Friday, June 12, 2009

Pleasant Dreams Makes the Local News



A feature article by Dyana Bagby at the Southern Voice addresses the equation of the WNBA and its lesbian fanbase. Why don't players come out of the closet? Is the WNBA trying to specifically downplay the image of the "butch" athlete?

Lots of people get interviewed for the article, including former Dream player Chantelle Anderson and several Atlanta Dream fans....

...including a blogger that you might be reading right now. (Yep, the blog gets a mention!)

The article's definitely worth a read, if not necessarily to hear my words of wisdom then to hear Chantelle's. You know that Chantelle would never hold anything back!

4 comments:

Ethan said...

Great article and comments.

I think you got the best line in: The quality of the game matters, not who is/isn't gay.

People assume (wrongly) that I'm a raging Hope Solo (women's soccer) fan because of her looks. Her appearance is irrelevant to my fandom. The stat sheet and actually seeing her play is the fuel. There's an internet full of porn. I don't need to wake up at 4am to see Hope Solo play soccer in China (2007) purely on looks alone.

Tomorrow night will be very instructive for me as I finally attend my first WNBA game.

+ It will be wild to see both teams "live" instead of on TV or pixelly internet streaming.

+ I will be curious to see how many "out and proud" folk are in the audience, as this is Texas where nobody is gay. (Sarcasm)

+ Considering the drive I have ahead of me (to and from), hell yeah, I want a good game. I'm "for" the Liberty, but taking a higher-level view, if San An puts on a show I'll be satisfied.

Q McCall said...

Nice work petrel!

Ethan -- you gotta do a write-up or something about your first WNBA game...

afoundingfan said...

Thanks to Chantelle for speaking up as always.

Instead of the same old coded language of stuff like "we like wearing dresses and lipstick", it would be nice to hear "We don't care--these are some of our teammmates, coaches, fans and friends,and their sexuality is no big deal to us. We appreciate the support!"

Ethan said...

Q - I will.

Camera will be fully charged and ready for anything.