Co-authored with Eileen Narcotta-Welp. This study evaluates the community building practices of United States National Team fans apart from US Soccer’s neoliberal post-feminist empowerment branding and the jingoistic practices of its highest profile fan groups. Organized fan groups in the National Women’s Soccer League, primarily led by queer women, have built inclusive communities centered on their local teams and marginalized identities. While this organized fandom thrives, the same people choose to support the national team in other ways, or not at all. Based on semi-structured interviews with self-identified NWSL fan organizers and our own autoethnographic experiences at the 2015 and 2023 tournaments, we document how fans connect with each other, despite the growing presence of aggressive nationalistic fans. Interlocutors explain their avoidance of US Soccer sanctioned events as well as the colonial symbols and misogynistic practices embodied in other US fandoms. We find that fans who are women, queer, and/or racialized minorities experience a sense of unbelonging in US fan spaces. Despite the presence of jingoistic fans, the core of women’s soccer fans remain confident that the US women’s national team fandom is an inclusive and queer space and will continue to be so.
To be published as part of The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup: Events, Issues, and Controversies edited by A. Beissel, V. Postlethwaite, A. Grainger, & J. Brice.
Chris W. Henderson 