Portland fans in XX-XY shirts forced out of Thorns match
Brandi Kruse says she and a group wearing XX-XY shirts were removed from a Portland Thorns game after being confronted by other fans, and she says no one has explained why.
Brandi Kruse says she and a group of about 20 women wearing XX-XY shirts were forced out of a Portland Thorns women's soccer match at Providence Park, and she says she has still not received an explanation from security or the club for why they were removed. Kruse told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that the group had done nothing wrong, while the women say they were harassed by nearby fans before being escorted from the stadium.
According to the account given on the program, the group was targeted by a number of fans in the stands, with verbal and physical aggression directed at them. Kruse described being hit with flags and having beer dumped on members of the group. She said the shirts carried a simple message about biological chromosomes, the kind of signage that appears regularly at soccer stadiums across the country.
Kruse said that when security told her she needed to leave, she responded that she had not done anything wrong and asked what the group had done to warrant removal. She said she told staff she would not leave of her own free will and that they would have to physically remove her. Three days after the match, she said, no one had given her a reason.
Ingraham asked whether stadium officials or security had explained the removal, and Kruse replied that they had not. She also addressed the question of responsibility. Providence Park is owned by the city of Portland but operated by Peregrine Sports, and the Thorns are the team playing there, so Kruse said it was unclear who made the decision to remove the group while the people around them were not removed.
The incident also involved members of the media. Kruse said OutKick reporter Matt Calkins, who was covering the game, was assaulted by the crowd and that a security guard ripped his press pass from his chest. Ingraham pressed on how security had handled the situation, including whether guards had acted as police officers. Kruse said a guard confirmed she was not a police officer, and she argued that the treatment of her group was unacceptable regardless of who was responsible.
The Portland Thorns issued a statement saying the club is committed to providing a safe and inclusive environment for everyone. The team also said that security and enforcement decisions are managed locally and that it is reviewing those actions to ensure its policies were applied appropriately and consistently. Ingraham noted that the statement stood in contrast to how the group said it was treated. The club's official account had also posted praise for its fans after the match.
Kruse said the central issue, in her view, was the reaction to the shirts rather than the shirts themselves. She said the response of attendees and staff should have been to not react to ideas they disagreed with, and that the answer to disagreement is not violence. The account presented on Fox News has not been independently confirmed in the source material, and the Thorns' review of the matter remains pending.
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