While the Giants Were Being Homophobic, the Valkyries Were Hosting the Gayest Night in Sports History

Last Friday, June 26th, the Valkyries celebrated their 2nd annual Pride Night. Knowing this organization, we’d expect nothing less than a fabulous evening, but this year, in the midst of the SF Giants’ homophobia controversy, the Valkyries’ Pride night felt like a galvanizing, extra special crowning of queerness in Bay Area sports.

The perfect ending to this radically joyful and inclusive evening was when the Valkyries’ newest leader on the court, Gabby Williams, shouted gleefully into television cameras, “For the Gays!”. With Marine Johannes looking on from the crowd in her Gabby Slam T-shirt and Gabby's teammates laughing with her, this declaration was a nod to the recent comment by the Minnesota Lynx Head Coach, Cheryl Reeve, after their loss on their own Pride Night on June 21st, “We should have done it for the gays. We didn’t get it done.”

However, Valkyries Head Coach Natalie Nakase did get it done on Friday’s Pride game. In the post-Pride-game press conference, she shared her perspective on the importance of Pride Night, “Part of our culture is to allow everyone to be their authentic self … There's something special about being able to be your true self. Everyone has their quirks, being different. You know, for me, I was a little bit too short or I was Asian. I wasn't like everyone. I was 5'1. I was a female working in the NBA. I've been different my whole life. And the beauty of that is we don't even really have to talk about it, the care and the love and acceptance is already within.”

Though, there are professional sports venues where Pride nights don’t happen (the Oklahoma City Thunder is the only NBA team not to hold a Pride Night) or where Pride feels like a 24-hour rainbow sticker or even festers trolling and alleged boycotts, that’s absolutely not the case here. In San Francisco, a city known as a haven for queer life and a generator of queer culture, the remarkable thing isn’t that Pride is being celebrated at Chase Center; the remarkable thing is that for many queer people, the space and fandom that the Valkyries have spawned as “Ballhalla” is so consistently and ontologically queer, that Pride Night feels less like an introduction of something new and more like an amplification of what already exists.

These values are embraced by so many fans, who frequently express their love for this Bay Area sports team and the way it centers inclusivity as its core identity rather than as an afterthought.

Tricia Theobald, a season ticket holder and self-described happy lesbian/queer super fan, explained: “Walking into Ballhalla is like entering an alternate universe. It's the world we envision for such a time as this …The Valks fans are my extended family, made up of all people. My fellow LGBTQ+ community has created an experience of unapologetic joy. We are not just invested in the basketball, but in designing a genuine space where everyone feels free to express who they are, at every single game. The vibe and support is evident, embraced, and celebrated. It's more than just cheering on a women's basketball team in The Bay. It's two hours of pure happiness and total freedom. It's my church. There is no place like Ballhalla!”

Ballhalla on any day is not just “queer friendly”, it’s unabashedly sapphic in its lore of female warriors, daggers flashing on the screen, “V’s up” chants, and violet everywhere, a color historically associated with lesbianism. The aesthetics underscore that the queerness is not just surface level, but an essential part of transforming the same arena that hosts the Warriors into a “lez-assaince” festival every game. Queer, Black artist and fan Michon Sanders offered her thoughts on Ballhalla as a queer space in general, “Being at Ballhalla is probably the safest I’ve ever felt as a queer person at a sporting event. I’m so grateful to our community for rallying and making Ballhalla welcoming for everyone.”

So in true form, the Valkyries served an extra gay evening to start SF Pride Weekend, curated fabulously in collaboration with Queer organizations and leaders.

The pre-game Pride celebration was hosted by San Francisco’s 2nd Drag Laureate Per Sia. While prepping for the big night, Per Sia said of Ballhalla, “I’m deeply honored to have been invited by the Valkyries. Believe it or not, I’m a recent basketball fan because of the Valkyries. Their games are electric, the atmosphere is unforgettable, and I have never left a professional sporting event with so much joy in my heart.”

Queer Valkyries fans showed up en masse en rainbow for the 35th sold-out game of the Valkyries. San Francisco teacher and Valks' season ticket holder Bethany Hellerich attended the night with three queer friends and provided her take on Ballhalla, “I walk in and I’m instantly calmer. I see countless other people like me, and everyone is having a blast regardless of wins or losses. I also don’t have to worry about players putting homophobic bible verses on their jerseys.“

Valkyries 2026 Pride Night also included live drag performances from Kingdom! and Oaklash, stilt walkers, a caricature artist, glitter hair braiding, a photobooth, and sign and bracelet making with Violet, the Valkyries official mascot. The comedian wives The Bellairs beat the drum for the GSV chant to start the game. After the first quarter, contestants in rainbow sequins joined Ari Waller on the court for trivia, and at halftime, the Valkyries V was filled with rainbow lights as season ticket holders took the court for a vogue challenge with Sasha Colby. The night culminated with DJ Mama San post-game in Thrive City for more nighttime celebration as SF’s “WELCOME” rainbow laser beams lit up the sky as a goosebump-inducing backdrop.

Kira Stackhouse sent her son to the game for Pride Night with a friend. She is a true believer that the queer community has been a foundational layer in the fan base of the Valkyries, saying, “We lean on Ballhalla as not only a place of excitement and community, but as a sports sanctuary. As an East Bay queer parent, Ballhalla is not only not a safe place for me, but a place where my kid will visit and remember and be engrained that this culture of acceptance, inclusion, community, and togetherness is his baseline, and he should never accept anything less.”

Many of the most passionate fans of the Valkyrires grew up in locker rooms, classrooms, and stadiums where people learned to hide pieces of themselves. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was the emotional operating system of queerness for decades. Gay athletes were whispered about. Matthew Shepard set a terrifying tone for anyone thinking about coming out. Representation in tv, film, music, government, and sports was extremely limited. Many of our basketball heroes were gay, we just weren’t allowed to know it.

Overall, the W does a much better job of “doing it for the gays” nowadays, perhaps due to the reckoning that the league's success today is due in no small part to the many lesbian players who have helped build it, especially Black lesbian athletes whose talent, leadership, and visibility have shaped the league's identity. Today, roughly a quarter of WNBA players are openly queer, making it one of the most LGBTQ+ visible professional sports leagues in the world. But for years, as in society as a whole, queerness was not embraced fully by the league and it took several torch bearers. To name a few: Sue Wicks was the first lesbian to come out publicly in 2002, MVP Sheryl Swoopes came out in 2005, Brittney Griner was the first openly gay college player drafted to the 2013, and Layshia Clarendon was the first openly transgender and nonbinary player in the W, sharing their top surgery news in 2021.

Sports have always asked us to imagine a better version of ourselves. People from different backgrounds agree to sacrifice for the common good of the team and agree to play their hardest while respecting the rules. Maybe that’s why inclusive teams feel so compelling. They’re already practicing the values sports claim to teach.

Queer elders (and any adult who cares about progress) notice something else: kids are growing up with possibilities we never imagined. They can wear the jersey of an openly gay athlete without it being controversial. They can cheer for players who talk openly about who they love. They can attend Pride Night and think of it as a completely ordinary extraordinarily fun experience. Trans fan and activist Dr. Lindsey Collins put it this way, “When a space is welcoming to queer people, it’s a better party for everyone. Old people, kids, people from every background having an absolute blast. When your baseline is everyone is welcome, everyone has a better time.” For people who were alive and remember the first ever game of the WNBA back in 1997, that’s something we never quite expected to witness. And for our kids, we hope it’s simply normal.

That’s progress.

Perhaps that’s why the Valkyries resonate beyond basketball. They remind us that excellence and inclusion aren’t competing values. They reinforce one another. As Coach Nakase put it, “I think what's really cool here with Golden State in the Bay is that we're here really to change hearts and minds about being inclusive. Like it really is a celebration in Ballhalla. And I think for everyone who's been here, you could feel that. And we're proud of that. And we're proud to have Pride Night tonight.”

The greatest gift this team gives us may not be the wins they’ll collect this season (although currently ranked 3rd!), it may be the vision they’re offering of what sport, and maybe the rest of us, can become. You play better when everyone belongs. You cheer louder when everyone is welcome. You build stronger communities when people don’t have to hide.

As Gabby WIlliams put it in the post-pride-game press conference Friday, “I take Pride Night personal. I mean, this game is probably the one that everyone has circled on their calendar … the Bay Area's historically been a pioneer for the pride movement. And so, I just wanted to get it for the Bay.”

On the Sunday following Pride night, in the background of national television during the Valkyries home game against the Liberty, a new chant made its way loudly across the airways: “For the gays! For the gays! For the gays!”

At Chase on Sunday, attendees reported the improvised new chant as an “indescribable sense of comfort”, “a top moment”, and “epic.”

So go to Chase and chant along. Show the world (and the Giants) how it's done. Do it for the gays, do it for The Bay, do it for your own dose of communal joy, inclusive calmness, and beautiful Ballhalla belonging.