About 20 members of a group called Save Women’s Sports were escorted out of Providence Park on Friday night after a confrontation with other fans during a Portland Thorns match against the North Carolina Courage, according to accounts from those involved. The group wore XX-XY Athletics shirts and had planned a demonstration during the club’s designated “Fan Appreciation” night.
The activists reportedly kept their shirts covered through the first half and revealed them, along with a banner reading “Save Women’s Sports,” at the start of the second half. Organizers said they timed the reveal for a moment without a formal break in play, hoping it would reduce the chance of ejection.
What followed, according to the activists, was verbal abuse and physical confrontation from other spectators, including people wielding flagpoles carrying transgender pride flags. Security ultimately removed the roughly 20 demonstrators from the stadium.
Amy Sousa, a women’s sports activist who helped organize the group, said she and others filed police reports afterward. She said she stood behind police outside the stadium because she did not feel safe.
“We were attacked by fans. We were hit with flags. We had drinks and thrown at us,” Sousa said. “Other people were forcibly pushed out the door. We had an ADA woman in a walker, she was forcibly pushed out the door. They let these people hit us with flags, another woman was punched in the face, all because we wanted to stand there in our shirts to protect girls sports.”
This was not the first ejection of XX-XY Athletics supporters from a Thorns game. A smaller group was removed from Providence Park in early September, when Sousa said she was accused of being “transphobic” for wearing the apparel.
Commentator Brandi Kruse, who also helped organize the demonstration, said a security guard restrained her right arm behind her back and walked her out of the stadium after she said she and others were struck multiple times by flags, with those involved repeatedly treating it as accidental. Kruse said another attendee was pushed over her seat.
“I asked the security guard, ‘Why are we being asked to leave and they’re not being asked to leave?’ If you want all of us to leave that’s another thing, but just us? So I said, ‘I’m not leaving on my own accord.’ So two security guards grabbed me and took me out. I’m in shock over it,” Kruse said.
Aside from one man removed for pouring beer on someone, Kruse said no other fans involved in the confrontation were asked to leave.
A reporter for OutKick, Matt Calkins, who was credentialed to cover the match, said he was also targeted while documenting the confrontation. He said he was flipped off, called a Nazi, had his phone knocked out of his hand and had beer poured on his neck. A separate security guard pulled his credential from around his neck while he interviewed Sousa before returning it moments later without explanation.
Jim McCausland, the stadium’s director of security, was asked for comment but said he did not have time to talk. The Thorns’ communications office did not respond to questions about why the demonstrators were removed while those accused of striking them were not.
Roughly half a dozen XX-XY supporters left the stadium before the banner was unveiled, saying they feared for their safety after seeing other spectators wearing shirts reading “Protect Trans Kids” with images of knives on them. Ari Laureano, who has detransitioned, said he stayed and was struck in the face by a flagpole shortly after revealing his shirt, and that flags were used to block the view of people striking the women he was with.
“I think the average person looks at this and doesn’t understand what’s going on, and the media goes and calls all these women horrible homophobic bigots,” Laureano said. “But I’m here with them as a gay man who was harmed by being transitioned young, and I’m being beaten alongside of them. These are just normal impacted women who care about women’s sports.”
The Thorns play in the National Women’s Soccer League, which, like the WNBA, does not have a policy automatically excluding athletes who were born male. The dispute comes as Washington and Colorado have measures on their Nov. 3 ballots that would restrict school sports participation based on biological sex. Washington’s measure applies to K-12 athletics, while Colorado’s would extend to college sports.
Kruse said she was struck by the contrast between the response she encountered in Portland and her own experience living among people whose politics differ from hers.
“It’s just fascinating this difference. Like, I live in Seattle, you know, as a conservative, I’m surrounded by things I don’t like all the time — signs, ideas. It’s never even crossed my mind to assault someone,” Kruse said. “The mentality is very different.”
