{"id":172014,"date":"2025-08-24T15:31:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T15:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/172014\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T15:31:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T15:31:09","slug":"valkyries-celebration-of-lgbtq-fans-is-a-reminder-of-how-far-the-league-has-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/172014\/","title":{"rendered":"Valkyries’ celebration of LGBTQ+ fans is a reminder of how far the league has come"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you ask just about anyone associated with all that goes down in Ballhalla, the Golden State Valkyries<\/a> have one of the best fan bases in the league and are housed within one of the strongest organizations. The team’s front office (and the players themselves) have made it a point to celebrate their LGBTQ+ fans with intention, respect, and deliberation \u2014 and that effort has not been lost on the community, writes Charlie Smith at Outsports<\/a>. <\/p>\n

As Smith noted, the very first promotional video for the team featured a song by Kehlani, and the Valkyries also hired the very first publicly out nonbinary player \u2014 Layshia Clarendon \u2014 as a studio analyst. Their colorways emphasize lavender, a color that has long been associated with sapphic and gay communities. The team is fond of “throwing a V” in celebration, another signal that has impacted fans.<\/p>\n

The decision to appeal directly to a core group of fans who have celebrated the WNBA as long as its existed was wise. The league was built by the labor of Black women and LGBTQ+ women and people, and though there was once a strong push to appeal to a cisgender and straight-identifying fanbase, the Valkyries are proving that what was once thought to be the only path toward team and franchise success is no longer the case.<\/p>\n

That push dates back to 2011, when then-interviewing WNBA president Laurel J. Richie asked Adam Silver if the NBA would support her push toward building and emphasizing a more inclusive fan base. Richie told ESPN at the time<\/a> that having the get “clarity” from Silver on the topic indicated that highlighting the league’s LGBTQ+ fans was “a risk.”<\/p>\n

Under Richie’s leadership, the WNBA recognized Pride for the first time in 2014 (nearly 20 years after the league’s first games were played). The league was the first professional sports league in the United States to do so.<\/p>\n

It’s difficult to imagine a WNBA without LGBTQ+ players and fans now, in 2025, but that reality is still in the league’s not-too-distant past. Sue Bird didn’t come out as gay until 2017, something that is seemingly inconceivable considering how frequently Bird and her wife, soccer star Megan Rapinoe, are toasted now. <\/p>\n

It’s been said over and over again, but for a very good reason: the Valkyries have completely changed the mold in terms of how expansion teams can and should operate. And while a lot of attention has been paid to their extraordinary coach and the way the team has played, this focus on community and fans is important, too \u2014 and is a bold reminder of how far the league has come, and how much further it can go. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you ask just about anyone associated with all that goes down in Ballhalla, the Golden State Valkyries…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":172015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-172014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115084465613313476","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}