The Babylon Bee ran a piece this week about Enes Kanter, the 6-foot-10 NBA center, announcing he’s now a woman and applying for the WNBA draft. The league, in the Bee’s imaginary version of events, refuses to let him in. Activists wail about “trans genocide.” A commentator says he’s “literally shaking with rage.”
It’s satire. It’s supposed to be funny. But ask yourself: why does it hit so close to home?
Because the WNBA has spent the last year proving it can’t handle basic questions about fairness, common sense, or what words mean. The Bee’s joke lands because the real league has become a parody of itself.
Consider what actually happened. During opening weekend of the 2025 season, the WNBA announced it was investigating “hateful fan comments” allegedly directed at Chicago Sky star Angel Reese after a game against the Indiana Fever. No video. No audio. No identified fan. No corroborating witness. The league investigated anyway, and found nothing.
Erik Drost (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia CommonsDid that stop ESPN and the rest of the sports media from treating it as proven fact? Of course not. Did Reese ask anyone to wait for the investigation results? Of course not. “Obviously, there’s no place in this league for that,” she said. “Obviously, this has been going on for a while now.” Nothing had been proven to have happened. But the narrative was already locked in.
Then there’s the Sandy Brondello mess. Brondello, the Australian-born coach of the Toronto Tempo, was caught on a hot mic calling Reese a “protected species” while arguing a foul call. In Australian sports parlance, that phrase means a player who gets preferential treatment from officials. It’s been used about rugby players, referees, and even Danica Patrick, who is white. It has nothing to do with race.
Reese tagged Brondello on social media with “ARE WE SURPRISED?!” and a clown emoji, quoting a post that read “Calling a Black woman a species.” The mob did the rest. Brondello apologized, explained she was frustrated with officiating, and still got a one-game suspension without pay.
Funny how that works. Alyssa Thomas drove her fist into Caitlin Clark’s throat and got the same punishment: one game. The WNBA decided that a physical assault on a white star player and an Australian coach using an Australian phrase about officiating deserve identical discipline. That tells you everything about who the league is protecting and who it’s punishing.
John Mac (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia CommonsThe Babylon Bee’s fictional activist says the WNBA’s women are “a bunch of second-rate athletes who are scared of real competition.” That’s the joke. But the real punchline is that the league has spent years bending over backward to accommodate grievance narratives while suspending coaches for using their own country’s slang.
The Bee’s piece ends with the WNBA calling an emergency meeting to discuss what a woman is. That’s the part that’s not funny, because given this league’s track record, you almost believe it.
The establishment wants you to think the little guy is too stupid to notice when the rules keep changing. They investigate ghosts, suspend coaches for speaking Australian, and treat physical violence the same as a misunderstood phrase. And they expect you to clap.
The joke isn’t that a 6-foot-10 man might try to join the WNBA. The joke is that the league has already abandoned every principle that would make saying no seem reasonable.