Thursday November 21, 2024

Op-ed by Laura Everett

“BOS Nation” has got to go. 

The NWSL Boston team name needed to go before the presidential election, and it definitely needs to go after.  The longer the ownership group waits, the worse the situation gets, squandering any goodwill from its expectant local fan base. 

For thoroughly inexplicable reasons, Boston Unity Soccer Partners launched the BOS Nation name roll out with an ad campaign that was both sexist and transphobic, bound up in a joke about “balls” and leaving out every other local professional Boston women’s team. 

To their credit, the owners issued an apology about the transphobic launch, without apologizing for the shameful erasure of Boston Fleet (pro-women’s hockey), Boston Renegades (pro-women’s football), Beantown Rugby Club (semi-pro rugby), and Connecticut Sun (pro-women’s basketball). 

For a team that ran a prior marketing collaboration that was “pro women, pro soccer,” the sisterhood apparently did not extend to other women’s teams, and was only cis-gendered.  This is not a sisterhood of which I want to be a part.

The “BOS Nation” name and launch is irrevocably tied up in a sexist, transphobic launch, and runs the very dangerous risk of leaning into an exclusionary nationalistic vibe. This is not what you want when you’re claiming to be “the most inclusive sports league in the world” (the WNBA would like a word about that audacious claim). 

“BOS Nation” has got to go. 

There are two major problems with the “BOS Nation” name, and two main reasons why it’s got to go: first, the nationalism implicit in the name, and second, the transphobia embedded in the launch. 

To the first problem, we cannot be “BOS Nation” under the scrutiny of a racist, sexist, homophobic Trump presidency. The name is too susceptible to being co-opted for nationalistic purposes. It needed to go before the election, and it definitely needs to go after. 

Currently, team branding declares, “Bostonian: Nine Letters that say so much.”  Supposedly Ronald Regan said, “if you’re explaining, you’re losing.” But why is the team explaining that “BOS Nation” is an anagram for “Bostonian?” Just call the team “Bostonian United” if you’re so 

committed to “Bostonian.” The current tagline is “Be the Many.” I don’t mind it, though I don’t really know what it means. But under the dark cynicism of hyper-nationalism feels more foreboding than inclusive. But the real danger is in the “Nation.” I wish it were otherwise, but this is where we are as a country.

President-elect Trump is dedicated to delineating a nation of who is in and who is out. He has vowed to close borders, end birthright citizenship, enact again a Muslim travel ban, and begin mass deportations. He believes that those who are not with him are against him.  

I believe in the skillful, nuanced, and creative practices of marginalized communities reclaiming words that have been used against them, as Black, queer, women, indigenous, fat and other communities have done with such words as the n-word, bitch, queer, fat, Indian, and others. 

The NSWL already has a team (looking at you, Utah Royals) with a corporate sponsor that echoes racist ideology initiated in the isolationist 1920s and  made popular by President-Elect Donald Trump. The “America First Credit Union” on the Royals jersey cruelly means that every player on that team is forced to wear what has become a slogan of the white nationalism. Moreover, every player in the NWSL has to endure the indignity of playing at the “America First” Field in Sandy, Utah. Unless and until, “BOS Nation” is ready to protest and rebuke this white nationalism within the league, NWSL Boston must not contribute to it.  

Yes, there is already, “Red Sox Nation,” and “Pats Nation” among fans of pro-men’s sports. “BOS Nation” sounds more like a fandom or supporters group. Now is an incredibly complex time to build a diverse coalition. I appreciate the NWSL Boston team owners wanting to shape that diversity into the contours of a nation, but it is simply too complex in the shadow of a Trump presidency.

Additionally, the dynamics of women’s pro-sports are different, both for players and fans. What happens if a NWSL Boston player needs emergency care while traveling to play Orlando Pride in a state that doesn’t provide comprehensive reproductive health care like Florida? Unless team owners are fully, and I mean fully, prepared to be a bastion of resistance to every nativist, homophobic, transphobic misogynistic attack that will inevitably come to your players and fans, ditch the “Nation.” “Nation” is simply too open to co-opting for nationalistic purposes.* 

To the second problem, Bos Nation needs to go because it is irrevocably tied to a transphobic and sexist launch campaign. This is a legacy the NWSL Boston team does not want to carry into the future. If the team is as inclusive as it professes to be, it simply must drop the “BOS Nation” name. 

I fear the leadership group does not yet understand the full gravity of why the transphobia in the “balls” based ad was so bad (in addition to being crass and not family-friendly). 

President-Elect Donald Trump made it a touchstone of his election campaign to scapegoat trans people, and most particularly, trans women athletes.  Beginning in September and particularly during Sunday American Football games and the World Series, Trump ran highly effective and cruelly transphobic ads, which ended with the lines “Kamala is for they/them. Trump is for you.”

This is the nation that Trump is dividing people into, and by participating in that, BOS Nation, also preyed on an emotional fear that trans women athletes were somehow sneaking into women’s teams and taking what was not theirs. 

Most recently, Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton (D- MA 6th) also decided to conjure the fictive notion that trans women are a threat particularly in women’s and girls sports. In a post-mortem on the presidential election in the New York Times, Moulton said  “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.” 

Instead of defending a community that has been intentionally misunderstood, vilified, and targeted throughout the election, Moulton doubled down, claiming that disagreement with him was proof of his point. Yet, this year’s Trans Day of Remembrance on November 16, 2024 marked 319 trans people who died or were killed this year. 

This is the context of debate and women’s sports in which BOS Nation tossed their balls and transphobic ad. If NWSL Boston wants to create “a safe and welcoming environment” as they claimed in their apology Instagram post, they need to leave the BOS Nation team name behind. 

After an apology comes restorative action. Boston Unity Soccer Partners need to act and kill the name. 

“BOS Nation” is now forever tied to a transphobic, exclusionary, and misogynistic launch campaign that somehow managed to offend everyone except the male teams of Boston in its launch. “BOS Nation” is in grave danger of nationalistic usurpation, and already tainted with transphobic exclusion.

We’ve done plenty of scrutiny. 

BOS Nation must go for the team to survive.

*Also, have you all tried to chant “BOS Nation?” It does not work. Try it. “Let’s Go, BOS Nay-Shun” clap, clap, clapclapclap.” It’s no good to cheer. I don’t want to wave a flag for this. I don’t want to put this on a tee shirt. And it doesn’t freaking chant. BASICS, people.