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It’s an August afternoon in Brooklyn, and Papi is finally home. Natasha Cloud, a point guard for the New York Liberty, arrived back in the city late last night after an away game, and she walks into the photo studio smiling like the Fourth of July. The team had lost to their rival, the Minnesota Lynx. When asked about it, Cloud’s sky briefly darkens. “I just fucking hate losing,” she tells me, gravel in her voice. “I’m a competitor, so that shit irritates my soul.”
We like to compliment players by saying they got that dog in them — that fierceness, that fire. But Cloud is That Dog, a defender in every sense of the word, a woman about her shit. Although the Liberty — last year’s WNBA champions — were eliminated early in this season’s playoffs, Cloud made sure they went down swinging. Her gritty and concentrated playing style forever earned her the respect of the fan base, which was already primed to fall in love with her: Can you imagine a better home for an outspoken, progressive, fly, masc-of-center, Black, queer women’s basketball player than Brooklyn?
As anyone who has swung by the Nike store recently can tell you, EVERYONE WATCHES WOMEN’S SPORTS. In recent years, both the Libs and the league have seen a surge in popularity. Game 5 of the 2024 finals drew more than 3 million viewers at its peak, the most in 25 years. It’s not just that the game is masterful, and the women are tall and beautiful, but that the league and its fans represent a version of the sort of world we all thought we were moving toward, replete with a cunty elephant mascot.
Since the beginning of her career in the WNBA, Cloud, 33, has used social media and interviews to highlight important social issues, even sitting out the 2020 season to dedicate more time to activism. “I think that my ultimate purpose through this game is to be a voice for the voiceless and for communities that I care very deeply about, that I identify with,” she says that afternoon, a rubber “free Gaza” bracelet on her arm. Real W heads know that Cloud walks in the path of recent Hall-of-Famer Maya Moore, who stepped away from the league in 2019 to campaign for the release of the wrongfully convicted Jonathan Irons. Cloud has made a name as a player for the people, advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza and stricter gun-control regulations. Or, more recently, for herself and her teammates amidst the players’ union’s negotiations for an agreement that would give athletes their rightful revenue share and improve their workplace conditions. “It’s really fucking hard to be vulnerable all the time and to feel like, as a Black woman, you have to relive your trauma to educate other people when it’s very easy to educate yourself,” Cloud says. “I do think it’s our responsibility to still be vulnerable enough to have dialogues, because I think vulnerability is where people will truly see you and meet you.”
This mentality isn’t something Cloud just picked up; she’s always been this way. “I grew up hating a bully,” she says, knees splayed open in the makeup chair. (At one point, she gets a good look at them in the full-length mirror in front of her: “Yo, can I get some lotion?”) “I couldn’t stand that shit because I don’t think it costs anything to be good to people.” Her family emphasized the importance of treating everyone with the same respect and decency, from the janitor to the CEO. (She pauses to consider other origins of this tendency. “I am also a double Pisces and an empath, so I feel very deeply.”)
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Finding herself so visible made her commitment to advocacy a non-starter. She can’t stand seeing “our communities being fucked over by people who have never been in our position,” she tells me the next day. “They’ve had a silver spoon in their mouth since they came out the womb, so they have no idea what it means to live paycheck to paycheck. I do feel like we need people [who] understand that in those seats of power.” Running for office isn’t out of the question, though she worries about the perils of visibility in this political climate. Her worst fear is that she would put her family in danger. Still, “by not using my platform,” she says, “I would do a disservice to a lot of people who look like me.”
Cloud was born in the Philadelphia suburbs to Emil and Sharon Cloud, the hyper, sporty youngest child of five. She is also the only person of mixed race in the family — her parents and siblings are white — though it took her years to discover this. She assumed her color came from Emil: “He used to caddy and shit, and that man would be as dark as me,” she says. “I’m just like, ‘Yeah, I got the good gene!’” Her family only made her feel included, but as she got older, the kids around the neighborhood started pointing out her differences. “You start getting called Black. I don’t even know what that means. I thought I was just Tash. Now you got to put a label to it.” She remembers going home and talking to her mom, who lovingly deflected, telling her she was beautiful exactly how she was and warning her that not everyone was going to like her.
But the differences kept piling up, and Cloud wanted answers. When she was 18, her parents told her the truth: She was the product of an affair her mother had during a difficult time in her marriage to Emil. Cloud’s biological father was a Black man who lived about 15 minutes away; he had his own family, and wasn’t interested in making one with Sharon and Cloud. Her voice gets even and measured talking about this, plucking out the right words: “I was hesitant to talk about it for a while because I wanted to protect my mama. Because men can fuck around and do whatever they want, and they’re being cool, but when women do it, we’re just demonized.”
She realized that her purpose was to help other people with similar situations, to help them feel less alone. Especially because she’s proud of where she comes from: “I would choose my life 10 out of 10 times again. I love my family very deeply. Who I am, and the goodness in me, comes from them.” (But it doesn’t mean it’s all kumbaya: “I’ve had two siblings vote for Trump, and it’s a constant fucking battle,” she says.)
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After high school, Cloud played her first college season at the University of Maryland, where she found the diversity that had been missing from her childhood. (She later transferred to Saint Joseph’s University to be closer to her family.) “It made me embrace my Blackness,” she says. “I really had those friends pour into me. I’m so proud to be a Black woman, and that shit is super dope. That doesn’t mean I’m not proud of my white side — I’m very proud to be mixed. And I talk about that openly, because I think that being mixed is really fucking hard.” She has long referred to herself as a grey-area kid; because there was nowhere she automatically fit in, she’d fit in wherever she wanted. If they’re already mad, why hold back? “And that’s what I felt like I was able to do. When I got older, and I stopped pretending to be straight, I was like, Oh yeah, I got it now. It was a whole ’nother swag and confidence. I started hoopin’ too? I was like, yawl niggas in trouble.”
Cloud was drafted by the Washington Mystics in 2015, winning her first WNBA championship just four years later. She left in 2023 but was soon picked up by the Phoenix Mercury, who traded her to the Connecticut Sun the following year, despite promising her longevity. After the Liberty reached out, Cloud arrived in New York ready to win. Which she did — the 2024 champions started off the season with nine undefeated games, with Cloud providing the lion’s share of the assists. Two weeks into the season, Sandy Brondello, then the Liberty head coach, told reporters that Cloud was the “perfect fit.” Her teammate Kennedy Burke called her the missing piece. “Look out WNBA,” declared a May headline from USA Today, “Natasha Cloud making champion New York Liberty even better.”
But losing, she knows, comes with the territory. As the season progressed, injuries began to bedevil the team. Five players spent time on the injured list, including Cloud, whose nasal fracture required her to wear a protective mask (and inspired her fans to do the same in homage). In late September, the Liberty were knocked out of the first round of the playoffs against the Phoenix Mercury. Cloud made sure they put up a fight, perhaps especially against the very team that traded her earlier this year. “Understanding how to handle losses is a big part of life, too, and then those losses allow you to be humble when you win,” she told me back in August. “It teaches you how hard you have to work at something to be great.”
As the glam squad daubs her face and twists her hair, I watch Cloud protect her style. Twice she asks, with the skillful touch of someone who was raised right, to avoid anything that doesn’t feel like her. She asks the hairstylist if she can arrange her twists herself (“Sorry, I don’t like the cutesy shit”); she declines most makeup (“I’m a papi, so…” while cocking her head and nodding like a kid cousin in a sitcom). It reminded me how I felt about my own look after I came out at 28. I recognized that each part of Cloud’s aesthetic was carefully chosen, decisions made with the boon of comfort and relief, of being excited to show the world who you are because you finally know yourself.
Cloud is giggly at the pomp and circumstance of it all, relishing the VIP treatment. Walking around the room, surveying the looks, she is nervous but giddy, enthusiastic about the selection of clothes hanging before her. When she finds an outfit she really likes, she jumps up and clicks her heels together like a tall, swaggy leprechaun. “Papis need pampering, too!” she says, in pink under-eye masks. She thanks the stylists for their care. “I might not know how to pamper myself,” she adds, “but I’m learning all my girl’s routines.”
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Her girl is also her teammate: forward Isabelle Harrison. Harrison, 31, also joined the Liberty earlier this year. Bump the mathematics of the draft or the strategy of the picks: having “Tizzy” on the same team felt like a trap that us lesbians happily fell into. They’re a study in opposites: masc and femme, extrovert and introvert, tall and taller. At the mention of Harrison’s name, Cloud turns into a full-body AWOOOOGA; you can almost see the dark of her eyes turn into little hearts. She credits her girlfriend with “getting her face together,” building a skincare routine that combated her acne. “She never knew how sensitive I was about my face until I started talking about it,” Cloud says.
Shyanna Lundi, the makeup artist, tells Cloud that she’s done her girlfriend’s makeup before, and the player perks all the way up. “I bagged a 10, didn’t I?” she says, unable to contain her grin. We relish in our shared luck, both of us in love with hot, gorgeous, super-talented genius women who are also tall. The last is something Cloud might’ve tried to avoid in the past “because it was like, hold on! Like, I’m a big dog, I’m big Papi. But Izzy is so feminine and gentle and sweet.”
At some point, Cloud tried to slide into Harrison’s DMs. Harrison told her that she didn’t date women; Cloud accepted her answer and kept it moving (“I’m a papi that respects a ‘no.’”) Eventually, they joined the same league in Athletes Unlimited and met in person. Cloud figured that her charms might have some effect on Harrison: “Now the aura is gon’ steal the show, baby!” she laughs.
Harrison remembers it slightly differently. “When people meet Tash, they see this crazy energy. Girl, I did not meet Tash like that at all!” she says. “I actually thought she hated me.” As they got to know each other, that feeling faded. Both describe how quickly it became clear that they should be together. “We had our first conversation, and within the first two minutes, how I feel today is exactly how I felt then,” Harrison says. Cloud, meanwhile, knew Harrison was the one after only two weeks. What she felt reminded her of the same steady, deep love she saw between her grandparents, and it helped her picture the sort of love she wants to model for her kids. Harrison is the beacon, the nurturer. Cloud wants to be the protector, the provider. She emphasizes the importance of building up your partner, praises Harrison for steering and guiding her.
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“She tamed my ass,” Cloud says, on a roll, straight bragging about her girlfriend to anyone who will listen, which is all of us. “I tell her, ‘You truly tamed me in every sense of my being.’ I don’t even really move without being like, ‘Is it cool to move?’ And I don’t mean that in a crazy way. That’s my queen.” She’s gone full wife guy and is laughing a little at her own enthusiasm. “I’m a golden retriever. I love that girl.
Hours before the Liberty were eliminated, I stood in the crown of the Statue of Liberty, praying against that very outcome. It was a coincidence — the tickets had been purchased months earlier — but that’s what made it seem meaningful, like the universe was bending in my favor. I knelt on the floor in my team swag, a mini replica of the statue in my hands like rosary beads, begging Lady Liberty to take care of us that night. “It’s the playoffs,” I explained to the security guard.
A strange thing has been happening to me lately: After decades of being limited to the default Black (or even brunette) option in an ensemble, immediately identifying with Susie Carmichael or Scary Spice, I have started to actually feel represented in the media. A good part of it is my newish dedication to the W. And it turns out that having your reality reflected back at you — filled with Black women and people who are also obsessed with TikTok and players who have moral and political convictions — is an incredible recruitment strategy.
It’s a cynical time. Institutions are crumbling in 4K, and instead of dreaming that things will get better, we’re just hoping they don’t get any worse. It feels fraught to choose something to believe in. But for the person who recognizes the magic to be found when lesbians, Europeans, and power straights come together, consider the New York Liberty, a slew of place-based representatives who actually make us proud, even when there’s no ticker-tape parade to end the season.
My prayers went unanswered. The Libs still lost. But winning was only ever half the job. After her team was eliminated, I asked Cloud if she had any retroactive advice for herself now that she’d completed her first season in New York. Instead of advice, she wanted to give herself flowers. “I’m proud that, in a lot of ways, my empathic ass played this season with a broken heart and was still able to embody love; I think that’s powerful and God’s favor and grace.”
“This season, I truly feel at home,” she added. “Like I fit.”
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