wnba all-star weekend was for the gays
wnba all-star weekend was for the gays
plus, links!
Hi, friends. Thank you so much for being here. I know it’s been quieter than usual around these parts; it’s WNBA season & the Olympics so my plate is full with paying freelance work (some of which you’ll see below) & I’m also preparing to move on August 1st. Thanks for sticking with me. Coming soon: Olympics content! More “In the Field” interviews! All of it gay! Today: lots and lots of links and memes, so strap in! It’s mostly basketball related this time, but don’t worry, I’ve got the rest of you for next time.
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WNBA All-Star Weekend exceeded every expectation that anyone had set for it. Not only that, it was extremely gay. We’ll get to all of that in a minute. First, though, I’m going to share some work-in-other-places updates.
NPR, Embedded, and the CBC have released a new podcast, “Tested.”
Hosted by Rose Eveleth and many years in the making, “Tested” is about sex testing in elite women’s sports drops—just in time for the Paris Games. I’m honored to have been interviewed as part of this podcast (you can hear me in Episode 6, out August 1). Tested follows elite female runners told they can't race as women because of their biology. As a result they must decide: Take drugs to lower their natural testosterone, give up their sport, or fight. It’s so well done and it’s such important work. Please check it out (and while we are on the subject of sex testing and the Olympics, Michael Waters wrote this very great piece for Slate about the impact that sex testing has had on pushing elite athletes out of international competition).
For Andscape, I spoke to the stylists who are dressing masculine-of-center W players for the tunnel, bringing butch and stud fashion into the limelight.
These days, brands are clamoring to work with WNBA players. Increasingly, players are hiring stylists to help them look their best, and athletes such as Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, Skylar Diggins-Smith, and DiJonai Carrington are full-fledged fashion icons. But so too are players who rock more masculine or androgynous looks, such as Arike Ogunbowale, Courtney Williams, and Diamond DeShields, players whose looks don’t get nearly the attention or praise they deserve.
“Sometimes when we look at female athletes we assume fashionable means ‘feminine’ and a lot of the more masculine-presenting WNBA players really do have style about them,” said Amadi Brooks of Amadi B Styling, who works with Sydney Colson and A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces. “That’s the beautiful thing about the W — it’s such a wide range.”
Baby even got their first ESPN push notification from the main account, look how pretty:
And for Vogue, I talked to the WAGs (wives and girlfriends) of women’s sports about their gameday fashion and queering the role of a WAG, and spoke to some of the designers making their custom looks. We’ve got WAGs from WBB and woho!
The queer couples in women’s sports are some of the most high profile sapphic relationships in our broader culture. While their partners are aware of that representation, it’s not just about showing up for the culture. It’s also about getting to live the life they always wanted to live.
“It’s been important to me to have a partner who is out of the closet and who is open with our love,” says Medlock. “It’s so reassuring. I really do love that about the women's game, the way they show off their partners.”
Speaking of WAG fashion and WNBA All-Star Weekend, can we discuss these custom pants worn by Arike Ogunbowlae’s fiance, Lala Ronay??? What a perfect outfit to wear on the night that your partner sets a WNBA ASG record for points and wins her second ASG MVP (the custom nails also deserve a shout).
Rates in the freelancing world may be dismal, but I did at least learn that I made more for my Vogue piece than Jack Schlossberg is making for his Vogue political columns lol. And I got to get some of the most fashionable women on the sidelines featured in VOGUE, which they were very excited about and so am I!
The intersection of all of my interests
Something you probably don’t know about me is that I love Pitbull. It’s probably because I grew up in South Florida and graduated high school in 2003, when Pitbull’s music was playing on our local radio station and he was a SoFla phenomenon on his way to international fame. Like, I love Pitbull so much that when my ex threw me a surprise 30th birthday party there was a life-sized cutout of Pitbull in the plans. Like, I love Pitbull so much that when I went to my first game at LoanDepot Park it happened to be Pitbull Bobblehead night and I cried with joy.
Anyway, the fact that this happened?
Perfection.
(p.s. if you’re not following
’s WNBA content, you’re missing out.) The gayest links in sports
Sad news: Monkey Kirk passed away this week. Kirk was one of the original players of the Houston Herricanes, Houston's first women's pro tackle football team. You can read about the Herricanes in my book, Hail Mary, and she features prominently in the documentary The Herricanes.
In somehow the gayest (and also the hardest) thing I’ve ever heard, Aubrey Plaza went to WNBA ASW and managed to tear her ACL during a game of Knockout in the new Pheonix Mercury practice facility and then Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe tended to her injury courtside during the game.
Speaking of the Mercury practice facility, they unveiled the “Diana Taurasi Court” at their new $100 million practice facility which is pretty fucking cool
Arike did Arike things—there is no one like Arike when she has something to prove (if you’re not sure what I’m talking about, Arike was considered a snub for Team USA for Tokyo in 2020 and she said this year that she pulled her name out of contention for Team USA for Paris due to “politics”).
Speaking of Team USA and “politics,” head coach Cheryl Reeve may be the pettiest woman alive and I kind of respect her for it (she’s a Virgo sun with a
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