Enes Kanter Freedom, a former NBA player who has become a vocal opponent of transgender athletes participating in women’s sports, has filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Sky for expulsion and subsequent ban him following an in-game dispute with Sky keeper Natasha Cloud last month.
Freedom filed the lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He is seeking a declaration that his First Amendment rights were violated, that his indefinite ban from playing at Wintrust Arena be lifted, and that his legal fees be covered, as well as “an award of nominal and compensatory damages.”
At Chicago’s game against the Indiana Fever on Aug. 23, he sat courtside wearing a T-shirt that read “WOMAN noun. grown human female.” In the third quarter, Cloud approached him and the two exchanged words. As Freedom stepped towards the court, security intervened and took him away before throwing him out of the building.
Sky later banned Freedom from their home games indefinitely, although owner Michael Alter said the franchise may reconsider Freedom’s ban “if one day he is able to show that he is capable of being at a game and behaving according to our rules and not being a threat to people.”
The lawsuit names Sky, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority and the City of Chicago as defendants. Freedom is requesting a jury trial.
The Chicago Sky and the WNBA did not respond to requests for comment Thursday night.
Freedom posted the first page of the complaint on social media Thursday, saying he was kicked out “while peacefully exercising his First Amendment rights.”
“You don’t have to agree with my speech, but you can’t silence me because of it,” he wrote. “I will not be intimidated. I will not be silenced. I will continue to stand up for women and defend free speech.”
🚨 SEE YOU IN COURT!!!
I just filed a federal complaint.
I am taking legal action for my expulsion from @chicagosky game while I peacefully exercise my first amendment rights.
My shirt did everything @WNBA apparently he could not: define a woman.
No threats. No violence… pic.twitter.com/LqQO6x4z0X
— Enes Kanter FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) September 3, 2026
Freedom, who played 11 seasons in the NBA, recently tried to call the WNBA draft to bring the league’s policy on transgender athletes under scrutiny, even though no transgender athletes play in the league. The WNBA has confirmed that he is ineligible to compete in the league.
Sky’s fan code of conduct states that the team and the arena “reserve the right to eject any patron who poses a threat to them or other guests. This includes but is not limited to profanity, racial or ethnic comments, drinking, disorderly conduct, drug use, sexual harassment or other intimidating actions directed at officials, players, spectators.”
Alter said after the incident that when Freedom approached the court, he “turned into a potential threat.”
In Cloud’s first comments since the incident on Saturday, she referred to Freedom as an “inconsequential person.”
“I’m not going to talk about anything that happened with an irrelevant person,” Cloud said ahead of the Sky’s game against the New York Liberty on Saturday afternoon. “What I’m going to focus on is what actually affects women and children.”
This story will be updated.
— Annie Costabile and Sabreena Merchant contributed to this story.
