Several NWSL clubs are hosting Pride games while facing a team with a notoriously anti-LGBTQ+ player

• North Carolina Courage defender Jaelene Daniels is known for publicly espousing anti-LGBTQ+ stances.
• The club came under fire for re-signing the three-time NWSL champion a season after she retired.

The North Carolina Courage — one of the National Women's Soccer League's most decorated clubs — has faced continued blowback after signing a player who boasts a history of homophobia.

The Courage apologized "to all those we have hurt, especially those within the LGBTQIA+ community" after agreeing to a one-year deal with defender Jaelene Daniels late last year, but stopped short of releasing their controversial signee, even as intense backlash followed the announcement. A devout Christian, Daniels — formerly known by her maiden name, Hinkle — famously withdrew from a US Women's National Team camp due to her religious aversion to wearing an LGBTQ+ Pride jersey with rainbow decals.

Now, all 12 of the NWSL's franchises — including North Carolina — are gearing up to celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride with themed games and programming. And while the Courage are set to play in a third of the league's Pride games, it remains unclear whether Daniels will partake in the celebratory festivities.

Should Daniels sit out for all four contests — North Carolina is tied with the Portland Thorns for most Pride contests of all NWSL teams — the Courage will be without their starting left back for 18% of their regular season slate.

Representatives for North Carolina did not respond to Insider's repeated requests for comment on whether Daniels plans to play in Pride games. But the club's website specifies that "Courage players will wear Pride jerseys" and "Pride pre-match tops" — which Daniels has previously refused to do — as they host Angel City FC for their Pride match on July 15.

Though North Carolina has hosted Pride-themed games in the past, Courage players only began wearing Pride-stylized jerseys in 2021 — the year Daniels retired — so the controversial star has not yet faced this situation in her club career. Former North Carolina star Lynn Williams, who has since joined the Kansas City Current, referred to North Carolina's delay in implementing rainbow numbers as a mistake.

"I think I can speak on behalf of the team to say: We should have done this — worn the Pride numbers — way sooner," Williams said after last year's Pride match, per IndyWeek.

Three opposing clubs — Racing Louisville FC, the Washington Spirit, and OL Reign — are scheduled to host North Carolina for their own Pride-themed contests at their home stadiums. Two of those three franchises denied deliberately choosing the Courage, while the third did not directly address the question.

A spokesperson for Racing Louisville told Insider that the club's Pride Night was long scheduled for its first home game in June — Saturday the 4th — which coincidentally coincides with North Carolina's lone visit to Lynn Family Stadium. OL Reign offered a similar explanation for choosing its July 1 matchup against the Courage for its Pride Match; the franchise devoted its only home game in the month of June "to focus on Juneteenth," but set its Pride Match for its next trip home to Lumen Field.

"Our opponents weren't at all taken into consideration when planning the themes of our games," Michelle Haines, Reign VP of Marketing & Ticketing, told Insider.

Representatives for the Spirit did not directly address how the DC-based club went about organizing its promotional schedule. However, details of Washington's Pride activations — including Pride-themed corner flags and captain's arm bands — are listed on the team's website.

Daniels' anti-LGBTQ+ views famously came to light in 2017 — well after she had established herself as a cornerstone of North Carolina's team — when she cited "personal reasons" for declining her invitation to a USWNT camp in Europe. Multiple current and former national team stars publicly identify as LGBTQ+, and the USWNT has long supported those players and queer fans by donning rainbow-laden jerseys in celebration of Pride Month each June.

The choice stopped Daniels' national team career in its tracks, and just short of a year later, she explained that the decision stemmed from her religious views.

"I just felt so convicted in my spirit that it wasn't my job to wear this jersey," Daniels revealed on Christian television show The 700 Club. "I gave myself three days to just seek and pray and determine what [God] was asking me to do in this situation."

"I knew in my spirit I was doing the right thing," she added. "I knew I was being obedient."

NWSL supporters did not respond favorably to the admission, which came not long after Daniels tweeted that "this world is falling farther and farther away from God" upon the legalization of same-sex marriage in the US. She was routinely booed at subsequent games, with some fans even making signs mocking the "personal reasons" for which she missed a shot on the national team.

Still, her employment with the Courage wasn't overwhelmingly questioned until she came out of retirement and re-signed with the club in 2021. The franchise had seemingly turned over a new leaf in her absence — firing an abusive longtime coach, renewing its commitment to social justice initiatives, and more.

Many fans believed Daniels' views on LGBTQ+ rights did not meet North Carolina's new threshold. After all, how could the club expect someone who characterizes queer people as "lost, rejected, and abandoned" — someone who publicly refused to wear a Pride jersey — to treat her LGBTQ+ teammates with dignity?

Daniels has played in each of the Courage's regular-season games thus far, including its latest on May 29. The first of the team's four Pride-themed games is scheduled for Saturday against Louisville.