Valkyries games have become a queer lovefest. How the team embraced the 'lez-aissance'
Homemade lesbian flags wave alongside rainbow T-shirts. Everyone’s got their caps on backward, showing off their undercuts. Faces are painted and doused in glitter. Flirtatious glances bounce around like a game of Pong as women, enbys (nonbinary), and trans folk scan the crowd, check dating apps, and dance to DJ LadyRyan.
No, it’s not Pride or a gay club. It’s a Monday night at Ballhalla, aka a Golden State Valkyries home game at Chase Center, where queer fans have shown up loudly and where the WNBA’s newest team has shouted back with love. (Sometimes literally: “Put your V’s up!” — the in-game chant — has been re-interpreted by some fans as a sanitized version of a randy hand gesture.)
Since the inaugural season started in May, Valks games have become the most boisterous date spot for queer women in San Francisco. Call it the lez-aissance.
“Sparks are definitely happening,” says Dominique Bocanegra, the team’s community manager, who proposed to her now-wife on the court before an early-season game — Ballhalla’s first (but definitely not last) queer proposal.
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