Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.

One of the best things about sports is the mascots. No gruesome season-ending injuries. No heartbreak after your mascot leaves town after a contract renegotiation. All of the fun of rooting for an athlete, but without the ego. And since no one gets to see under the costume, no gender politics, right? Well, not exactly. The Portland Fire are a new WNBA expansion team as of this year, and when it came time to choose a mascot for a women’s team, a female mascot wasn’t a foregone conclusion.  

Game Of Throws - Rose The Dragon at work. (fire.wnba.com)

Portland Fire’s co-owner Lisa Bhathal Merage said that there was a lot of discussion about Rose before she was unveiled to the public on August 23rd. The first mascot meeting went on for several hours, she said at Front Office Sports’ Asset Class conference. “Is it a he? Is it a she? Is it nonbinary?” Merage said, which is sure to go unnoticed by the “my pronouns are Smith/Wesson” contingency that read the initial article in the NY Post. Here’s the thing, though. Rose is a dragon that is pink. And breathes glitter instead of fire. And wears a crown of roses. And is the mascot for a WNBA team. Of course she’s female, but does it really matter?

Here’s the thing: many mascots aren’t defined solely by their gender. Of course there’s Mr. Met (and his wife, Mrs.), but what about Gritty? It can be assumed that it’s a he, but really, a terrifying orange chaos agent that just wants to raise hell and would probably eat you given the chance doesn’t need a gender assigned to it. Elsewhere in Philly, the Phanatic didn’t really start out with a gender either, but since it had a large beer belly, dressed garishly, and went around picking fights with the opposite team, many just assumed it was a random Philly sports bro. So Rose really didn’t need to be assigned a particular gender either, although she was given one, apparently to stave off those opposed to the woke mind virus.

Rose was also given a backstory. Apparently she’s been living beneath Portland’s Rose Quarter for years, but it took a WNBA team expanding into town for her to resurface. At 16-24 so far in their first year, the Fire are underdogs, and now they’ve got an underdragon. If there’s any town that would accept a non-binary mascot, it would be Portland. 

That, however, would insert the team into a WNBA conversation no one should have to get caught up in. Let’s just say that Sophie Cunningham would be saying there are other female mascots who should have Fire’s job. Then Riley Gaines would suddenly decide that she wants to be a dragon mascot despite Rose being better at it than her. And other people around the country who had zero opinions on the WNBA until recently would suddenly show up wearing T-shirts reading “It’s Rose, Not Jose.” Okay, maybe we’re okay with Rose being female.