Dr. Georgia Munro-Cook on the WNBA

It's interesting because I had a previous conversation with June Thomas, who's the author of the book, A Place of Our Own, Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women's Culture.

And one of those six spaces was softball.

But I feel like the WNBA has been a lot more progressive and queer friendly than I've seen from any of the men's leagues.

And I don't know if that's... because they're newer, because they're smaller, because they're female focused or if it's some combination of those things.

Yeah, so I would say historically women's sport has generally been kind of seen as queer and lesbian, and they spent a really long time trying to fight against that.

So you can see prior to the WNBA or around the time it was launched, a lot of the women's college teams were kind of using it as a recruiting tool, being like, that other college, it's full of lesbians.

You should come to us, basically.

Yeah.

So when the WNBA was launched, it was actually like really important to them to not be seen as queer.

So they did a lot of things to try and manage that, whether that would be like dressing their players in very feminine outfits, really promoting.

So Cheryl Swoops, who was one of the major faces of the league when it launched, had a baby like pretty soon after that.

It launched and they really promoted that kind of motherhood vibe.

It turned out later Cheryl Swoops is queer, but that was kind of the image that they were pushing for a really long time.

Wait, wait, wait.

Are you saying lesbians can have babies? Shocking, I know.

Yeah, but then some teams were kind of doing what they called like gay vague advertising.

So, you know, slightly advertising in lesbian bars, places like that, hinting that they were a place like that without making it really obvious.

But then at the same time, they were also holding like faith and family nights, things like that, that were, again, trying to position it as quote unquote family friendly advertising.

a place for straight people, essentially.

And they were ignoring that a lot of their fans were gay.

So it probably started to change in 2013 when Brittany Greiner was drafted.

At the time, she was a very popular college player.

She went to Bailey University, which is a conservative Christian university, and was very much forced to hide the fact that she was gay.

But to be frank, it was fairly obvious that she was.

And she pretty much came out the sooner she got to the WNBA.

It's interesting because I had a previous conversation with June Thomas, who's the author of the book, A Place of Our Own, Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women's Culture.

And one of those six spaces was softball.

But I feel like the WNBA has been a lot more progressive and queer friendly than I've seen from any of the men's leagues.

And I don't know if that's... because they're newer, because they're smaller, because they're female focused or if it's some combination of those things.

Yeah, so I would say historically women's sport has generally been kind of seen as queer and lesbian, and they spent a really long time trying to fight against that.

So you can see prior to the WNBA or around the time it was launched, a lot of the women's college teams were kind of using it as a recruiting tool, being like, that other college, it's full of lesbians.

You should come to us, basically.

Yeah.

So when the WNBA was launched, it was actually like really important to them to not be seen as queer.

So they did a lot of things to try and manage that, whether that would be like dressing their players in very feminine outfits, really promoting.

So Cheryl Swoops, who was one of the major faces of the league when it launched, had a baby like pretty soon after that.

It launched and they really promoted that kind of motherhood vibe.

It turned out later Cheryl Swoops is queer, but that was kind of the image that they were pushing for a really long time.

Wait, wait, wait.

Are you saying lesbians can have babies? Shocking, I know.

Yeah, but then some teams were kind of doing what they called like gay vague advertising.

So, you know, slightly advertising in lesbian bars, places like that, hinting that they were a place like that without making it really obvious.

But then at the same time, they were also holding like faith and family nights, things like that, that were, again, trying to position it as quote unquote family friendly advertising.

a place for straight people, essentially.

And they were ignoring that a lot of their fans were gay.

So it probably started to change in 2013 when Brittany Greiner was drafted.

At the time, she was a very popular college player.

She went to Bailey University, which is a conservative Christian university, and was very much forced to hide the fact that she was gay.

But to be frank, it was fairly obvious that she was.

And she pretty much came out the sooner she got to the WNBA.