Enes Kanter wasn’t always an attention-seeking troll.
Nine years ago, the former NBA player sought permanent resident status in the U.S. after Turkiye revoked his passport over his outspoken criticism of the Erdogan regime. He became a U.S. citizen in 2021 and changed his legal name to Enes Kanter Freedom.
“In my first weeks as a U.S. citizen, I’ve experienced the full richness and contradictions of what it means to be an American,” Kanter said in an oped published by Time magazine. “I changed my last name to Freedom, and then made the most of that newfound freedom by continuing to advocate for the oppressed and speaking truth to power at every opportunity.”
Kanter burnished his reputationas an advocate for human rights, speaking out against abuses in China, particularly the treatment of Uyghurs, as well as abuses in Turkiye, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. He criticized Nike for exploiting forced labor overseas and LeBron James for choosing “money over morals” by endorsing Nike.
Kanter marched in support of the Black Lives Matter movement here in the U.S., even speaking publicly at a rally in Boston. He told the Guardian UK newspaper ithat athletes should use their platforms “to spread good, and to spread the truth.”
You might say he was “woke.”
Not so anymore.
The protector has become the bully.
Worse, he’s trying to gaslight the world into thinking he is still advocating for human rights and personal freedom.
Kanter showed up an a WNBA game in Chicago between the Sky and the Indiana Fever over the weekend wearing a shirt with a psuedo-definition of “woman” printed on the front. His publicly stated goal is to call out the league for its policy on transwomen, even though no transwoman has ever played in the league.
Kanter, a 6-10 man with a meticulously grommed beard, says he now identifies as female and will register for the WNBA draft next year, even prediciting he would be a top choice.
It’s all a calculated effort to rage bait the very female athletes he says he wants to protect from the mal-intent of men.
But why?
Kanter wants a public platform and the media spotlight.
He was candid last year on Fox news when he said he plans run for Congress in 2028, the point at which he meets the Constitutional requirement of being a citizen for at least seven years. He said he is likely to run in Florida, though he ostensibly lives in Oklahoma and has played in New York, Boston, Salt Lake City, Houston, and Portland
His politics have also shifted.
In previous years, he invoked neutrality on political partisanship and said his focus was solely human rights.
Over the past few years, however, Kanter has aligned himself with right-wing platforms and conservative political agendas. He attended President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address as a guest of House Speaker Mike Johnson.
He is working directly with the America First Policy Institute, a policy think tank aligned with Trump and the MAGA movement. Representatives of the group accompanied him to the game and took note of the ruckus he caused by tweeting, “Let Freedom Play.”
Play, indeed. This once serious advocate for human rights has become a shadow of his former self and is departe to find the limelight once again.
It’s too bad he wants to do so at the expense of women.