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Do you ever notice ... how people who insist words are violence can get awfully violent with their words?
And those self-righteous ones so eager to scream and shout about diversity? Some of them have a terrible time sitting next to it.
The WNBA cannot keep presenting itself as a model of inclusion while women who disagree with its prevailing politics are treated as intruders.
Not diversity of shirts. They’re fine with shirts.
Until you wear the wrong one.
Why is it that George Carlin’s NIMBY comes right to mind?
Shirt shrift
At Game 1 of the WNBA Finals, Jen Sey and three friends wore XX-XY Athletics shirts.
Sey, a former national gymnastics champion who founded the company, believes women’s sports should be reserved for females.
Up front. So do I.
Now, I’ve sat near people wearing things I didn’t like. Most of them said, Michigan Wolverines.
We don’t say the “M-word” in our house.
But somehow, we made it through the afternoon. Even had a beer and some laughs.
But apparently, four women wearing XX-XY shirts presented a situation that could not be resolved by watching a basketball game.
Jen and her friends wore their shirts where other people could see them. On their body.
At a public event in a sports coliseum.
How dare they?
The audacity.
Apparently, they should have worn their shirts inside their purses.
As security escorted Sey’s group up the stairs, video captured the insults and obscene gestures from many tolerant fans.
Screamed at.
"You’re disgusting!"
Several flipped them off.
Fashion fascists
Sey says some spectators told her to kill herself and said they hoped she would die. Real class.
In San Francisco.
The city of love and peace.
Security questioned the group about complaints that they were provoking other fans. How you might ask?
By wearing the shirts.
OutKick reported that the guard affirmed the shirts did not violate the Fan Code of Conduct. Duh.
They were allowed back to their seats.
According to Sey, they also received a security escort out after the game for their protection.
Of course, the league and the Valkyries both declined to comment when USA Today reached out.
I remember when the difficult part of leaving a basketball game was finding your car.
Ah, the good old days.
Quite an evening celebrating women. At a women’s basketball game.
Buy a ticket. Wear a shirt.
Receive a complimentary demonstration of why more women are afraid to speak up.
Flag fouling
Before that same game, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert condemned people using social media to “spew vitriol and hate and racism and misogyny at our players.”
She also discussed investments in player security.
Good.
Protect players.
But while you’re making your goodwill rounds, commissioner, there are a few women in the stands who could use some of that concern.
You won’t need to search their social media accounts.
Just follow the screaming to the section where women are being verbally assaulted over their clothing choice.
Meanwhile, both the Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries left the floor before the national anthem and returned after it ended.
By the way, both teams walked off again before Game 2 and before Game 3. So let me try to understand this.
Players can make a disgraceful public statement through their absence.
But paying customers make a statement with a shirt and suddenly we need to discuss whether they’re antagonizing people.
Fine print
The league hadn’t answered questions about the teams walking out three games in a row. This column posts Saturday, just before Game 4. Will they continue their streak?
The league’s rulebook clearly directs players, coaches, and trainers how to conduct themselves during the national anthem.
But apparently, screw the rules.
Perhaps the commissioner is still looking for the page. Here, let me help you.
It can be found on page 75 under the "Comments on Rules" section, specifically under Section H ("Player/Team Conduct and Dress"), subsection 2.
“Players, coaches, and trainers are to stand and line up in a dignified posture along the sidelines or on the foul line during the playing of the national anthem."
Those are fairly specific locations.
I’ve looked at a basketball court. Neither one is in the locker room.
Which raises the question.
Why is the WNBA so hostile to America and patriotism? The teams can leave during the anthem.
The commissioner can leave the questions unanswered.
But four women in the wrong shirts require immediate attention. And by the way, this wasn’t the first shirt emergency.
Storm warning
Earlier this season, Seattle Storm minority owner Celeste Keaton berated two teenage fans supporting Sophie Cunningham.
The league fined her and suspended her from five home games. But consider how far things have gone off the rails.
An owner of a women’s professional sports team confronting teenage girls for supporting a female player.
There’s a youth outreach program that could use some work.
In Atlanta, a mother and daughter at an Atlanta game were told to cover their XX-XY shirts or leave.
Notice a pattern here?
The WNBA later acknowledged that the demand should not have happened. How many times do they have to keep saying that?
You’d think that would be a fairly easy instruction to pass along to employees. “Don’t do that again.”
Four words. Fits on a Post-it.
You could put it right next to the employee schedule.
Mixed message
Meanwhile, Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve wore a shirt supporting trans kids while coaching against Indiana.
Her supporters celebrate that as advocacy. Sey’s shirt gets treated as provocation. Same method of expression.
Different politics.
Very different reception.
Apparently, the problem isn’t putting a message on cotton. It’s failing to get the message approved.
Then there’s Cunningham herself, booed and subjected to protests after speaking up for female sports.
She also took a brutal foul from DiJonai Carrington that resulted in Carrington’s ejection. While that doesn’t establish a political motive for the foul, it does belong in any honest discussion of player safety.
Where is all that celebrated room for strong, outspoken women when the outspoken woman is Sophie?
The WNBA cannot keep presenting itself as a model of inclusion while women who disagree with its prevailing politics are treated as intruders.
That is hypocrisy.
And a pregame statement condemning hate doesn’t fix it when paying customers encounter hate inside the building.
Michael Reaves/Getty Images
Stuck in the middle
Instead, here we are again, at the Finals, discussing whether women supporting female sports have dressed appropriately to attend female sports.
Players, coaches, owners, and fans are entitled to political opinions. So is the woman sitting beside them.
Even if hers comes in a different font.
That’s what people do with shirts.
We’ve been putting opinions on cotton for decades.
Half the people at the airport seem to be delivering a statement from their stomach. Most of us manage to read it without summoning security.
But in the stands trying to watch an WNBA game, it’s agitating.
If your response to a shirt is to scream obscenities at the woman wearing it, I’m less interested in what’s printed on her chest than what’s coming out of your mouth.
To borrow from Stealers Wheel ... clowns to the left of me.
Jokers to the right. And here we are ... stuck in the middle.
With the baffling WNBA and women wondering why a league built around their sex has such trouble tolerating their opinions.
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