It is a dark time in this country of ours but today Minnesota Lynx star Courtney Williams, who is both extremely hot and extremely good and has a really cute Dad who comes to all of her games, got engaged to her girlfriend, real estate agent Shya. In an instagram post announcing the engagement, Courtney declared: Wowwwww 🥹 it’s a forever thing now 🔒🫶🏽 My fiancé yaaa hearrr meeee.
It appears Williams pulled off her proposal with pre-meditated panache, bringing her blindfolded girlfriend into some sort of grassy staging area where giant letters adorned with lightbulbs spelled out WILL YOU MARRY ME. In the corner it’s easy to spot a man playing a saxophone, probably something extremely romantic like “Umbrella.”
Congratulations immediately poured in on her announcement post from fellow WNBA queers like Syd Colson, Natasha Cloud and Dewanna Bonner.
The pair have been dating since 2022. In May, Courtney celebrated Shya’s 30th birthday on instagram, saying “the last two years with you have been amazing and I’m so honored to experience you… There’s no other person I would choose to do this with and I’m so happy that person is you. So many more years to come and so many more candles to blow out and I only want to do it with you.”
Williams was a key member of the Minnesota Lynx’s team this year as they battled for the WNBA championship, most notably pulling off a game-cinching 4-point play in Game One with only 5.5 seconds left in regulation play. That move sent the game into overtime, earning the Lynx their first victory of the series. I think about that play not infrequently!
Her journey as a WNBA player has been a wild ride. She was the eighth overall pick by the Phoenix Mercury in the 2016 WNBA draft, but was then traded to the Sun in June 2016 after only appearing in a handful of games for the Mercury. She played with the Sun for three seasons, including their 2019 trip to the WNBA Finals. Next up was a trade to the Atlanta Dream in February of 2020. She was released from her Dream contract in October 2021, returned to the Sun in 2022, hopped to the Chicago Sky in 2023 until finally, in January of 2024, landing with the Lynx as point guard.
Williams will also be part of the inaugural crew in the new Unrivaled league and probably Shya will be there with Courtney’s Dad cheering her on and that will be super cute I think.
Congratulations to Courtney and Shya!
(Photo by David Berding/Getty Images)
Riese
Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She’s Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.
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