Royce White isn’t shy about confidence. The former Houston Rockets first-round pick, who played briefly for the Sacramento Kings before his NBA career fizzled, has never had a problem saying the loud thing out loud.
After Sophie Cunningham started facing heat for taking a stand against the anti-trans athlete debate, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
White declared his intention to enter the 2027 WNBA Draft, telling reporters he now identifies as transgender for the purposes of professional basketball, and in an interview with Matt Gaetz, he took shots at Caitlin Clark.
Royce White Trash Talks on Caitlin Clark Without Hesitation
The moment came during an appearance on Matt Gaetz’s show, when Gaetz pushed White on the obvious question: what happens in the locker room. Would he feel out of place?
White didn’t dodge it. “I think I’d probably be the marginalized one in that environment,” he said, then added, only half-joking, that the league might have to build him his own locker room. “That would be quite the twist of fate.”
Can upcoming WNBA phenom @Highway_30 beat @CaitlinClark22 in a one on one pickup basketball game?
“It’s not even close. If I get the ball first, she’s not even going to touch the ball.”
Watch The Matt Gaetz Show on OAN Live Today! pic.twitter.com/0XIDqbuQsV
— One America News (@OANN) August 11, 2026
Gaetz didn’t let him off easy, either, following up with the question everyone actually wanted answered: could White beat Caitlin Clark one-on-one?
White’s answer left no room for doubt. “That’s not even close,” he said. “If I get the ball first, she’s not even going to touch the ball.”
Whatever you think of the legal theory, White is treating this as more than a stunt. He’s floated a “huge legal battle” if the league blocks him, said his legal team is already digging into the eligibility language, and has framed the whole thing as a test of whether the WNBA actually stands behind the inclusion policies it’s been vocal about.
The timing isn’t an accident either. White’s declarations landed in the middle of an already-heated fight inside the WNBA over transgender inclusion when Cunningham lit the fuse in July, arguing that women’s sports need to stay protected from biological male competitors.
Whether White’s 2027 Draft bid ever gets past a press conference and into an actual draft process is a separate question.
What’s noteworthy, however, is that the CBA language is narrow and the league has every incentive to shut this down quickly. Yet no team is walking into that legal fight voluntarily.
One thing is clear: the bid seems more like a bet that Clark and Cunningham’s names can pull readers into a story about collective bargaining language they’d otherwise scroll past, and on that measure, it’s already working.
This guy needs to just settle down. He is talking about playing in a women league! Most HSplayers could dominate so it’s a pretty low bar.