I’ll never forget my introduction to Caitlin Clark. It was the 2024 women’s college basketball Final Four. I was on my parent’s couch, and Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes pulled off a massive upset against women’s basketball powerhouse UConn.
On TV, she was statically magnetic. A slender 6-feet, perpetually in motion, a brunette ponytail bouncing as she ran, jolting me with every splash of her deep 3-pointers. She’s the kind of player you can’t look away from – one who requires your attention. And I, wrongly, believed her to be gay. For an earnest moment I thought, “Wow, another cool lesbian representative.” I was sprung.
Then I saw her boyfriend. Clark is, in actuality, entirely heterosexual. 
I kept watching – through her WNBA entrance to the end of the regular season. Myself and an average of 1.178 million other people watched televised Indiana Fever games whenever they were on. More of us will be watching when she makes her playoff debut against Connecticut. Especially her matchup against Dijonai Carrington, the Sun’s defensive specialist who has hounded Clark in every matchup, which — as a flamboyantly styled and competitive Black, gay woman — put her on the hit list of Clark’s diehard base.
When Clark entered the WNBA, she appeared to many middle Americans as another “white hope” – a lady Larry Bird. A basketball player coveted to reform this melanated, queer, political league into an image of heterosexual whiteness. Clark is straight, white and midwestern. It’s a disposition which naturally invites the possibility that she is a covert MAGA-ite. A secret Trumper infiltrating a league which is both diverse and progressive.
True: The league is 70.3% Black and 38% lesbian. Also true: When the WNBA is referred to solely as a “Black lesbian league” – as it was by OutKick founder and outspoken Trump supporter Clay Travis – it typically enunciates negative connotations. Or, more bluntly, it mouth-breathes racist homophobia.
Recent events underscored for me just how disturbingly often she’s used as a vehicle for the ideologies of Trump-fearing men. She’s eye candy for a white nationalist movement that’s sweeping the nation. A hoop phenom doubling as a divine hint America is ripe for a return to the setting of Mad Men. She’s a potential totem for Trumpish conservatism – a woman men could point to and say “See, she’s not complaining about the current state of women and their bodily autonomy. In fact, she’s thriving. She’s better.”
Clark is positioned as a human oxymoron – a woman witnessing our actively retreating rights while, nevertheless, presumed to endorse the guy whose court overturned Roe v Wade.
This transcendent figure, captivating for her talent and worthy of admiration, is simultaneously adored for being an unwitting emblem in American identity politics.
It’s shameful how we’ve lost the plot. Somehow, male athletes most often get to just be great. Until they throw themselves in the political arena, they are but figures of admiration, allowed to exist in the confines of their respective athletic worlds. Clark, however, hasn’t been afforded such luxuries. Since her days at Iowa she’s been mostly a pawn in an ideological war. So much so it’s hard to even tell if the unprecedented attention and viewership she’s brought to a fledgling sport is even real, or good.
We’d like to think once people watch such an intriguing league and such a captivating game that eventually, the love of sport would overcome. But all we’ve seemed to accomplish is being reminded of our nation’s addiction to objectifying women.
Even I was guilty. While truly appreciating her skills, and awed by her aura and gracefulness under pressure, I admittedly saw her as an ideal ambassador for my great passion. I hoped she’d be a soldier in the continued fight for queer acceptance and the mainstreaming of diverse sexual orientations.
White America was doing the same thing as me: projecting their proclivities onto Clark. Except mine was a gay pipedream and theirs is draconian. Theirs want to use her excellence as a weapon in the political war of personal identity.
Then she liked the Taylor Swift post.
Immediately after the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the world’s most famous woman endorsed the latter on Instagram.
“I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them,” Swift wrote. “I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.”
Clark double-tapped. The Fever guard had conservative fans sick over her amen to Swift. The most upset took to social media to denounce their fandom, accusing her of bona-fide wokeness.
This is 2024, where liking a political figure’s post, or any post in support or disdain of one, is akin to publically wearing a campaign pin. And following Sept. 10’s presidential debate, Clark’s pin – by proxy of Taylor Swift – said “Harris/Walz.”
Asked in media availability about the like, Clark refrained from explicitly endorsing Harris. She, instead, echoed the less-partisan portion of Swift’s post – the part on voter registration.
“I think the biggest thing would be just to encourage people to register to vote,” Clark said. “That’s the biggest thing I can do with the platform that I have, and that’s the same thing Taylor did.”
With the quote, to many, came death to the Clark-as-conservative-totem fantasy. There’s still the mental gymnasts who’ll equate the absence of direct support for Harris as proof Clark’s still a possible Trumpster. Still holding out hope this legend in the making is pro what they’re for and anti what they despise.
But to the thinking multitudes, it’s dead. Sure she’s not a confirmed Democrat or Kamala supporter, and many of the liberal WNBA fans have criticized her for not speaking out. But the encouragement to vote was inadvertently progressive. (Conservatives prefer less and suppressed voting.).
Still, hopefully someday — until and unless she chooses an ambassadorship — she can just be revered as an incredible basketball player.
Top photo: Indiana Fever rookie guard Caitlin Clark has been a superstar since her days at Iowa. Her large appeal has led to unprecedented viewership in the WNBA. (Photos by John McClellan via Wikipedia Commons)
Olivia Fitts is the News Editor and Opinions Editor for The Express. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter @OLIVIAFITTS2.
