The Portland Trail Blazers lost in an upset to the Utah Jazz during the Blazers’ LGBTQ+ Pride Night on Friday, Dec. 6.
The NBA’s Pride Nights celebrates queer sports fans while raising money and awareness for LGBTQ+ organizations. Most of the league holds Pride Nights, the Blazers and the Jazz included.
Pride Night may also help some sports fans feel more comfortable around openly LGBTQ+ people. Many queer people love sports, but the culture and leadership rarely reciprocate. For examples, see the open hate transgender athletes face, or [read our story on Lincoln High School basketball coach Heather Seely-Roberts’ alleged use of a homophobic slur](https://www.wweek.com/news/schools/2024/12/05/four-lincoln-high-school-basketball-players-file-a-legal-notice-accusing-their-coach-of-retaliation/).
On Pride Night, basketball was the game’s focus. Queer appreciation was on the margins, but on the fat-ass margins of the NBA’s charitable and media apparatuses. Midgame entertainment raised $5,000 for Pride Northwest without a second thought. Emmy-winning dancer Jayla Rose Sullivan performed at halftime with the BlazerDancers, alongside drag queen Nicole Onoscopi, choreographer Oscar Ortega-Hernandez, cheerleader Quinton Peron, and members of the recently disbanded House of Ada, who appeared on the scuttled HBO Max series _Legendary_.
Sure, halftime is when fans usually leave the arena. It sucked to hear some fans describe the Blazers’ loss as “so gay” and to hear media box colleagues chuckle at a Portland Lesbian Choir member who sang the national anthem. If anything, juvenile examples like these necessitate the NBA’s Pride Nights.
General sports appreciation might be lost on some queer people, especially if they were kept out of the bleachers by hate. But sports fandom offers a refreshing in-the-moment mindset that anyone who’s had athletics ruined for them could really enjoy. Non-queer sports fans, meanwhile, can learn about entertainers and historic figures from posters hung around Moda Center’s concourse, especially if they don’t learn about LGBTQ+ culture on their own. These might be baby steps, but the NBA takes them in clown-sized basketball shoes. The strides go farther than they seem.