I didn’t stop watching my favorite basketball team because a player is wrong about biology, I stopped watching because Sophie Cunningham called us unsafe. She continues to, and I can’t root for what used to be my team and my city because Fever winning gives more attention for her to spread her dangerous lies.
Who wins sports doesn’t matter at the end of the day, but the community around sports and the feeling of camaraderie around our basketball is strong in my city. When I go to Pacers games or when I went to Fever games in the past, there’s this feeling of oneness with the other fans. We’re all here for the same reason, we don’t need to know anything else about each other.
That doesn’t exist anymore for the Fever. The last game I saw in person was a day or two after Cunningham first started on her anti-trans bs. I had already been annoyed at prior games at the excess attention she and Clark got compared to the actual two best players on the team: Mitchell and Boston.
Cunningham didn’t play much, after all, she’s maybe the 8th or 9th in the lineup, especially as Lexy Hull has been getting better. When I walked around before the game, there’s the disturbing reality that Cunningham’s numbers were everywhere, the first time they rivaled Clark’s apparel dominance. Every time I see a Sophie Cunningham shirt, jersey, or hat it feels like a punch in the gut. When her getting subbed in gets a bigger cheer than any astonishing feat of athleticism and skill Kelsey Mitchell performs the whole game, there’s a new feeling.
I’ve been going to basketball games in Gainbridge, formerly Bankers Life or Conseco Fieldhouse basically my whole life. Now, I felt alone, a new feeling in a building where I previously thought that notion was impossible. She had taken my community from me, taken away my ability to find camaraderie in the one sport I love, the thing that can best distract us from the horrors of the world and indulge in the magic that is basketball.
When I’m not wearing a skirt or dress, I look cis to most people not in the know. My rainbow capitalism Pacers hat accompanying my Fever sweatshirt is nothing special in an arena of WNBA fans. I’m not trying to pass as cis or not, I’m just there.
I know this “anti-trans activist” doesn’t care about women’s safety, else she wouldn’t have been the UFC ring girl for Connor McGregor, the alleged rapist found liable for sexual assault to his victim, the man coincidentally happy to show off his friendliness with our rapist president. She is being cheered as their “Maga Princess”, the one sports star in this country that doesn’t have to be exceptional in any way, she just has to look the right way and appear as an alternative to the culture of the WNBA that so many Americans, racist and homophobic, cannot accept.
They cheer for Clark, the “Taylor Swift” of basketball who gets talked about like LeBron James or A’ja Wilson, and while she is a great, world-class athlete, she is no actual star. She can say nothing and “I’m here to focus on basketball” so the bigoted masses can imagine she agrees with them. She offers that same alternative.
They don’t cheer like that for Kelsey Mitchell or Aliyah Boston or any of the Black women. They cheer for their labor, the baskets and rebounds and assists, but they don’t cheer for the people. This was something that bothered me even before the last straw of Cunningham and the team’s failure to address a bigot in their ranks. So, I can’t stand being a Fever fan. I found myself unable to actually hope the Fever would win. And they were “The Fever” now, not the “we” I used to use. The Fever won. “We” didn’t win. As long as Cunningham gets to promote her hate, there is no winning.
This isn’t a thing that actually matters. I’m fine. My friends are not. A lot of them are in bad situations. They’re kicked out by their families. Their coworkers put bugs in their lunchbox. Nobody will hire them. Their healthcare is being stripped away. I care about them, not the Fever. It’s fucking hard to be a trans person in Indiana. I can’t, and I ask my fellow Hoosiers and Indianapolis residents to abandon the woman and the team allowing her to make it even harder. Maybe we spend some money that would otherwise go to Fever merch and donate it. https://give.translifeline.org/give/461718#!/donation/checkout
thethecomics.blog 
Leave a comment