Charles Barkley endorses petition calling for WNBA to have clear female eligibility rules

There is a lot of discourse around transgender athletes competing in women’s sports after Sophie Cunningham’s comments last month.

Ahead of the 2027 draft, both Enes Kanter and Royce White have declared for the WNBA draft.

At present, the league says that only women are allowed to compete in the WNBA, but they do not define what a woman is.

Now, amid the talk around trans athletes competing, Nancy Hogshead has started a petition on change.org titled ‘The WNBA Should Enact “Female-Only” Eligibility Criteria’.

In the petition, it is explained: “I am calling on the WNBA to explicitly clarify that ‘woman’ means female for eligibility purposes, and to protect fair and safe competition for female athletes.”

At the time of writing, it has been signed by just over 10,200 people, one of whom is former NBA player Charles Barkley.

Barkley recently endorsed the petition and his comments have been shared on Hogshead’s official X/Twitter account.

His message reads: “I’m gonna keep this simple. Women deserve fair competition, and the @wnba should have clear female eligibility rules. That’s why I’m supporting @Hogshead3Au’s @Change petition. This shouldn’t be complicated.”

Further comments from Barkley are shown in the image used in the tweet, which read: “Under no circumstances should male athletes play in the WNBA. This shouldn’t be controversial.”

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