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.
“There’s a buzz on the concourse — people are saying, ‘There are a lot of attractive people here.’ They’re asking, ‘Where’s the after-party? Is there a Castro bar everyone’s heading to?’”
Take Cristal Alejandrez, who in June posted on the LGBTQ+ dating and community app Lex looking for a date to a Valks game. “No pressure for romance,” she wrote. “But ball’s in your court.”
That blind date didn’t go anywhere — but her love for the team did. She’s now a regular at games and watch parties. “I’m new to women’s sports,” Alejandrez says. “But it’s a women’s moment right now. The energy is amazing. These players are strong, they’re badass, they’re hot — and some of them are gay! Why wouldn’t we support that, especially in San Francisco?”
Queer roots, queerer future
The WNBA is arguably the queerest league in professional sports, with nearly 30% of players publicly out as LGBTQ+.
Out stars like Brittney Griner, Courtney Vandersloot, Chelsea Gray, and Breanna Stewart are celebrated, not sidelined. Pride nights aren’t niche promotions; they’re a core part of the calendar — and have been for more than a decade. Nobody’s pretending to be someone they’re not in the W, and that authenticity has fostered a fiercely devoted fanbase.
The Valkyries are the latest, and most local, expression of that culture — a team that reflects the Bay Area’s queer, passionate, all-in energy. Dating apps light up during home games. Groups of queer fans buy up blocks of tickets to make it easy to mingle. Everybody’s got their V’s up.
One of the most vibrant communities for connection is the ValQueeries, cofounded by season-ticket holder and third-gen San Franciscan Megan Doherty-Baker, whose fan group started with a simple idea: What if we had community and basketball?
“At Valks games, I kept wishing there was a neon sign saying, ‘Queers — go this way!’” she laughs.
So she became that neon sign.
Now more than 300 members strong, the ValQueeries host “Just say hi” pregame meetups in Thrive City, send out newsletters, and throw watch parties for away games at queer bars like Mother in the Mission and White Horse Bar in Oakland.
Embracing the rainbow
The Valkyries are actively courting queer fans in ways that would have been unthinkable for women's sports teams just a few years ago. The lavender color scheme, long associated with sapphic pride and resistance, is a hat-tip to queer culture. Wearing Valks’ gear has become an informal method of flagging — a way to subtly signal queerness or availability — with fans encouraging their single friends to approach other potential singles wearing lavender swag.
The team’s first promotional video was voiced by lesbian singer and Oakland native Kehlani. The local broadcast team hired Layshia Clarendon, the first openly nonbinary player in WNBA history, as a studio analyst. The Valks celebrated Pride in June not just for one night but all month long, with rainbow jerseys, halftime drag shows, artist spotlights, and a panel at Thrive City’s new Splash sports bar celebrating influential Black LGBTQ+ music figures, including rapper Kamaiyah and the team’s official DJs, LadyRyan and Shellheart.
But the sweetest, queerest move yet may have been team employee Bocanegra’s on-court proposal. “I was so nervous I couldn’t open the ring box — and when I finally did, it was facing the wrong way,” she laughs. “But it was so special to share that moment with our community and fans. I still get messages from people saying, ‘My daughter experienced a proposal for the first time thanks to you.’ In today’s world, that means everything.”
The proposal brought Bocanegra’s love story full circle. It was her partner who introduced her to the WNBA, taking her to a New York Liberty game.
“From that moment,” she says, “I knew I loved this woman. I loved the WNBA. And I was going to work in this industry.”
Beyond the court
When the Valkyries are on the road, fans flock to Rikki’s, a women’s sports bar in the Castro named for queer trailblazer and sports fan Rikki Streicher. On game nights, the line to get in starts well before tipoff and wraps around the block like the wait before a Chappell Roan concert. Inside, the crowd is electric but intimate: Fans high-five strangers after big plays, youngsters offer up seats to gay elders, and bartenders greet regulars with hugs like beloved exes — which perhaps they are.
During a recent away game against the Las Vegas Aces, I met Sierra Hutto and Jen Houseman, a married couple in subtle matching rainbow bracelets who were nervously watching in the standing-room-only crowd as the game entered its final minutes. Eyes fixed to the screen, they told me a story that perfectly captures Valkyries fandom.
While walking around their Noe Valley neighborhood, the couple spotted a Valkyries flag flying from a home’s balcony and left a bottle of wine and their number on the doorstep. Turns out the home belonged to another queer couple. Now the four are friends and attend games together.
“It feels different to be in queer-designated spaces by us, for us,” says Doherty-Baker. “There’s still a lively sports energy, but also something else — being able to be fully and authentically ourselves.”
And for many fans, Valkyries games truly are something else. A chance to belong. A place to fall in love. A lavender beacon in the stands that says, simply: You’re welcome here.
