Expert insight: LGBTQ+ inclusion in sports faces new challenges as Pride Night debates intensify
Political science PhD candidate Noah Eliot Vanderhoeven argues sports leagues should keep Pride Nights after three Giants pitchers wrote Bible verses on their Pride caps.
Noah Eliot Vanderhoeven, a political science PhD candidate at Western, writes that backlash against Pride Nights in men’s pro sports has escalated. In the most recent case, three San Francisco Giants pitchers wrote Bible verses on their Pride Night caps, drawing a warning from MLB under its rule against writing statements on uniforms. The commentary first ran in The Conversation.
He traces the events back to the Giants’ 1994 HIV/AIDS awareness day and the Dodgers’ first formal Pride Night in September 2000. The NHL’s Florida Panthers held its first in 2013, and the NFL lagged until the Washington team’s in September 2021. Objections date to at least 2022, when five Tampa Bay Rays players declined Pride jerseys, followed by NHL players in 2023.
Vanderhoeven says players can wear a normal cap if they choose, but leagues should not scale back Pride programming or strip Pride uniforms, as the NHL once did.
He argues that doing so would undo three decades of progress toward more inclusive sports spaces.
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