If anyone best embodies the mantra “more than an athlete,” it would be Chicago Sky forward Brianna Turner.
The outspoken five-year WNBA veteran has been lending her voice to social and political causes from the moment she came into the league in 2019 with the Phoenix Mercury. She fit in quite nicely. One year later, during the height of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement, the league was leading the charge on the pertinent issues of police violence, racism and voting rights. WNBA players also were instrumental in the election of Rev. Raphael Warnock to the US Senate, helping him defeat then-Atlanta Dream owner and Georgia incumbent Senator Kelly Loeffler in a critical runoff election after she made incendiary remarks about the Black Lives Matter movement.
From there, Turner has harnessed her activism in various ways.
She has regularly used her social media platform to call attention to social issues. Turner is outspoken on everything from reproductive rights to LGBTQ+ rights. She also advocates for trans inclusion in sports, which has been weaponized as a wedge issue in some conservative segments of American society. In 2022, she was on the frontlines in calling for the release of her Mercury teammate Brittney Griner from a Russia penal colony. She also…
