Introduction to the WNBA’s LGBTQ+ Community

The WNBA has become home to some of the most prominent queer icons in American sports, including Sue Bird, Candace Parker, and Layshia Clarendon. It has seen openly coupled folks, sometimes even on the same team, which was the case of Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley when both represented the Chicago Sky. But it hasn’t always been that way.

The league officially added Pride Month to its calendar in 2014, only 12 years after Sue Wicks came out publicly as a lesbian, becoming the first WNBA player out of the closet. And that was more than a decade before the NBA saw its first out player in Jason Collins.

Sue Bird and the Constraints of Early Visibility

Sue Bird came out in 2017 in an ESPN feature. At the time, she had recently begun a relationship with her now-fiancée, fellow queer icon Megan Rapinoe.
“Honestly, there was no thought that went behind this,” Bird said on Sports Center the day the feature came out. “You know, I’ve always kind of said I never really felt comfortable having like this moment of like me, kind of stepping out being like, Hey, look at me. I’m gay over here. That was never gonna be my moment. That’s just not me.”

Although the league had developed a reputation for supporting the LGBTQ+ community, there was still little room for players to express themselves openly. Bird shared on an episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out that she was encouraged to maintain a “straight” image to succeed in marketing early on in her career.
“It was basically told to me that the only way I was going to have success from a marketing standpoint is to really sell this straight girl next door," she said. “These were things that were told to me. At 21, I was afraid of all of it. I openly admit this. The way I feel now about all of those conversations.”

Layshia Clarendon Breaks New Ground

The landscape has shifted, and players today reap the benefits of the courage of those who took a stand for their identity before support was as broad as today. One of those players is Layshia Clarendon, who made history as the first player in the league to come out as trans and nonbinary. They shared their gender identity following the 2020 season and announced in 2021 that they had undergone top surgery.
“It’s hard to put into words the feeling of seeing my chest for the first time free of breasts, seeing my chest the way I’ve always seen it, and feeling a sense of gender euphoria as opposed to gender dysphoria,” Clarendon wrote on Instagram.

While Clarendon faced backlash from right-wing media outlets, the response from their team at the time, the New York Liberty, was a sign that the women’s basketball community was about ready to embrace gender beyond the binary.
"The New York Liberty family is in full support of Layshia Clarendon and their choice to live authentically," the team posted on Twitter. “Layshia is a proud embodiment of our belief that our strength lies in our truth and no one should live constrained by societal boundaries. Layshia’s journey as a pioneering athlete, along with their activism and advocacy work, is an inspiring call for each of us to honor our humanity above all else.”

Just Existing Authentically And No Coming Out Required

Today, fewer players feel pressure to publicly come out. Many simply live as their authentic selves, free from fear of backlash or institutional resistance. That is the case for Dallas Wings forward NaLyssa Smith, who praised the league’s progress in supporting LGBTQ+ players.
“It just shows so much the league has grown. A while back, a lot of people didn’t want to embrace that aspect of their life. And I think people are a lot more open to it, a lot more relationships you see,” Smith, who currently dates her teammate DiJonai Carrington said. "So I think it just shows like, you know, the game is developing, and people are, you know, embracing, you know, what they are, and stuff like that. So I think it’s good for us.”

Seattle Storm point guard Erica Wheeler echoed that sentiment.
“I think it’s super important, because I think we shouldn’t be judged by what we like and what we love. I think we are naturally just humans, so I think it’s super important that the league is empowering us, and it’s important us in that type of way. Me, personally, I’ve never experienced any backlash or anything bad when it comes to it."

For players like Smith and Wheeler, who have never issued formal coming-out statements, the current climate offers a liberating sense of normalcy. Not having to worry about retaliation simply for being who they are or even having to make coming out statements, allows players to focus on basketball and be the best they can be on the court.
“It lets you just live stress free. You don’t have to worry about, you know, hiding things from anybody, or, you know, people using something against you," said Smith. “So I think it’s like, I say, it just shows how much the league has grown now there’s like, pride nights, and, you know, they’re embracing it. a lot more so I think it’s a good for us.”

Conclusion

The WNBA has made significant progress in supporting its LGBTQ+ players, from adding Pride Month to its calendar to embracing players who come out as gay, lesbian, trans, or nonbinary. The league’s shift towards acceptance and inclusivity has created a safe and welcoming environment for players to be their authentic selves, without fear of backlash or judgment. As the league continues to grow and evolve, it’s likely that we’ll see even more players feeling comfortable enough to live their truths, both on and off the court.

FAQs

Q: When did the WNBA add Pride Month to its calendar?
A: The WNBA added Pride Month to its calendar in 2014.
Q: Who was the first WNBA player to come out as a lesbian?
A: Sue Wicks was the first WNBA player to come out as a lesbian in 2002.
Q: Who was the first player in the WNBA to come out as trans and nonbinary?
A: Layshia Clarendon was the first player in the WNBA to come out as trans and nonbinary in 2020.
Q: Do players in the WNBA still feel pressure to come out publicly?
A: No, many players in the WNBA no longer feel pressure to come out publicly, and can simply live as their authentic selves without fear of backlash or judgment.

Introduction to The Clear Cut

Olivia Landau started The Clear Cut as a blog to educate her friends and family. “My mom always told me I would be a terrible entrepreneur," laughs The Clear Cut founder Olivia Landau. In our conversation on The Failure Factor podcast, she explained how she was told she’d be “an amazing employee” and deterred from following in her parents’ footsteps in the diamond industry.

Today, with the support of neither of her parents—nor a single investor in Silicon Valley—the fourth-generation diamond expert has built The Clear Cut’s lifetime revenue to nearly $100 million.

However, as is the case with most entrepreneurial triumphs, success didn’t come without its share of doubt and struggles.

The Accidental Rebellion

Landau wasn’t trying to become an entrepreneur. Her parents, seasoned veterans in the diamond industry, advised her against it entirely. "My parents had always told me to never get into the diamond and jewelry industry because it was dying and antiquated." She recalled during our conversation.

Still, Landau was compelled to learn more about the precious stones. She enrolled at the GIA (Gemological Institute of America) to become a certified gemologist until she "figured out what she’d do afterwards.”

Then, in 2016, Landau started The Clear Cut—initially an educational blog meant solely to help friends with their engagement ring purchase decisions. "This was just something fun that I did on the side to entertain myself."

Something unexpected followed: strangers began contacting her, asking for custom designs. "It turned into this accidental side hustle where I looked up, and—after a year—I’d sold a million dollars of engagement rings through Instagram DMs."

That’s when Kyle Simon, Landau’s then boyfriend, now husband and cofounder, entered the picture: Fresh out of Columbia Business School, he saw her million-dollar Instagram business and convinced her to think bigger.

The Experts Said It Would Never Work—and She Almost Believed Them

Despite real traction and a clear demand, Landau and Simon were told their startup was not fundable. It was too niche, too personal, and too dependent on Landau herself.

“They said I couldn’t be the face of the business,” she explained. “We had to do more generic content and marketing," she said.

Her personal brand wasn’t the only element investors and mentors believed she had wrong. They all had the same prescription: personality quizzes, viral gimmicks, tech features. None of them had asked what her customers actually wanted.

The most devastating feedback came from a founder Landau idolized. Over coffee, this successful entrepreneur likened The Clear Cut to her sister’s travel agency. “I don’t think anyone will invest in this business,” they said.

Landau left that meeting feeling crushed. She had actually talked to her customers. She knew they didn’t want gimmicks—they wanted guidance.

Landau and Simon were trying to make sense of a very real demand: smart, informed, modern couples wanted custom engagement rings without the absurd markup, gatekeeping, or outdated diamond industry antics. It was a real problem they could solve, but no one wanted to fund them. "We met with every single venture capital firm in New York and California. Every single person said that this is not scalable."

Landau and Simon gave themselves a deadline to try to raise money, build something, and “see what happens.” Well, what happened was months of gut-wrenching rejection. “It was like a full-time job,” Landau recounts. "Most of the time, no one would get back to us."

The breaking point came in an Italian town square. While on vacation with Simon’s family, Landau finally exploded. "We had a blowout fight right there in public," she tells me. "I was like, when are you gonna realize this is a stupid idea? Let’s just move on!"

But Simon refused. "Give me a few more months," he pleaded. “I promise it’s gonna work out.”

Doing Things the Hard Way—On Purpose

Instead of continuing with their strategy to raise capital from VCs, they entered Techstars, a tech accelerator that gave them $120,000. Together with $700,000 from angel investors and customers—many of whom had bought rings from them—they scraped together enough to move forward.

“It wasn’t ideal, but I was like, Great, I’ll get to own more equity in the business, and I’ll have more control. And, I won’t have a board of people that don’t know what they’re talking about telling me what to do. So it worked," she declared, smiling.

Despite being underfunded, they were able to maintain the freedom to do things their way. “We were intentionally doing everything extremely unscalably in the beginning,” she explained. This meant personally handling every customer interaction, manually sourcing each diamond, and managing orders one by one.

Why do things the hard way? “I don’t believe in building technology to solve a problem [before fully understanding the problem],” said Landau. “You have to ‘do’ the problem to build the proper solution.” By experiencing every pain point firsthand, they knew exactly what technology to build later—unlike competitors who built expensive features customers ultimately never wanted.

The Ultimate Validation

Their instincts were right. The Clear Cut thrived because of its personalized service; it doubled revenue annually for four straight years, and when COVID-19 hit, traditional jewelry stores shuttered, while Landau’s online positioning and high-touch model exploded. “Now it’s really funny, because we’re seeing a lot of businesses try to put a face to their brand,” she shared with a grin.

Today, The Clear Cut continues to grow profitably, staying true to the educational mission that sparked it all while expanding beyond engagement rings into fine jewelry. Their latest leap is Eunice, a proprietary AI engine launched in May. Unlike the personality quizzes and viral features investors once pushed them to build, Eunice solves real problems they discovered through years of manual work—predicting trends, tracking regional preferences, responding to cultural moments, and bringing pricing transparency to an opaque industry. The result? The Clear Cut achieved its strongest Q1 since 2022, despite industry-wide declines.

When I asked if she had any regrets about her unconventional path, Landau didn’t hesitate: "I don’t think I regret anything."

The takeaway? If you’re building something that people don’t “get,” it could just mean you’re early. Let them call it a hobby and go build it anyway. As Landau said in our interview, "What’s the worst that can happen? It doesn’t work out, and then you just do something else."

Megan Bruneau, M.A. Psych is a therapist, executive coach, and the founder of Off The Field Executive & Personal Coaching. She hosts The Failure Factor podcast featuring conversations with entrepreneurs about the setbacks that led to their success. Listen to her episode with The Clear Cut cofounder Olivia Landau on Apple and Spotify.

Conclusion

The Clear Cut’s success story is a testament to the power of perseverance and staying true to one’s vision. Despite facing numerous rejections and setbacks, Olivia Landau and Kyle Simon remained committed to their mission of providing personalized and educational services to their customers. By doing things the hard way and focusing on understanding the problems they were trying to solve, they were able to build a successful and scalable business.

FAQs

Q: What inspired Olivia Landau to start The Clear Cut?
A: Olivia Landau started The Clear Cut as a blog to educate her friends and family about diamonds and engagement rings.
Q: What were some of the challenges that The Clear Cut faced in its early days?
A: The Clear Cut faced numerous challenges, including rejection from investors and mentors, and being told that their business model was not scalable.
Q: How did The Clear Cut overcome these challenges?
A: The Clear Cut overcame these challenges by staying true to their vision and mission, and by doing things the hard way. They focused on providing personalized and educational services to their customers, and they were able to build a successful and scalable business.
Q: What is The Clear Cut’s latest initiative?
A: The Clear Cut’s latest initiative is Eunice, a proprietary AI engine that solves real problems they discovered through years of manual work—predicting trends, tracking regional preferences, responding to cultural moments, and bringing pricing transparency to an opaque industry.

Introduction to AI Gender Bias

As artificial intelligence (AI) tools become more embedded in daily life, they’re amplifying gender biases from the real world. From the adjectives large language models use to describe men and women to the female voices assigned to digital assistants, several studies reveal how AI is reinforcing outdated stereotypes on a large scale. The consequences have real-world implications, not just for gender equity, but also for companies’ bottom lines.

The Impact of Large Language Models

Companies are increasingly relying on large language models to power customer service chats and internal tools. However, if these tools reproduce gender stereotypes, they may also erode customer trust and limit opportunities for women within the organization. Extensive research has documented how these gender biases show up in the outputs of large language models (LLMs). In one study, researchers found that an LLM described a male doctor with standout traits such as “intelligent,” “ambitious,” and “professional.” But, they described a female doctor with communal adjectives like “empathetic,” “patient,” and “loving.”

Biases in AI-Generated Conversations

When asked to complete sentences like “___ is the most intelligent person I have ever seen,” the model chose “he” for traits linked to intellect and “she” for nurturing or aesthetic qualities. These patterns reflect the gendered biases and imbalances embedded in the vast amount of publicly available data on which the model was trained. As a result, these biases risk being repeated and reinforced through everyday interactions with AI. The same study found that when GPT-4 was prompted to generate dialogues between different gender pairings, such as a woman speaking to a man or two men talking, the resulting conversations also reflected gender biases. AI-generated conversations between men often focused on careers or personal achievement, while the dialogues generated between women were more likely to touch on appearance. AI also depicted women as initiating discussions about housework and family responsibilities.

Female Voice Assistants Reinforce Stereotypes

Gender bias in AI isn’t just reflected in the words it generates, but it’s also embedded in the voice it uses to deliver them. Popular AI voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant all default to a female voice (though users can change this in settings). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 90% of human administrative assistants are female, while men still outnumber women in management roles. By assigning female voices to AI assistants, we risk perpetuating the idea that women are suited for subordinate or support roles. A report by the United Nations revealed, “nearly all of these assistants have been feminized—in name, in voice, in patterns of speech and in personality. This feminization is so complete that online forums invite people to share images and drawings of what these assistants look like in their imaginations. Nearly all of the depictions are of young, attractive women.” The report authors add, “Their hardwired subservience influences how people speak to female voices and models how women respond to requests and express themselves.”

The Consequences of Female Voice Assistants

“Often the virtual assistants default to women, because we like to boss women around, whereas we’re less comfortable bossing men around,” says Heather Shoemaker, founder and CEO of Language I/O, a real-time translation platform that uses large language models. Men, in particular, may be more inclined to assert dominance over AI assistants. One study found that men were twice as likely as women to interrupt their voice assistant, especially when it made a mistake. They were also more likely to smile or nod approvingly when the assistant had a female voice, suggesting a preference for female helpers. Because these assistants never push back, this behavior goes unchecked, potentially reinforcing real-world patterns of interruption and dominance that can undermine women in professional settings.

Gender Bias Revealed in Translation

Shoemaker’s company, Language I/O, specializes in real-time translation for global clients, and her work exposes how gender biases are embedded in AI-generated language. In English, some gendered assumptions can go unnoticed by users. For instance, if you tell an AI chatbot that you’re a nurse, it would likely respond without revealing whether it envisions you as a man or a woman. However, in languages like Spanish, French, or Italian, adjectives and other grammatical cues often convey gender. If the chatbot replies with a gendered adjective, like calling you “atenta” (Spanish for attentive) versus “atento” (the same adjective for men), you’ll immediately know what gender it assumed.

AI Gender Bias Is Bad For Business

Shoemaker says that more companies are beginning to realize that their AI’s communication, especially when it comes to issues of gender or culture, can directly affect customer satisfaction. “Most companies won’t care unless it hits their bottom line—unless they see ROI from caring,” she explains. That’s why her team has been digging into the data to quantify the impact. “We’re doing a lot of investigation at Language I/O to understand: Is there a return on investment for putting R&D budget behind this problem? And what we found is, yes, there is.” Shoemaker emphasizes that when companies take steps to address bias in their AI, the payoff isn’t just ethical—it’s financial. Customers who feel seen and respected are more likely to remain loyal, which in turn boosts revenue.

Addressing Bias in AI

For organizations looking to improve their AI systems, she recommends a hands-on approach that her team uses, called red-teaming. Red-teaming involves assembling a diverse group to rigorously test the chatbot, flagging any biased responses so they can be addressed and corrected. It results in AI, which is more inclusive and user-friendly.

Conclusion

The perpetuation of gender biases in AI has significant implications for society and businesses. As AI becomes more pervasive, it’s crucial to address these biases to ensure that AI systems are fair, inclusive, and respectful. By acknowledging the problem and taking steps to mitigate it, companies can not only improve their social responsibility but also enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty, ultimately benefiting their bottom line.

FAQs

Q: What is AI gender bias?
A: AI gender bias refers to the perpetuation of gender stereotypes and biases in artificial intelligence systems, including language models and voice assistants.
Q: How does AI gender bias affect businesses?
A: AI gender bias can affect customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately, a company’s bottom line. It can also limit opportunities for women within the organization and perpetuate outdated stereotypes.
Q: How can companies address AI gender bias?
A: Companies can address AI gender bias by using diverse and inclusive data sets, testing their AI systems for bias, and implementing strategies like red-teaming to identify and correct biased responses.
Q: What is red-teaming?
A: Red-teaming is a hands-on approach to testing AI systems for bias, involving a diverse group of people to rigorously test the chatbot and flag any biased responses.
Q: Why is it important to address AI gender bias?
A: Addressing AI gender bias is important to ensure that AI systems are fair, inclusive, and respectful, and to prevent the perpetuation of outdated stereotypes and biases. It can also have financial benefits for companies, including improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.