When Team USA named the 12 players on the women’s basketball team for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics (that features at least 195 out athletes). WNBA rookie Caitlin Clark was left off the team. This surprised some, and it was expected by others.
Now here they are, in the gold medal game at the Paris Olympics. The players and coaches here haven’t lost a game.
More than half of the USA team in Paris at least seven players are LGBTQ and out That has made the USA women’s basketball team one of the “gayest” teams at the Olympics.
Of course, Clark not making the roster garnered headlines. This should not be a surprise to anyone. Veteran leadership means a lot, particularly when players are thrown together from across the WNBA. Experience means a lot.
Clark had a decent first few weeks with Indiana before selections had to be made. She was 13th on the WNBA scoring list with a field goal percentage of 37% at the time. That’s not great. She was fourth in the league in assists.
No doubt, she’s having a good rookie season.
Yet people like Jason Whitlock saying the Black LGBTQ community forced Team USA to abandon Clark is absurd. In the crudest possible terms, Whitlock lashed out about Clark — a rookie in the WNBA —being left off a team of legends. But, we’re talking about him, and that’s what he wants.
It echoed nonsense from Clay Travis that Clark is being bullied by Black lesbians in the league. There are White players on the team, like Breanna Stewart and Diana Taurasi.
There are other players left off the team who could claim they got dissed. This happens every time there is a “selection.”
Regardless, the United States is represented by 12 women on the basketball court, and more than half of them are publicly out.
And that’s not even including the two out LGBTQ people — head coach Cheryl Reeve and assistant coach Curt Miller — who are also publicly out.
Here are the seven out Team LGBTQ players representing the United States in women’s basketball at the Paris Summer Olympics, and who will play for gold.
