A Real Defense of Women's Sports

Women's sports do need defenders. But it needs defenders who actually understand it.

Mar 31, 2025

It’s a Monday night. I’m watching a thrilling championship game of Unrivaled, a new professional women’s basketball league. As a new league, Unrivaled has made history with its investments in the players and getting some of the best women’s basketball players in the world to participate. The game is close and anxieties are high with Brittany Sykes shooting a potential game winning free throw. And she makes it! The confetti starts to fall and with all the cameras on Sykes, in complete joy, she runs to the sidelines and pulls her girlfriend into a hug and kisses her. The camera then pans over to Chelsea Gray, soon to be crowned Finals MVP. She pulls her wife into a hug and kisses her. This is women’s sports.

On Twitter, I saw a little black girl gleefully smiling with a box of Angel Reese’s Puffs cereal - a limited edition Reese’s Puffs release. Angel Reese’s popularity has skyrocketed in recent years after winning the NCAA tournament in 2023 with LSU. The tweet caption reads that the little girl plays basketball and wants to be like Angel when she grows up. This is women’s sports.

It's a warm July day and I’m with some Side B buddies. We’ve gathered in Harrison, NJ to watch Gotham FC play. As we enter the stadium, we see a lot of other groups that look just like us. It was especially fun introducing my gay male friends to the joy of soccer. The inclusive environment made it a safe space for those who might have been alienated by sports to actually engage with it. This is women’s sports.

Over the past couple of years, there has been increased conversation about women’s sports in the United States. Stars like Catlin Clark, Sha’Carri Richardson, and Coco Gauff are capturing the hearts and attention of Americans. Women’s sports leagues like the NWSL and the WNBA are now on primetime television more often. There has been a significant growth in corporate investment as sponsors find increased value in marketing to women’s sports fans.

There also has been a rise in so-called “defenders” of women’s sports. The new Trump Administration claims to be the champions of women’s sports. The U.S House just passed a bill called the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act”. At the same time that there is increased visibility and investment, women’s sports has become the center of culture wars. As someone who actually loves women’s sports, I can’t enjoy the growth of the sports I love because of these “defenders.”

To be honest, it makes me angry. I feel like a guy at a sports bar challenging some girl’s knowledge about a random sports team. Can any of these so-called defenders even name 10 current professional women athletes? Do they know who won the NCAA women’s championship in 2022? Do they have any thoughts on the recent trades that Gotham FC has made? Any thoughts about how the USWNT is doing under their new head coach?

So, as an actual fan (and participant), I feel the need to write a real defense of women’s sports.

Point 1 - Women’s Sports is Full of Queer Joy

From the very first professional sports leagues, queer women have found themselves in locker rooms. The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (the league that the excellent TV show A League of Their Own is based on) had many queer women in it. To protect the image of the league, AAGPBL worked hard to “feminize” the players and sent home or traded players caught fraternizing.1 Though not outwardly supportive, queer women found community in the league. Billie Jean King’s win of the “Battle of the Sexes” against Bobby Riggs helped garner support for Title IX in 1973. Title IX guaranteed that girls could have access to sports and without it we wouldn’t have the women’s sport’s leagues we have today. Billie Jean King is a lesbian.

Today, there are so many out women athletes. So many, I couldn’t start to name them all! It is not only an often safe queer space on the pitch, court, or field. But also, women’s sports is a safe space for queer folks in the stands. I think one of the most queer spaces I’ve been in has been a WNBA game! The sport’s reporter and writer Frankie de la Cretaz says:

“Sports — particularly men’s sports — is often a place where queer folks don’t feel safe. But when you know there are large numbers of athletes on the field who are gay, it signals to queer fans that the space is for them.”2

I grew up playing sports but I became a devoted fan of women’s sports because of queer vibes. I know many queer women like myself get into being big women’s sports fans because the community is such a safe place. It’s a safe place because it’s a place for all kinds of people. If you really love high quality sports and storylines but don’t feel accepted in men’s sports spaces, you have a place in women’s sports. If you really just love lesbian fashion, you’ll find it in women’s sports. If you are into queer drama, with spouses playing together or exes facing off against each other, you’ll find that too! Women’s sports is a space made for women, but like many women’s spaces, it’s not just for women. It’s for anyone who feels alienated from our broader society.

As a Side B woman, women’s sports also helps me to just feel connected to the broader queer community. You will find all sorts of queer women at a NWSL game or in a local adult sports league. It’s a space filled with other queer folks. But unlike other queer spaces, where romance may be the thing that brings people together, it’s a shared love of the game that creates community. In women’s sports, I’ve found safe places to be my full queer self while also honoring my faith and convictions.

Point 2 - Women’s Sports Allow Women to Break Gender Norms

Women athletes break a lot of stereotypes placed on women and girls. In a world that tells you to make yourself smaller, sports encourages you to show up for your team. Sometimes this means making yourself actually larger, for example playing goalie in many sports. But, this is also metaphorical. You’re taught that you need to be a leader on the field or court. Your team needs your voice and vantage point. No person on the team can fade into the background on a winning team because everyone makes the wins possible. In a society that teaches women to be passive, through sports, you learn how to call for the ball.

We are also told as women not to be too aggressive or competitive because it's unladylike and masculine. Playing sports teaches you that it’s fun to win and that you can show sportsmanship while being competitive. I had a field hockey coach in middle school who taught me this point. She showed me that it’s okay to have a desire for excellence but that excellence also means being a good team player. It’s taken me a long time to really lean into my healthy ambition because it went against a lot of the “Christian” femininity I was taught. But, I first learned how to do that playing sports. Even just watching women's sports, you gain role models who are leaving it all on the court or pitch and working hard to achieve their dreams. Even now as an adult, I still desire to have the same passion and drive that I see in women athletes.

It’s been so helpful for me to have women to look up to who don’t fit society’s mold. To know that women can be competitive and lead teams. Having athletes as role models has truly helped me to have confidence in who God made me to be.

Point 3 - Gal Culture

I’ve played ice hockey the last five winters in a coed league. The league is about 80% men. Men’s sports often have a “bro culture” associated with them. This means that the voices of straight men are centered. There is a focus on gambling and drinking. And often a more socially conservative worldview is highlighted. This bro culture isn’t all bad. Sometimes it’s a welcome difference to just drink beer and talk sports with my hockey buddies. I am a lesbian! But other times, bro culture looks like me and my friends staring down drunk men saying homophobic slurs at a soccer game. This ugly side of bro culture comes up a lot more often.

While I enjoy playing with my coed hockey team, I always have the best time when I play in women’s events or tournaments. There is nothing like a women's sports environment. It’s both more supportive and also more competitive. I’ve definitely been checked the hardest by another woman! I’ve also bonded with and been so encouraged by my teammates. Women’s sports culture is inclusive, challenging, and fun at the same time. Tobin Heath and Christen Press call this phenomenon in women’s sports “gal culture.”3 Gal culture is about a love of the game but also supporting the fact that women play at all! At a recent women’s hockey event, my team cheered every time one of our teammates fell. She’s new to the game so it’s a win to even be on the ice. We made sure she knew that we could see that she was trying and knew that we would celebrate that just as much as any goal we might make. This was gal culture.

You can experience gal culture not just playing sports but watching it too! Whether it’s going to a women’s sports game or planning a watch party with friends, women’s sports have a way to bring people together in such a fun and unique way. I’ll never forget waking up at 3AM to watch the USWNT compete at the 2020/2021 Olympics with a friend. I’ll always remember how fun it was going to my first WNBA game and the atmosphere of the crowd. Gal culture is about being all in for your team for all the same reasons you might root for any team. But, it is also engaged with advocating for the players to have better treatment, facilities, pay, etc. It doesn’t shirk away from the politics of sports. I think also a lot of gal culture is just a version of queer women culture. You experience something unique with women’s sports that isn’t tied to a gender binary but is inclusive of anyone who wants to participate.

Now you can see why I am skeptical. People, who called Megan Rapinoe homophobic slurs a few years ago, are now saying they want to protect women’s sports.4 The defenders of women's sports judge whether or not an athlete is “woman” enough based on whether they fit white feminine beauty standards.5 They call themselves protectors but also think women should be barred from some sports because it’s too aggressive.6 Instead of trying to let all kids experience the joy of sports, they want to require some to be excluded.7

They truly care nothing about women’s sports. They care about transphobia, misogyny, and white supremacy. What they truly want to defend is a kind of “lady sports.” Where cis women, who look ladylike enough, can participate without the fear of being hurt by an over aggressive queer woman or trans person.

We need more people to defend actual women’s sports. We need people who will buy tickets, watch games, buy merch, and overall support athletes. Growing up playing sports, I gained so many skills that I use every day. I gained not only normal sports skills like communication, teamwork, and grit. But, I also had practice advocating for myself and learned how to be an active participant in my own life. A survey recently found 85% of surveyed women who played sports as children believed the skills they developed were crucial to their professional success.8 We need to create safe environments for not just cis girls but all children to have access to sports.

Women’s sports are a joy. Women’s sports are often safe places for queer women to be their full selves and see themselves represented in culture. Women's sports do need defenders. But it needs defenders who actually understand it.

A Real Defense of Women's Sports

Women's sports do need defenders. But it needs defenders who actually understand it.

Point 1 - Women’s Sports is Full of Queer Joy

Point 2 - Women’s Sports Allow Women to Break Gender Norms

Point 3 - Gal Culture

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