To celebrate the ladies historical past Month, WSLAM showcases very different girls in their free time who are pushing boundaries, elevating the sport and working hard to empower others.
It’s June and Brianna Turner is hovering near the elbow, lurking behind the full protection of the LA Sparks. Towards the end of the third quarter, teammate Skylar Diggins-Smith lifts the ball in the air at a slight angle as it clacks off the appropriate side of the rim and bounces over to the left. Turner is now inside the suit behind three defenders, and as the ball bounces back to the left side of the rim, she lunges and leaps to scoop it over the guard and into the basket.
The game she makes isn’t that fancy, a putback. One thing she did notice, however, was Diggins-Smith’s off-balance layup. And because of her lightning fast focus, she started moving. For Turner, movement is productive and pragmatic. It’s not because she’s aware she should entertain or achieve, because she cares about the development of her people and understands how her skills and zeal can help.
Take the two-time WNBA All-Defensive First Staff standout off the seed list and that power remains. She’s undoubtedly one of the most outspoken voices within the WNBA, but she’s also probably the most personal. Turner gets on the move and stands up for equality unlike her friends, along with Lynx level guard Layshia Clarendon or Sparks Ahead Nneka Ogwumike. She’s not usually the participant with the microphone or the face that gets seen the most. However, by the age of 25, she has gained a distinct popularity that is just as important within the framework of W’s advocacy.
“So I’m scrolling all the time, seeing stuff all the time, studying new stuff all the time,” Turner tells WSLAM. “So yes, I just share my thoughts on Twitter and see politicians and politics. So if I see a bill that I don’t like, I think that bill is wacky or just highlights entirely different points or things that I like or don’t like.”
Turner’s presence on Twitter has earned her definite popularity as a younger activist who speaks or tweets about her personal phrases and engages productively rather than trying to win an argument. For Turner, it’s not about ethical superiority or the clout that comes with it, if just a little bit about simply making the world around them as knowledgeable as it is. It’s a technique she believes has a direct route to constructive change.
Turner garnered national attention nearly two years ago for the tragic murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd when she spoke about how police brutality in America is affecting her. Raised by a mother and father who had careers as law enforcement officers, she needed the network world around her to try and see the problem of policing in America through a slightly grayer lens than pure blacks or whites. This or that. Right or deceptive.
Turner knows why nuanced dialogue struggles in a world and on a platform where it’s typically out of place. Her key to maintaining composure while being a compassionate voice in the path of progress is how ready she is before she releases another tweet into the world. She also understands that not everyone she deals with online is as diligent as she is.
“I try to present really accurate information in my views and I’m always very polite and never come across as offensive,” she says. “I usually attack properly, it’s broadly similar to Texas senators. Aside from that though, I try to be polite in my engagement so people can see that I’m from a very good place.
Whether she’s playing for Phoenix Mercury in the US or in Italy during the off-season for Bologna, Turner is online regularly. She scours the BBC website every day and uses Twitter for information and access to information. “I want to know what’s related to what’s happening?” She says. “I look at what’s trending on Twitter. I’m opening my Apple Information app, what’s happening now?”
At the time of her tweet about her mom and dad almost two years ago, she had about 6,000 followers and now she has almost 12K. Communities of discourse inside and outside the sports world have found that they resonate with the way Turner expresses himself. They admire their seriousness and diligence.
Where did all this come from? When we met her not long ago, Mercury found it difficult to provide an actual origin story, but Turner was always in the sociology around her. At the College of Notre Dame, the will to deal with social justice and socio-political aspects has prevailed through her student work as a graphic designer with almost a minor in gender research. One of her inventive initiatives was a depiction of the epidemic of gun violence in America. She used forged shapes and water guns to create a chunk that featured a shattered American flag and illustrated how gun violence has impacted America.
Long before her Twitter account was as well known as it is today, she recalls tweeting about how Notre Dame, a major Catholic university, stood in the middle of one of Indiana’s poorest cities. Her friends asked why she was so important to their alma mater, but her response was, “I’m just conscious.”
Since her viral tweets about her personal experience with mom and dad in enforcement and the 2020 Wubble season, Turner began hearing from organizations that recognized what she was doing and how she could make a big difference. One group she specifically advocates for is transgender youth. She started exploring transpoints during her freshman year and hasn’t stopped.
Another viral tweet of hers linked her to Athlete Ally, essentially the most respected LGBTQ+ nonprofit sports advocacy in America. Turner currently serves as one of their Athlete Ambassadors, which includes professional, Olympic and Paralympic athletes who advocate for “potential laws and policies that discriminate against LGBTQI+ people.” Turner is part of a group that advocates for open letters and congressmen.
Her work with athlete Ally led her to another group closer to home in Equality Texas. As a board member, she meets every few months with the group, which aims to challenge discriminatory laws against LGBTQ+ people in Turner’s home state of Texas.
Not long ago, she spoke about swimmer Lia Thomas and the irony of the arguments against Thomas’ ability to swim with different girls as a trans woman. Turner debunked the argument that Thomas’ participation in the NCAAs was ruining girls’ athletic pursuits.
Turner’s passion for advocating for trans rights demonstrates her deep understanding of what alliance really means and how we can all do our part. Turner believes it takes allies to bring about the change we want to see in ourselves.
“The oppressed group cannot be the problem solver,” she says. “The people who are not in the oppressed situation need to speak up and be aligned with them and be open and vocal in his or her support.”
And while Turner is aware of how difficult allies can be, she believes that when people need change, they should start somewhere. “So I really feel like if you’re able to teach a certain person and that a certain person only teaches a certain person, it has a knock-on effect and can actually lead to change,” she says.
Not long ago, she was a member of a panel that included a Boston School football coach. He didn’t initially say one and two about who Turner was, but then it finally clicked. She is the athlete who tweeted about trans rights, which then spread to her athletes, and who could be found on her social media accounts. In his email to her, he shared how much of an impression she had made on her.
Turner didn’t originally go down that road to encourage people to be straight. It grew out of an all-consuming need to study any bit she wants about what’s important to her. It arose from a perception in the spirit of equality. She becomes more relentless when it comes to how she uses her platform, much like she prevents on the offensive glass for the Phoenix Mercury.
“Some people like video games and I like Google,” Turner laughed. “It’s just kind of my factor.”
Images via Getty Photos.
