<\/p>\n
Demonstrators protest Sunday prior to the start of a WNBA game between the Indiana Fever and Minnesota Lynx quarter at Target Center in Minneapolis. Fever guard Sophie Cunningham recently said she opposed transgender athletes participating in women\u2019s sports.\u00a0<\/p>\n
David Berding\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase said Sunday that she opposes excluding trans athletes from women\u2019s sports. \u201cI\u2019m all about women, little girls deserving to play, and that includes trans women,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I\u2019m all about inclusivity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yalonda M. James\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
A demonstrator holds a sign for Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever prior to the start of a game against the Minnesota Lynx at Target Center on Sunday. Cunningham recently said she opposed transgender athletes participating in women\u2019s sports.\u00a0<\/p>\n
David Berding\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
One of the coolest things about the Golden State Valkyries<\/a> is that they know who they are. They know who they want to be, how they want to play, how they want to represent the community, and they knew all of that long before they ever played their first game.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here, midway through their second season, that knowledge is only stronger and more confident.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sunday was the WNBA trade deadline and the Valkyries didn\u2019t do anything. That\u2019s not a surprise. There was very little action around the league: The most notable move was the Phoenix Mercury trading with the Los Angeles Sparks for Kelsey Plum. Though there was speculation about the Valkyries\u2019 interest in Plum, who won two titles with the Las Vegas Aces when Natalie Nakase<\/a> was her assistant coach, the Valkyries didn\u2019t want to disrupt their chemistry and momentum for a short-term rental.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you have a great culture and great chemistry, you just don\u2019t mess with it,\u201d Nakase said before the Valkyries\u2019 96-79 victory over Toronto. \u201cIt\u2019s something that\u2019s very rare in sports \u2026 there\u2019s a selflessness, there\u2019s a care factor, there\u2019s a team-before-self mentality. I think that\u2019s where we\u2019re at. We have that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of the Valkyries\u2019 culture is being plugged into their community, and the fans who have embraced them, filled every seat and made them a Bay Area and league phenomenon since the day they came into existence. It is a delightfully diverse fanbase, representing all of the Bay Area.\u00a0<\/p>\n So when Nakase was asked about Sunday\u2019s other big WNBA news, she was very clear in her answer. Earlier that day in a nationally televised game between Indiana and Minnesota, Fever guard Sophie Cunningham was again a focal point, as she has been ever since she used her platform to spout anti-trans views in an ESPN interview posted just before the All-Star break.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Fever have played three games since and there have been modest anti-trans rallies supporting Cunningham staged outside each game. Inside the arenas, Cunningham has been loudly booed each time she has touched the ball, including in Minnesota on Sunday. Lynx coach Cheryl Reeves, wearing a shirt that proclaimed \u201cTrans Kids Belong,\u201d had an animated discussion with Cunningham before the game, caught by the ABC cameras.<\/p>\n I asked Nakase, whose team does not play the Fever again in the regular season, what she thought about the protests and the noise.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me sports is about belonging,\u201d Nakase said. \u201cIt\u2019s about inclusivity. It\u2019s about allowing everyone to be their authentic self. I\u2019m big on that because I have been criticized for my height, for my ethnicity. I\u2019ve been in those \u2018you shouldn\u2019t belong here,\u2019 (moments) and for me I don\u2019t want that space, especially Golden State, to ever feel like that.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m all about women, little girls deserving to play, and that includes trans women. So I\u2019m all about inclusivity.\u201d<\/p>\n The Valkyries\u2019 Pride Night last month was a joyful celebration of that inclusivity and stood in sharp contrast to the sad exhibition by the San Francisco Giants, who have lost some once loyal fans forever. The Valkyries understand and value their community and the people who buy their tickets and merchandise.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Cunningham\u2019s turn in the anti-trans spotlight seems highly orchestrated. The WNBA doesn\u2019t have any trans players, there are no trans women playing college basketball, the Olympics has banned female trans athletes and the Trump administration has won virtually all of its battles against the minuscule female trans population who have tried to play sports, including a Supreme Court ruling last month allowing states to ban trans girls from sports.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the midterms are coming up, the president is more unpopular than ever, there\u2019s a disastrous war, crushing inflation and the time is ripe for another round of culture wars. Bullying trans kids was a winning MAGA issue two years ago, so why not give it another go?\u00a0<\/p>\n Cunningham seems eager to become the Riley Gaines of the WNBA, cozying up to Gaines, tapping into the same frothing anger streams and apparently angling for some kind of Gaines-esque post-playing career, perhaps on Fox News. The anti-trans protest in Seattle included two 16-year-olds wearing anti-trans gear, whose $1,300 courtside seats were provided, they said, by a \u201cgenerous donor\u201d (the Storm co-owner confronted them and was subsequently suspended for five games). None of this seems organic or spontaneous, but like a planned movement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even Cunningham\u2019s comments about wanting to \u201cprotect young girls\u201d seem extremely disingenuous from the player who was an enthusiastic ring girl for UFC fighter Conor McGregor last month. McGregor has a history of sexual assault, having been found liable in a civil rape case in Ireland.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Now Cunningham has reignited a culture war against an \u201cenemy\u201d that was always an imaginary one and is now one that has been legally vanquished. In the process she\u2019s putting her own league, the one that has given her a platform, back in the conservative crosshairs for being \u201ctoo woke.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n If woke means being empathetic, and having the courage to stand up for inclusivity, that\u2019s exactly what the WNBA was built on. And it is certainly who the Valkyries are. Just ask their coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Demonstrators protest Sunday prior to the start of a WNBA game between the Indiana Fever and Minnesota Lynx…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":977119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[49],"tags":[17271,62,67,132,68,2864,232,1707],"class_list":["post-977118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-natalie-nakase","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-valkyries","tag-wnba","tag-womens-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117029681802825430","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977118","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=977118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/977119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=977118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=977118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=977118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
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