Brittney Griner Harassed By Right-Wing YouTuber At Dallas Airport

This wasn’t a great weekend for Brittney Griner.

In recent years, Griner has become one of the biggest stars in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). She is also an out lesbian athlete, and has been playing for the Phoenix Mercury team since 2013.

Unfortuxfxnately, Griner was reportedly harassed and confronted by right-wing YouTuber Alex Stein over the weekend. According to ESPN, this interaction took place on Saturday, June 10 at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.

In his video, Stein yelled things at Griner like “Is it true you had to have sex with Vladimir Putin to get released from Russia?” and claimed that she “hates America.”

A police report obtained by ESPN shows that Stein “pushed the security personnel” to confront Griner for his video. In response, the WNBA organization issued a statement following this incident and revealed that Griner has been approved to fly charter for upcoming games in order to avoid confrontations of this kind.

“As we gather additional information about today's incident at the Dallas airport, it has come to our attention that this was orchestrated by a social media figure and provocateur. His actions were inappropriate and unfortunate,” the WNBA’s statement reads. “The safety of Brittney Griner and all WNBA players is our top priority. Prior to the season, the WNBA worked together with the Phoenix Mercury and BG’s team to ensure her safety during her travel, which included charter flights for WNBA games and assigned security personnel with her at all times. We remain steadfastly committed to the highest standards of security for players.”

This has been a very upsetting year for LGBTQ+ people as right-wing pundits keep pushing homophobic and transphobic rhetoric in their stances. That kind of rhetoric also appears to be escalating, which is very scary.

We hope that appropriate arrangements can be made for Brittney Griner’s safety as she tries to do her job as an athlete in the WNBA.