{"id":233591,"date":"2025-09-17T10:24:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T10:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/233591\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T10:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T10:24:11","slug":"how-the-wnba-can-bring-unexpected-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/233591\/","title":{"rendered":"How the WNBA can bring unexpected happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past year, I have become obsessed with the WNBA<\/a>. Back in March of last year, I remember FaceTiming with some friends who commented on how exciting the women’s college basketball games were during March Madness<\/a>, and I became curious.<\/p>\n

I’m more of a television, theater, and movie-watching queer, not so much a sporty one.<\/p>\n

After tuning in to watch a few games featuring stars like Angel Reese<\/a>, Caitlin Clark<\/a>, and Kamilla Cardoso<\/a>, I was immediately hooked. Then, I found out these college seniors were about to be drafted<\/a> to play professional basketball. I dove headfirst into watching, almost religiously, the WNBA’s 2024 season. And I have continued practicing this religion ever since.<\/p>\n

The WNBA<\/a> has become such a significant source of queer joy for me, especially this season. And it was so unexpected. I highly recommend everyone\u2013queer or straight, die-hard sports fans or folks who know nothing of “the sportsball”\u2013to tune in, too.<\/p>\n

As a kid, I loved basketball. I come from a family of athletes, and I played both basketball and soccer from the age of five until high school. Looking back, I realized that I was afraid to play sports on the boys’ team as a closeted teenager. Like many young, gay<\/a> boys, my friends were girls. And the idea of being stuck in gyms, locker rooms, and buses to travel to games with a bunch of teenage boy athletes was scary. I worried about the names they’d call me or how they might treat me differently. I turned my extracurricular attention to places like theater and the debate team; co-ed spaces that felt safer.<\/p>\n

My older sister was an all-star athlete, the kind of kid who could pick up any sport and quickly become the best at it. Basketball was her specialty: She was the point guard for our high school’s varsity girls’ basketball team, starting her freshman year. I watched every game I could, including traveling with my family to watch AAU<\/a> tournaments all across the region. I loved being her team’s cheerleader. And I also loved following women’s college basketball together, excitedly cheering on the dynasty of the UCONN Huskies (it was always the Huskies!) in our family living room.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to today, and here I am, feeling that same childish thrill watching WNBA games as an adult queer person in my thirties.<\/p>\n

The WNBA has brought an unprecedented amount of queer joy<\/a> into my life at a time when it has been so desperately needed. Right now, the WNBA is experiencing a tremendous moment of growth and success<\/a>. The current season, which is set to conclude in October, has achieved record-setting viewership and in-person attendance at games. The league announced expansion plans, adding new franchises in Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Portland, and Toronto by 2030. This season’s elite athletes are amazing to watch. My favorite thing about the WNBA is that each team is so full of talented players, you never quite know what to expect for any given game. Sure, some teams have better win\/loss records so far this season compared to others, but major “upsets” happen nearly every week.<\/p>\n

No shade to the NBA (sorry, boys!), but women’s ball is just much more exciting to watch.<\/p>\n

The WNBA is, and always has been, a league that celebrates queer talent. Back in 2002, Sue Wicks, a star player for the New York Liberty, became<\/a> the league’s first active player to come out publicly. Today, the league is full of out and proud players, including one of my favorite players, Breanna Stewart. Stewart (“Stewie”) is also married<\/a> to a former professional player. Just this week, Dewanna Bonner<\/a> was traded to the Phoenix Mercury, reuniting with her fianc\u00e9e<\/a>, Alyssa Thomas, as teammates, after the two played together on the Connecticut Suns last season.<\/p>\n

Beyond the visibility of LGBTQ<\/a>+ players, the environment I’ve experienced at in-person games (speaking as a proud New York Liberty season ticketholder) is nothing short of amazing. From the crowd to the programming, performances during game breaks and halftime\u2013not to mention the certified queer icon and Liberty mascot, Ellie the Elephant<\/a>\u2013the whole experience is pure joy. It’s welcoming. It’s inclusive. Going to watch these games at the Barclays Center provides such a sense of necessary escapism in an increasingly anti-queer world. We’re thousands of people from all walks of life, united in celebrating our beloved home team. This is something I never expected to find in professional sports.<\/p>\n

In the end, this is me writing a love letter to the WNBA<\/a>. Thank you for reigniting my love of basketball, and for bringing an unexpected yet hugely potent dose of queer joy into my life. Go Liberty!<\/p>\n

Zach Eisenstein<\/strong> is the Director of Communications at The Trevor Project, the nation’s leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ young people.<\/p>\n

Perspectives<\/strong><\/strong> is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ<\/a>+ community and its allies. Visit Pride.com\/submit<\/a> to learn more about submission guidelines. Views expressed in Perspectives stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of PRIDE or our parent company, equalpride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the past year, I have become obsessed with the WNBA. Back in March of last year, I…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":233592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1339,12514,5603,40085,31750,125697,62,67,132,68,232,1707],"class_list":{"0":"post-233591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-diversity","10":"tag-lgbtq","11":"tag-march-madness","12":"tag-perspectives","13":"tag-queer-joy","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-wnba","19":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115219153997187655","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233591","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=233591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}