In an emailed statement the Liberty\u2019s Chief Brand Officer, Shana Stephenson, says that the team is \u201cthrilled to showcase a collection from the Lesbian Herstory Archives, whose powerful legacy in preserving lesbian history aligns deeply with our values.\u201d \u201cLiberty fans are the heartbeat of our team and supporting the diverse communities that make up our fan base isn\u2019t just important \u2013 it\u2019s essential to who we are,\u201d she says. \u201cWe look forward to continuing to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, who has embraced the Liberty with love and pride since the beginning of our journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
The exhibit is \u201cfunny,\u201d Corbman tells me, in that \u201cit\u2019s very centrally invested in the history of fraught relationships between lesbians and the front office.\u201d It likely helps, though, that the Lesbian Herstory Archives is now working with \u201ca different front office\u201d \u2014 that of the Barclays Center, which became the Liberty\u2019s home in 2020. \u201cWe didn\u2019t just have to tell a kind of sanded-down story where lesbians were loved by the league for the entire time, or even a kind of progress narrative that forgets this history,\u201d Corbman says. (Wolfe, however, has a slightly more cynical outlook on the timing of the exhibit: \u201cThere are enough lesbians out on the teams that it\u2019s a positive for them. They\u2019re not losing anything by it.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Corbman is also quick to point out that Lesbians for Liberty was a predominantly (though not exclusively) white group, and that the WNBA is predominantly Black. The activism of the players themselves<\/a> has been central to the story of the league since its inception \u2014 and as they demonstrated at the All-Star Game last weekend with shirts that read \u201cPay Us What You Owe Us,\u201d<\/a> that\u2019s sadly still a necessary reality. But it\u2019s also true that the activism of queer fans has been largely overlooked when it comes to the history of the WNBA, and those stories, too, are worth telling.<\/p>\n Lesbians for Liberty<\/p>\n Dobkin emphasizes that the aim of the group was not \u201csome canceling of the WNBA.\u201d \u201cWe were really celebrating the league, but also calling them out at the same time,\u201d she says, before adding, \u201cOh, I guess now they call that, \u2018calling them in.\u2019 We were calling them in.\u201d But even though Lesbians for Liberty existed for only a brief moment, there\u2019s still much that we can learn from them in the present day. Dobkin, who is now a performance artist living in Toronto, stresses that the history of the group should be situated in a broader lineage of queer activism. She has nostalgia for the scrappy spirit that drove Lesbians for Liberty, and art-oriented queer direct action in the \u201990s in general \u2014 \u201cto be able to do something that requires very little resources, where I can call three friends and show up and bring some posters and paint,\u201d she tells me, \u201cand to do things that feel achievable and manageable, and also with a spirit of play.\u201d A kiss-in, as Dobkin points out, is a \u201cvery playful action.\u201d<\/p>\n Wolfe, too, still appreciates the creativity and the courage of those who participated in Lesbians for Liberty. \u201cNobody backed away,\u201d she recalls. \u201cWhen they said you couldn\u2019t bring a banner, everybody thought, \u2018How are we going to sneak the banner in?\u2019\u201d Though Wolfe says it was \u201csilly\u201d and \u201cjuvenile\u201d that it took the WNBA as long as it did to officially acknowledge Pride (even the New York Times<\/a> criticized the league for taking until 2014 to do so), she also says, \u201cThe great thing was that people stood up to it and said, \u2018We\u2019re not going to take it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The legendary activist sees that same spirit in today\u2019s protests against anti-trans laws<\/a> and laws that seek to censor topics like \u201ccritical race theory\u201d<\/a> in higher education. \u201cThis is fascism \u2014 and a lot of lesbians are standing up to it,\u201d Wolfe says. \u201cPeople have to be very vigilant and make sure that you still stay visible, and that we don\u2019t let anybody do that again. Anywhere, anywhere, not just in the WNBA.\u201d<\/p>\n