I’m 5’9, which is considered tall for a woman and the average height of an American man. I am a foot shorter than Brittney Griner, who stands 6 feet and 9 inches in the air. I, like Brittney, am a very small-chested woman who also likes hoodies because who doesn’t? Unfortunately, hoodies sometimes lend themselves to people questioning my gender or incorrectly assuming my sexuality. I am unfortunately attracted to men, and most people who assume the opposite make these assumptions from not just my clothes but how they fit on my body. Hormones are not a one-size-fits-all, and for women like myself, but even more for women like Griner, having small breasts and being tall quickly, yet involuntarily, lends itself to homophobia, transphobia and misogynoir, whether you are part of the target demographic or not.
Still, for Griner, even after having a legendary basketball career, she can’t seem to escape being hated for merely existing the best way she knows how in her own body.
You can’t talk about Brittney Griner without mentioning her time in a Russian work camp for cannabis possession, which is strictly prohibited there, where Griner played on the WNBA off-season. Some of its players, like Griner, are older than the WBNA, which got its start in 1997 and may be one of the reasons why there is such a larger pay discrepancy between the two entities, with the NBA boasting a rookie base salary that is almost 18 times the amount of a WNBA player’s rookie salary.
To say that is a big difference would be an understatement.
Even for players like BG, who is the 11th ranked player in the league, a $214,000 yearly salary may seem like a lot to the outside world, but when compared to the 11th rank NBA player, which would make someone like Jalen Brunson, her contemporary, Brunson’s salary is more than 10 times that amount. One could say because the NBA draws a bigger crowd than the WNBA, which receives an endowment from the NBA, WNBA players, who, like most professional athletes, also have to sacrifice a healthy amount of their income to managers, agents, lawyers and Uncle Sam, should be grateful. However, let us not forget that the NCAA women’s basketball finals had more viewers than the men’s. Women’s sports is a viable business investment, including in the players, whose bodies go through the same rigor as the men’s, however the pay scale is still too drastic to support players, many who are supporting multiple family members. With such a large pay discrepancy, many WNBA players play overseas, where they can make millions playing in the WBNA off-season. That’s what led Griner to Russia, where she would later spend nine months in a modern-day gulag.
In an interview with 20/20, Griner recounts that fateful day when she woke up late and, in haste, packed her bags without checking their previous contents. Inside her bag were two THC oil cartridges that together contained 7 milligrams of THC. Griner stated she used THC and CBD for pain management due to years of playing and injuries. Even though it is federally illegal in the U.S., many states have loosened their laws on cannabis usage, and many physicians prescribe it for pain management. However, it is still strictly forbidden in Russia and can carry a 10-year sentence. A week after Griner was detained, Russia invaded Ukraine, making Brittney a pawn in the chess game of the global stage and her situation that much more precarious.
During her interview, Griner talks about the harrowing moment when there was a glimmer of hope about her leaving Russia. After being told she was going home, she was processed out of the women’s prison and put in a van. The van came to a stop at a men’s prison, where Griner was processed at a men’s prison. She was forced to strip naked in front of only men and made to turn in circles as Russian prison guards took pictures of her naked body—another hateful example of transphobia and the dehumanization of Black bodies. She was housed there until she was released.
In order to bring Brittney home, the U.S. entered a prisoner exchange agreement with Russia that took months to orchestrate—the U.S. would have to trade a Russian arms dealer, Viktor “Merchant of Death,” Bout to secure her release. Many felt the trade was unfair, and the only reason she was brought home instead of Paul Whelan, a Canadian-born, U.S. marine, who was convicted by Russia of being a spy, or Marc Fogel, who was caught with .6 ounces of cannabis, he had also been prescribed, was convicted of drug trafficking, both would be released, in 2024 and 2025 respectively. Some also felt the U.S. was giving up a more important prisoner in the exchange, merely based on the criminal actions.
Question: who would be more worthy of release than a person sentenced to nine years of hard labor in a Russian prison camp for less than a gram of cannabis?
BG, as she is often affectionally called, is now the newest star of the Atlanta Dream. The Atlanta Dream’s Facebook page is filled with comments from white men on the brink of death, who could be spending their final days with their grandchildren but instead have opted for transphobia in the comments section, referring to Griner as “he” or questioning why she is playing with women. In an ESPN interview, Griner recounts a painful childhood memory of a bully coming up to her and patting her chest while shouting, “See, she’s not a girl…look no titties.” Griner went on to explain that some of her tattoos cover scars from cuts she made on her wrists due to her suicidal ideations at the time.
We live in a nation that seems to get more hateful with each new telling of the sun, and if there’s one thing about hate, it does not need logic to form. Griner has become an easy target for vitriol against a demographic to which she does not belong. She is a part of the LGBTQ+ community, but the vitriol she receives is due to people’s ignorance surrounding her body more than her sexuality. It is an interesting thing to posit that Griner, who was born female and uses female pronouns, is a man, because she is tall, small-breasted and has a deep voice (none of which have ever been exclusive male characteristics), but that trans men are not men for having the same qualifiers.
If having a vagina makes a trans man a woman, in the eyes of a bigot, then why can’t they see a woman when they see Griner? Which one is it? Is it one Oochie Wally, or is it one mic?
Griner is not just a basketball player; she’s dynamic as f*ck.
Not only has she won three Olympic gold medals for the U.S., but she has also broken league records in blocks, was the first player to dunk in the WNBA and scored the most points in the 2021 playoffs. Russia enjoyed winning the Euroleague’s championship four times with Griner on the squad, but her being a Black queer woman in Russia, a country that is known to discriminate against all three groups—especially queer individuals—who are not protected from discrimination by law, does little to help her cause. Russia and the U.S. never had a problem with Brittney’s muscular, tall, thin frame when that same body was dominating in games on the global stage. Still, somehow, when the anthems are done playing, the bigotry starts right up again.
Recently, a trans man, Sam Nordquist, was tortured for a month. His body was later found near the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Nordquist was murdered just for existing in the best way he knew how. If trans men are not safe from transphobia, if trans women are not safe from transphobia and if ciswomen are not safe from transphobia, it is simply because transphobia is dangerous.
