
Layshia Clarendon played multiple seasons in the WNBA, including for the New York Liberty. Clarendon underwent top surgery, possibly hormone therapy, and publicly announced a transition in 2021. Clarendon continued playing in the league until retiring in 2024.
While the country spent the last several years arguing about whether biological males should compete in women's professional sports, one already was.
The WNBA didn't hide Clarendon. They celebrated Clarendon. But they did it in the language of corporate diversity press releases, not in the language of "a biological male is competing against women in a professional women's league."
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert called Clarendon's presence something the league was "so proud" of, saying their "voice and continued advocacy will not only support and help honor and uplift many other non-binary and trans people, but also encourage empathy and understanding."
New York Liberty owner Joseph Tsai described Clarendon as "a proud embodiment of our belief that our strength lies in our truth and no one should live constrained by societal boundaries."
Notice what neither statement mentions. The word "woman." The word "female." The biological reality of who is competing against whom.
The WNBA's own eligibility rules state that a player must be a "woman." That's the rule on the books. A biological male who identifies as non-binary and has stated "my pronouns haven't even been invented yet" and that "existing outside the binary for me is freedom" played under a rule requiring players to be women. Nobody in the league's front office flagged the contradiction. Nobody in sports media pressed on it.
This is the context that makes the Enes Kanter Freedom episode so instructive. Freedom was recently ejected from a WNBA game for protesting the league's policies on biological males in women's sports. When he sarcastically declared "I am a woman. I should be allowed to play" and "I identify as a woman, so yes I can play," the league treated it as a disruption.
But the logic was airtight. If self-identification is the standard — and the Clarendon precedent says it is — then the only difference between Clarendon playing and Freedom playing is that one said it with a straight face and the other said it to make a point.
The slippery slope was never a fallacy. It was a timeline. We were told the concern about biological males in women's sports was hypothetical, alarmist, something that "wasn't actually happening." It was happening. In the most prominent women's basketball league in the country. For years.
Every debate about whether this should be allowed was already moot. Every assurance that safeguards existed was already hollow. The WNBA set the precedent, the commissioner praised it, the owner endorsed it, and the media filed it under "brave" instead of "competitive integrity."
The rule says "woman." The player said "outside the binary." The league said "we're so proud."


Comments are closed.