement, amplifying the ambient transphobia now encircling the league.
Every once in a while, the outgoing league commissioner, Cathy Engelbert, has made a tepid statement about intolerance, but the league she leads, as an organization, seems to address politically charged issues without the vigor or moral courage of many individual players. Thus far, there has been only one openly trans W.N.B.A. player — the talented Layshia Clarendon, who retired after playing for 12 seasons, and also identifies as nonbinary. Thus far the controversy has been entirely manufactured by people with no real connection to the trans community.
Pressures on the league can also rise from within. In 2024, two stars joined the W.N.B.A.: Angel Reese, playing for the Chicago Sky, and Caitlin Clark, for the Indiana Fever. Reese and Clark, a Black woman and a white woman, have been pitted against each other as rivals on and off the court since their college days. Since they’ve become professional athletes, their style of play, penchant for fouling one another and professional rivalry have been used to amplify some of the stark cultural divides that have shaped American life for the past decade or more.
Clark, who was popular as an N.C.A.A. player with the University of Iowa, has brought a legion of new fans to the game. But even two years in, many of them seem willfully unfamiliar with who makes up the W.N.B.A. About two-thirds of W.N.B.A. players are Black, and many of the women are queer. Some of Clark’s fans seem to want to change, through the sheer force of their will, this reality by making Clark the only face of the league. These fans give the impression that they are more attached to Clark’s whiteness than her talent.
When Clark doesn’t receive an accolade that her fans think she deserves, like a spot on the 2024 U.S. women’s Olympic team, there is an immediate outcry as if she were the only talented player. Some of her fan base has taken to harassing on-court rivals online after referee calls that don’t favor Clark. It all draws from an unholy miasma of racism, homophobia and, of course, selective misogyny.
Clark’s contributions to the W.N.B.A. are undeniable, even as her on-court efforts — like defense — have been uneven. She has an excellent three-point shot. She also has a real temper when things don’t go her way. Like soccer players, she flops dramatically when other players make contact with her. But most people are willing to overlook all this because she has brought unprecedented attention to the game. Unfortunately, much of that attention is neither good nor welcome.
In July, 11 Republican lawmakers, led by Representative August Pfluger of Texas, sent a letter to Ms. Engelbert demanding the league account for fouls against Clark and warning that they would support a Department of Justice investigation if the league’s response revealed discrimination. It was ludicrous, but it was also a perfect example of how unhinged and far-reaching efforts to protect her have become. To Clark’s credit, before the lawmakers’ letter was sent, she disavowed a lot of this nonsense. “Harassment, hate, none of that is OK,” she said after a particularly tense game against the Phoenix Mercury.
Despite the excellent basketball being played in the W.N.B.A., it often seems like the loudest conversations are about everything but basketball. It is a profound disservice to the players, coaches and professionals running the league. Given this country’s political fractures, there should be no ambiguity or compromise when it comes to what is right for the players, the fans or the country. This is not the time to move toward the imaginary middle or political neutrality.
The W.N.B.A., as a league, should lead the charge for making space for trans women in women’s sports. They should do more to honor the identities of the players and protect them from bad-faith attacks, death threats, harassment and other racial animus that players like Reese, Alyssa Thomas, Dearica Hamby and Chelsea Gray have been subjected to.
Surely, a league made up of such smart, dedicated players, coaches, general managers and executives can come up with a way forward that is fair to everyone involved. But not enough of the current conversation is focused on progress, compromise or actionable solutions. Instead, politicians, cranks and conservative pundits are trying to remake a diverse professional league into something small, empty and exclusionary.
Their ambitions are not inevitable, though. The W.N.B.A. has an invaluable opportunity right now; the league can be a reflection of the world as it could be, not merely as it is.
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