Pat Griffin's LGBT Sport Blog

Wimbledon To Assign Courts Based on Anatomical Dimensions

2009-07-08T05:30:00.002-05:00

In an effort to stem the tide of criticism over the use of heterosex appeal as a criterion for assigning courts in the women’s side of the bracket, Wimbledon officials have announced new gender equitable criteria for next year. All entrants (regardless of sex or gender identity) over the age of 18 will submit a certified list of anatomical measurements and a full body color photograph taken in a swim suit. The anatomical measurements submitted must be certified as accurate by a physician who will complete the measurements according to a strict protocol approved by Wimbledon officials. The anatomical measurements for competitors in the men’s championship must include shoulder width, chest circumference, height and, of course penis length and girth, at rest and erect. The competitors in the women’s event must submit measurements for body weight, breast size and booty circumference.

Nigel Weinemeyer-Smythe, a spokesperson for Wimbledon, said, “Size does matter and we believe that it should be taken into account for both the men’s and women’s championship. That is the only fair thing.”

As for the photographs, Weinemeyer-Smythe said, “We will appoint a panel of heterosexual judges who will be representative of the audience demographics we target for our championship. They will review the photographs. Their heterosex appeal ratings will be combined with the physical anatomy rankings using a scientific formula to determine which competitors play on centre court and then the ugly, excuse me, less attractive ones will be assigned to the other courts.”

Rumors have suggested that Wimbledon officials have also contemplated changing the required tennis attire to highlight the anatomical assets of the players. “Spandex all around,” chortled Weinemeyer-Smythe. He also said that Wimbledon officials were considering an adjunct competition that would name a king and queen of Wimbledon based on a ranking of all the competitors’ anatomical and photographic submissions. Weinemeyer-Smythe stated, “In the future, we might consider making this competition the focus of Wimbledon and make the actual tennis playing secondary depending on the fan response. "It gets so sweaty, you know.”

Players’ reaction to these changes has been immediate. Betty Breastimplant, who played on centre court this year, despite never having even owned a tennis racket before, bubbled, “With these new standards, I hope to get increased exposure and finally get that photo shoot for Maxim I’ve been after.”

Weinemeyer-Smythe concluded, “We heard the outcry over our focus on the women players’ attractiveness and this is a huge step forward for gender equity in sport. We are so proud that we have taken the lead in leveling the playing field. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, eh what!”

Discrimination in Sport: What’s The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) Got To Do With It?

2009-06-29T12:34:00.001-05:00

On June 24, Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank submitted a bill to the United States House of Representatives that, if passed by both houses of Congress and signed by President Obama, would prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), as the bill is known, would ensure fair employment practices by making it illegal to fire, refuse to hire, or fail to promote an employee based on real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity (Religious organizations, the military and businesses with a small number of employees would be exempt from the law). The first version of this “gay rights” bill was introduced in 1974 by Representatives Bella Abzug and Ed Koch from New York. Thirty-five years later, prospects for passage of this basic civil rights protection into federal law are much better, and reflect changing societal perspectives on lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender rights.

Currently twenty states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Twelve of these states also prohibit discrimination based on gender identity/expression. In addition, many cities and towns across the US have similar laws. If it became law, ENDA would be the first federal law extending non-discrimination protection based on sexual orientation.

A version of ENDA that did not include gender identity/expression was introduced in 2007, but was not acted on. At the time ENDA supporters in the legislature believed that they could not pass the bill with gender identity included. The decision to drop protections for gender identity discrimination prompted several gay rights organizations and leaders to withdraw their support of ENDA.

So, what does ENDA have to do with sports? It is a sad and shameful truth that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (or those perceived to be) are still discriminated against in sports. Prospective women coaches are still not hired because they are (or are perceived to be) lesbian or bisexual. Women coaches thought to be lesbian or bisexual are harassed, stereotyped, fired or targeted by negative recruiting by rival coaches.

Male coaches who are gay or perceived to be gay would also be protected by ENDA. Though men’s sports has traditionally been perceived to be a hostile environment for gay men, more gay coaches, administrators, athletic trainers and other staff are choosing to identify themselves. Negative recruiting against male coaches based on sexual orientation is an increasing problem as gay men become more visible in sport.

All lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender athletic employees need legal protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, not just in twenty states or twelve states, but in all fifty states. That is what a federal non-discrimination law would ensure. ENDA would extend discrimination protection to all states and would provide employees targeted by gender and sexual orientation discrimination with a powerful legal tool equivalent to other federal laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, national origin and disability.

Passage of ENDA would provide federal protection from sexual orientation and gender identity/expression discrimination for LGBT employees in school athletics: athletic administrators, coaches, athletic trainers and all others who work in athletics.

Supporters of equality in sport for women have a stake in supporting legislation that protects athletic employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. As long as any coach, administrator or other athletic staff member is subject to discrimination based on real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, all are at risk of being targeted by this kind of unfair treatment. Women’s and men’s sport will benefit from ensuring that all athletic employees are able to work in a climate where their achievements are based on their competence and character, not their sex, sexual orientation or gender identity.

According to a December, 2008 Newsweek national poll, 87% of the respondents believed that LGBT people should have equal employment opportunity; that includes athletic employment. If you agree, contact your representatives in the U.S. Congress and tell them to vote for ENDA.

Girls, Grunts and Ground Strokes OR Ladies, Loud Noises and Lobs (Take Your Pick)

2009-06-22T16:52:00.002-05:00

An article in the Boston Globe yesterday discussed the possibility that the ever so proper tennis establishment is contemplating a new rule banning grunting among the women players. Not among the men mind you, just the women. It would be called a “noise hindrance.” I think it should be called a “violation of the lady code.” Why? Apparently, it is ok for men to grunt when they hit the ball, but for the ladies? No, dear God, no.

And there is the additional issue of the gendered way these “noise hindrances” are discussed. The women’s noises are described as “shrieks,” “squeals,” and “screams.” I’d love to hear someone describe Raphael Nadal’s noise as a “shriek.” It just isn’t manly, you know?

I do get the point that these noises, by men and women, could be distracting for opponents. If I close my eyes while watching Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams play a match, I could mistake it for a remake of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre. However, it is equally disconcerting to hear the men grunting like they seriously need a dose of Dulcolax.

Could you imagine any other sport, other than golf, instituting a rule where competitors can be penalized for making too much noise (I’m sure there are others, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head).

I think the whole thing is silly. Let them all grunt, squeal, snort, scream, snuffle or fart (ok, maybe I take that back). Or stop everyone from making loud noises regardless of their gender. To make a rule that applies only to the women players can only be construed as sexism. And that don’t play with me.

For more on this topic check out One Sport Voice and After Atalanta.

Missy “The Missile” Giove Arrested for Transporting Marijuana

2009-06-19T08:36:00.001-05:00

Missy Giove was one of the most daring downhill biking racers on the circuit before she retired in 2004. She won several championships and was known for her “take no prisoners” style of riding which led to numerous crashes and injuries in the process. Missy was also the rare lesbian athlete who didn’t need to come out because she was never in. She was always open about being a lesbian. In a sport like mountain bike downhill racing, which embraces the non-traditional more than more mainstream women’s sports, Missy was a popular star whose outrageousness endeared her to her fans of all sexualities. According to this article, it seems that Missy's zest for living life on the edge ( of legality in this case) extended beyond mountain biking.

Remembering Joanie Weston: Roller Derby Amazon

2009-06-15T09:42:00.002-05:00

Apparently it is karma for me to write about roller derby today. I led a workshop last week for some high school coaches and one of the women who attended told me she is competing on a flat track roller derby team here in Western Mass. Then the next day I ran across an article on the internet about women’s roller derby. It got me thinking about my own association with roller derby in the 1950’s. I know this really dates me, but you young ‘uns out there hang in there with me, ok?

In the mid-50’s I was about 10 years old. I already knew I was an athlete, but it was sort of like being all dressed up with no place to go back then. There were no sports leagues for girls, except for swimming, which I didn’t get into until I was 12. The sports I liked, baseball and football, were basically off limits for me, at least in any organized way. I played both sports every day after school with the boys in my neighborhood – baseball in spring and summer, football in the fall and winter. I was always the only girl on the field, but no one cared about that. I knew how to play and that was all that mattered to my buddies back then.

My sports heroes were men – Roy Sievers of the Washington Senators and Eddie LeBaron of the Washington professional football team with the racist mascot name that shall not be spoken by me. My Grandmother Griffin and I were huge Senators fans and loved to listen to games together. I remember when my Grandmother Scott took me to the wax museum in DC when I was around 10 years old and I saw a wax figure of Babe Didrikson frozen at the top of her golf back swing. I was transfixed – here was a woman athlete famous enough to be in the wax museum with Presidents and movie stars. After that, I read everything I could about the Babe and was thrilled to learn about her accomplishments in so many different sports. Her story told me that there were women like me after all. Women who loved making diving catches, hitting the long ball, outrunning the defense, stealing home.

Back in the 50’s, remember, television was new. Our family had one with a small screen and a rabbit ear antenna sitting on top. It seemed like the only things on TV were Milton Berle, professional wrestling and roller derby, at least that’s all I remember. Roller Derby is what stands out most for one reason – Joanie Weston, the Blond Bomber, the Roller Derby Queen, and an Amazon among the other roller derby players.

She was tall, 5’10”, and she was tough. You did not want to be on the receiving end of one of her elbows. She’d regularly send her opponents catapulting over the railing or leave them sliding and spinning out of control on their butts in her wake. She was an all around athlete who once hit 8 home runs in a college softball game. When she took on roller derby she approached it with a dedication and devotion to the sport and training for it that made her the marquee player of that era.

Watching her take off on a jam chasing the pack with powerful strides that ate up the distance, swooping and ducking around opponents, gliding on her skates, bracing for contact and accelerating past entire teams for the maximum score and then clamping her hands on her hips to signal the end of the jam was thrilling and I loved watching her. She was everything that I felt was inside me, but had no outlet. I just knew, given a chance, I could be like Joanie Weston. Knowing that there was a Joanie Weston and a Babe Didrikson held out possibilities. I wasn’t the only one. There were other ways to be a woman than the ideal of domestic bliss – wives taking care of their husbands and children - that dominated the post-war 50’s. It took me a little longer to understand that another part of my longing then was, not only did I want to be like Joanie Weston, I had a big fat crush on her too.

I hadn’t thought about Joanie Weston and the roller derby for a long time before this week. I googled her and found out that she died in 1997 at 61 of a rare brain disease. She was married to a man, but co-owned a gay bar in the Bay Area with some of her roller derby teammates. She continued to give roller derby clinics almost right up to her death and she played softball in the lesbian softball leagues in the Bay Area. It seems Joanie defied convention right up to her untimely death.

Little girls today, especially the ones whose souls burn with a passion for sport – for running and swooping, for jumping and rolling, for pushing harder and faster – have so many Joanie Westons and Babe Didriksons in so many different sports. I hope someday in the distant future each of these little girls has a chance to reflect on her sports sheroes and remember fondly a woman who helped to show her the way to be herself like Joanie Weston did for me.

Check out this great documentary featuring some of the women, including some wonderful older lesbians, in the early roller derby, High Heels On Wheels.

Lesbian Coach’s Team in Deep Doo Doo

2009-06-04T11:02:00.004-05:00

I ran across this interesting news item from the Bangor Daily News (That’s in Maine, for you non-New Englanders). It seems that high school softball coach, Kelly Jo Cookson, was fired in 2006 by the school system. The school claims she was fired because she forced her team to walk barefoot through sheep feces at a team picnic as a hazing activity in 2005. Cookson claims she was fired because she is a lesbian and that the hazing incident was just a pretext for the real reason for her dismissal. Cookson’s lawsuit is the first one to be heard after Maine included sexual orientation as a protected category under their Human Rights Law. OK, let me take this one chunk at a time.

Anyone who reads my blog knows I am completely opposed to team hazing in all forms, especially when the coach (who should know better) is forcing the hazing on her or his team. It is bad enough when teammates do it to each other. When the coach is directly involved, it is particularly egregious. It is tough enough to opt out of hazing from older teammates. Who would want to be a party pooper (a particularly appropriate phrase in this case) when the coach is leading the hazing?

I just need to get this out of my system, ok? I’m trying to imagine how Cookson came up with this idea of forcing her team to walk barefoot through sheep doo and how she made this all happen. This was not just a spur of the moment activity (“Hey, I know! I’ll just stop by the sheep field and pick up a load of crap and have the team squish through it barefoot at the picnic this afternoon.”). Cookson had apparently been doing this for three years. That is a lot of ewe doo.

Is she a sheep farmer on the side? How did she get it to the picnic? In the back of her SUV? Where did she put it? In a child’s wading pool? On a big plastic sheet? Did she just dump it onto a field in the picnic area? Did they have the feces fest before or after they had the picnic? I mean, that would be a major appetite killer for me. I’m sure sheep poop has some bonding effects – to your feet, your clothes, your legs – but I’m sorry, Coach Cookson, I don’t get how tiptoeing through the t---field bonds me with my teammates in any effective way.

What is wrong with people? This just goes to show that lesbian coaches can be just as stupid as straight coaches can be.

OK, now that I’ve got that out of my system, let’s get to the other part of this story. Cookson claims that other coaches at her school also led hazing activities on their teams and they were not punished. She was singled out. Further, Cookson had already been reprimanded by the school superintendent for hazing her team. She claims she was not fired until after it came to the attention of the new school superintendent that she was a lesbian (and after one of her team member’s parents notified the school that they intended to file a law suit over the hazing incident).

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has kicked the case back down to a lower court and made it clear that they believe Cookson may have some basis for her claims that the hazing incident was merely a pretext for firing her because of her sexual orientation. Cookson’s attorney used a sports metaphor in responding to the Supreme Judicial Court’s decision:

“While the Brewer School Committee has been high-fiving around home plate, Kelly has scored the tying run on a sacrifice squeeze and we’re going to extra innings. The game is never over until the last woman is out.”

I don’t know if Cookson was not rehired because she is a lesbian. The jury will have to determine that. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me. This stuff still happens and it happens a lot more often than most people think. Lesbian coaches and athletes at the high school and college level are still dismissed from teams, not rehired, harassed, and ostracized.

I have had two conversations in the last month with women targeted by this kind of discrimination. One conversation was with a college coach who has been dismissed after being accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a player. There was no investigation, no evidence presented. Just the accusation and boom, the coach is gone. The coach denies the accusation and is seeking legal counsel to defend herself. The other conversation was with two lesbian athletes who were dismissed from a college team. Their previous coach was fine with them being out and in a relationship. Their new coach…not so much. In both cases there were charges made to cover over the real reason for the dismissal or to supplement the charges, in the case of the coach. So, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if, in this case, the school system is using the hazing incident as a pretext for firing a lesbian coach.

If so, I hope the school system finds itself in as deep a pile of sheep doo doo as the softball team did.

Including gender transitioning and transitioned athletes

2009-06-02T09:39:00.001-05:00

A new report jointly released by AthletesCAN, the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sports and Physical Activity (CAAWS), and the Candian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) entitled Promising Practices: Working with Transitioning/Transitioned Athletes in Sport, examines issues related to the inclusion of transitioned/transitioning athletes in sport (the document intentionally uses this terminology instead of “transgender” or “transsexual”). The report is a thoughtful and well informed discussion of the major issues to be considered in developing effective policies that are respectful and fair to all competitors. This document advances the conversation about gender transition and sport in important ways and should be on the reading list of all sport leaders in the United States.

The report also raises lots of questions. For example, we just don’t have the research to answer questions about whether transitioned/transitioning athletes have a physical advantage or disadvantage when compared with physically born men and women. What we do have is research on transitioned and transitioning non-athletes and the effects of testosterone and estrogen on their physiology, but how this applies to athletes’ performance and at what level of competition is a big question. We have no reason, according to research, to assume that transitioned athletes have an advantage or a disadvantage. As the report notes, we already know that the variability in performance and hormonal levels varies greatly among physically born men and among physically born women and that each binary gender category of male and female overlaps the other in performance and hormonal levels.

We also know that much of the conversation about inclusion of gender variant athletes is contaminated by prejudice, misconceptions and mistaken assumptions. This report is a major giant step forward in addressing these problems. The report is a reasoned and up-to-date discussion that counters some of the most persistent misconceptions and stereotypical assumptions about gender variance and gender binaries in general and as they pertain to the sport context.

This is great stuff. I encourage everyone to read this ground-breaking report. Thanks to our Canadian friends for laying the foundation for a challenging and important conversation, not only in the United States, but around the world.

A Tribute to Rodger McFarlane

2009-05-26T08:49:00.000-05:00

Last week I learned that Rodger McFarlane, a long time leader in the LGBT community, committed suicide. Rodger was the former executive director of the Gill Foundation, an AIDS activist who helped start ACT UP and the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Rodger was also an athlete who competed in international triathlons. He accomplished more in his 54 years than most of us will who live to be far older than he was when he died. Rodger suffered from debilitating back problems and other health issues that severely limited his ability to travel and do the work he loved and that apparently was the main factor in his decision to end his life.

I knew Rodger because he supported It Takes A Team. He not only provided us with generous financial support, he also gave me lots of great advice about fund raising strategies. I never met Rodger face to face, but we had several phone conversations in which he exhorted me, who hates to ask people for money, to be more bold and confident. We have an important project in It Takes A Team, he told me, so sell it. You can do it.

It meant a great deal to me to have someone of Rodger’s stature in the LGBT community support ITAT and believe in us the way that he did. In these rough financial times especially, I am trying to channel Rodger’s fund raising pep talks. I will miss him as will everyone who knew him.

First Ever Pride House At Winter Olympics

2009-05-21T12:19:00.000-05:00

A group called GayWhistler (for Whistler Mountain where many of the winter Olympic events will be held) has announced that they are sponsoring a Pride House for LGBT Winter Olympians and their friends and family to hang out during the games next winter. On the one hand, any progress in recognizing and supporting LGBT Olympic athletes and coaches is a step forward. Having a Pride House, modeled on other national houses that are available for Olympians from different countries to gather, is a positive step.

On the other hand, the Pride House is not connected in any way with the official Vancouver organizing group or with the International Olympic Committee. It isn’t even clear if the Pride House will be publicized in any official Olympic publications or information distributed to athletes. It is a strictly local endeavor to welcome and support LGBT athletes and coaches at the Games.

Eleven openly gay, lesbian and bisexual Olympians (I don’t know of any trans athletes) competed in the summer Games last year. I suspect there will be even fewer openly LGBT athletes in Vancouver since the number of athletes in the Winter Games is smaller. I always assume that there are many more closeted athletes and coaches who will be competing. So, the point of having a Pride House is not necessarily to accommodate large numbers of LGBT athletes, it is more of a symbolic presence.

It reminds me of some research I did a few years ago looking at the Safe Schools program for LGBT students here in Massachusetts. There were gay students we talked to who never went to GSA meetings, but it made a difference to them that there was a GSA in the school. They felt safer even though they did not belong to the GSA. Maybe Pride House will serve a similar function for the LGBT athletes and coaches competing at the Winter Games.

Since the Olympic movement has not been known for its gay friendliness, it would be great if there was some kind of endorsement of Pride House as a way to make all athletes feel welcomed and safe, but we will need to wait until another Olympic Games for that.

Cal Women’s Basketball’s GLBT Pride Day

2009-05-11T14:25:00.000-05:00

This article about Cal-Berkeley was in Athletic Business this month (in the interests of disclosure, I am quoted in the article). I wrote a blog post (February 11, 2008) about the Cal-Berkeley Women’s Basketball GLBT Pride Day promo last year when I first found out about it.

This article provides a little more detail including an interview with the Athletic Department’s Director of Game Day Experience (who knew this was a position?), Megan Mosness. Even though college basketball season is long past, it is would be a good time to start a campaign to get your favorite women’s or men’s athletic program initiate their own version of an LGBT Pride Day at a game.

You can find out who to contact by going to the athletic department web page. Shoot them an email. Call them up. Talk to the Game Experience Director or her/his equivalent. Get your friends to do the same. I bet Megan Mosness would be willing to share her game plan for this event with athletic staff from other schools. We shouldn’t let Cal-Berkeley be the only school with an LGBT Pride Day, should we?

Also, as an aside, read the comments in reaction to this article below the article itself. There aren’t many and most are positive. The only sourpusses seem to be stuck somewhere in a right wing time warp spouting tired crap about promoting an “anti-family” environment and being “exposed” to gay men or lesbians at sports events like we were the Swine flu. Maybe we could suggest a quarantine section at the game for those suffering from the contagion of homophobia.

Johnny Weir: You Gotta Love Him (At Least I Do)

2009-05-04T10:42:00.001-05:00

On February 5 I discussed Skate Canada’s attempt to “rebrand” men’s figure skating as macho and dangerous with their “Tough” campaign. Though they claim it isn’t, this is all about disassociating men’s figure skating from its gay image. It’s like women’s sports that push the pretty and sexy girls into the spotlight as their “marquee” players in an ill-fated attempt to downplay the presence of lesbians. It’s insulting and futile. We are here. We are queer. Get over it.

Anyway, here is an ABC News video about the Skate Canada campaign featuring Elvis Stojko, Mr. Butch Macho himself, speaking on their behalf. Never mind that sequins and colorful costumes are not associated with a gay gene and neither are butchy moves on the ice linked to a straight gene. It ‘s all drag, really, just like Quentin Crisp says.

Now, back to Johnny Weir… He who has refused to say whether or not he is gay, but whose skating style is everything Skate Canada is trying to make us forget. This next video clip is Johnny Weir thumbing his nose at Skate Canada. Maybe he isn’t doing it on purpose, but his performance is everything the gender police at Skate Canada fear: He wears tights, he has on flamboyant make up, his moves are sexy, but not in a macho way,including an exaggerated limp-wristed kiss blown to the audience. The music is Lady Gaga’s Poker Face, which is so gay, I could not help dancing in my office chair as I watched the clip. And guess what? The crowd loves it. He could have used “I Am What I Am” for his music. That was his message.

We just had Northampton Pride this weekend so maybe I am just feeling the love in an extra special way today, but you what? I love Johnny Weir. I love his sequins and tights and coquettish moves. I love it that Johnny is going to be Johnny and he doesn’t have to butch it up for me to appreciate his toughness. Check this out and enjoy. Happy Pride!

Hat Tip to Outsports where I first saw the Johnny Weir video .

When Athletes Speak, Fans Will Listen…and Talk Back

2009-04-27T11:41:00.002-05:00

WNBA player, Chantelle Anderson, has joined the blogosphere and her blogs often take on some really interesting topics beyond the mundane daily record of personal experiences characteristic of many athlete blogs or Tweets. Rather than shying away from hot topics, Chantelle takes them on with gusto. In her 12 blog entries so far, she has addressed women athletes posing in sexy photo shoots, lesbian athletes, the image of WNBA players as “ugly and manly,” and the sexist double standard between male and female professional athletes who get pregnancy or get someone else pregnant.

I don’t always agree with Chantelle’s perspective on these issues, but she puts it out there and is getting a lot of response from readers, many of whom are male sports fans. She has visibility as a professional athlete and a platform, Yard Barker, which is visited by lots of sports fans, most of whom are men. She is really good at “facilitating” a generally civil exchange of opinions among the folks who comment on her blog. She engages them in a “discussion” by responding to most comments and her responses are respectful which invites a level of exchange and possibility for hearing different opinions and perspectives that is not typical of many men’s sports-oriented sports blog, especially when they start talking about women’s sports.

Chantelle, whether she intends to or not, is expanding the conversations about sexism and homophobia in sport to include some folks who probably are not visiting my blog or some of the other excellent blogs that also address these topics, like After Atalanta or the Title IX Blog or this new one, One Sport Voice. And that is a good thing. Welcome to the blogosphere, Chantelle. I’m looking forward to seeing what you take on next.

Note: Megan Hueter of Because I Played Sports.. has a podcast interview with Chantelle posted on her blog if you want to know more about Chantelle and what she thinks about some of the topics above.

Do We Have A Hazing Gene?

2009-04-17T10:57:00.003-05:00

One of the prominent items in the news yesterday was about sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme cold, humiliation, isolation, forced nudity, verbal abuse, coerced simulated sex acts, and sexual assault with objects like sticks, pine cones or golf balls.

I bet you think I’m talking about the CIA torture memos written under the Bush Administration that President Obama released to the public. Nope, you would be wrong about that. I’m referring to common hazing practices in high schools and colleges across the United States.

A comprehensive study completed by researchers at the University of Maine reports that almost half of the students in the study who are members of school clubs or teams reported experiencing hazing. Athletic team members experienced the highest percentage of hazing (47%). What’s worse, this study is a follow up of a similar study conducted by the researchers in 2000, and shows that there is little difference in the numbers of students experiencing hazing in 2000 and 2009.

In addition to the hazing activities listed above, forced consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol and getting a body piercing or tattoo rounded out the list of festivities common in school hazing.

On a particularly disturbing note, the researchers call attention to an increase in sexually-related hazing activities from 2000-2009. Many of these activities involve girls performing simulated sex acts on boys and other girls, boys performing simulated sex acts on girls and other boys as well as hazers performing actual sexual assaults on hazees with stuff like broomsticks and pine cones.

I know “teabagging” was a big activity this week as championed by anti-Obama protesters . I wonder how many of them know that teabagging’s original meaning is actually another hazing activity which involves having some guy on your team dangle his genitals in your face?

Unlike bullying where the bullies want to ostracize their victims or intentionally cause them harm, hazing is defended as a way to build team cohesion or as an initiation ritual to join the group that is hazing you. The pay offs are that you endure these humiliations and dangerous activities to become a part of the group and get to inflict them on someone else who wants to join the group the next year.
There are so many reasons to be depressed about all this. None the least of which is that there are still coaches, teachers and administrators who look the other way or, worse, encourage hazing as harmless fun, boys being boys, and increasingly, girls being girls.

When I was a camp counselor we sent new counselors on snipe hunts at night in the woods after the campers were asleep. The rest of us hid behind trees and rocks simulating snipe calls, not sex. I guess it was hazing then too, but it seems so innocent compared to what is happening now. Do high school and college aged students see hazing activities of today as we looked at snipe hunts back then? Is it that hazing activities must, to be exciting, continue to escalate – be more humiliating, more dangerous, more coercive? What is it about us that makes us want to exercise power over and “test” others who want to be in our group by degrading them, laughing at them or even injuring them as a way of “accepting” them?

What does it take for schools, parents, coaches, athletes and administrators to take hazing seriously? In cases where a student objects to hazing or, God forbid, blows the whistle on the fun, they are likely to be seen as a wimp or traitor or spoilsport by the rest of the group, including other hazees and coaches.

Unfortunately, it often takes some poor kid dying as a result of hazing to make the point. What a way to ruin the fun.

Homophobia and Bullicide: Terrorism in Schools Has Got to Stop

2009-04-13T10:25:00.004-05:00

Carl Walker-Hoover was an 11 year old student who played basketball and football. He was a Boy Scout. He went to school in Springfield, MA, about 30 minutes from where I sit right now. He is the latest victim of “bullicide." He was taunted and threatened daily in school by classmates who called him gay and made fun of his clothes. Last week Carl hung himself in his bedroom with an electric cord while his mother cooked dinner downstairs. His mother knew about the bullying and had complained to school authorities to no avail. Carl hung himself, but his death was the result of peer cruelty and school indifference or ineffectiveness in response –bullicide. According to Eliza Byard, Executive Director of GLSEN, Carl’s suicide is the fourth among middle school students linked to bullying in the last year.

Whether Carl was gay or not doesn’t matter. Being called gay and threatened because other students think you are gay is one of the most common forms of bullying among middle and high school students and clearly one of the most deadly.

Eric Mohat, a 17 year old student in Ohio killed himself after being bullied and called “fag,” “homo,” “queer. He was habitually pushed and shoved in school, sometimes in view of school staff who did nothing to stop it, according to his parents. They are suing the school in federal court, not for money, but to require the school to address bullying. They claim that bullying was also a significant factor in the suicides of three of Eric’s classmates in 2007. Four student suicides linked to bullying at the same school in one year? Where are the adults in this school? They need to be sued to get them to act in the face of these student deaths?

Bullying is so much more sophisticated now. Cyber-bullying via the internet, social networking sites and cell phones make it virtually impossible to escape the hatred and cruelty. When students targeted by bullying see death as the only way to escape their tormentors, we must acknowledge that schools are not protecting students. They are not safe places to be if you are unlucky enough to be targeted by anti-gay bullying. Some students, as was the case in some of the school shootings over the years, bring guns to school to protect themselves in the absence of protection by the adults in schools. Other students, as in the case of Larry King’s killer last year, bring guns to kill gay kids. How can we avoid the realization that schools in which bullying and homophobia are commonplace have become terrorist sites every bit as dangerous as a war zone for anyone who is different or is perceived as different or vulnerable.

Yet community groups, often driven by religious conviction and school administrations, often driven by cowardice in the face of community protest, see gay students, or those assumed to be gay, and their friends as the problem. How many communities have protested anti-bullying curriculum in schools because it addresses anti-gay bullying? How many schools have denied students their right to form a Gay-Straight Alliance based on the lies and distortions of anti-gay community groups? Even when research tells us that GSAs in schools can help change the school climate for the better and provide support for students who are targeted by bullying, some school administrators try to forbid them. Some school boards have disbanded all student clubs in order to prevent students from starting a Gay-Straight Alliance as is their right according to the Federal Equal Access Act.

As we approach the annual GLSEN-sponsored Day of Silence on April 17 in which students in schools volunteer to take a vow of silence for the day in protest of anti-gay harassment and discrimination, Christian-based groups are responding with their own Day of “Truth” where they spread their hateful lies about LGBT people. Some of these groups encourage parents to keep their children at home to register their outrage that the school allows students to participate in a Day of Silence. Where is the outrage at the death of students tormented by anti-gay bullying? Are their children participating in the bullying based on their parents’ example?

If we read or watch news accounts of homophobic bullicide in schools or hear about school inaction or indifference to anti-gay harassment by students or teachers, if we sit back and do nothing when schools in our communities refuse to enact programs to address bullying or refuse to allow students to form a GSA or participate in a Day of Silence or No Name-Calling Week, then we enable cruelty, fear, hatred and ignorance in schools. By our silence and inaction, we contribute to the violence, terror and suffering that was the day to day experience of Eric Mohat, Carl Walker-Hoover, Larry King and still is for far too many other young people who are targeted by anti-gay bullying. Whatever our views on being gay, how can we live with that and call ourselves a civilized society?

Training Rules: A Powerful Examination of the “No Lesbian” Era of Penn State Women’s Basketball

2009-04-05T22:30:00.008-05:00

Saturday night I attended the premiere of Training Rules, the Dee Mosbacher and Fawn Yacker documentary about the Rene Portland “no lesbian” era of Penn State women’s basketball. The film premiered at the Philadelphia Film Festival to a full house who gave Dee and Fawn an enthusiastic standing ovation before the film began and repeated this honor again after the 61 minute film ended.

All of the principals who appeared in the documentary were present for the premiere except one of the courageous athletes targeted by Portland’s 25 year assault on all things she perceived as lesbian. The former Penn State basketball players who spoke out in the film included Cindy Davies, Lisa Faloon, Chris and Corinne Gulas, Courtney Wicks and Jennifer Harris. Jennifer Harris, the athlete who filed the 2005 lawsuit against Penn State and Portland and Jen’s mother and father were featured in the film as was Portland’s assistant coach in the early 80’s, Liz McGovern. Sue Rankin, the former Penn State softball coach who has tirelessly fought homophobia at Penn State for over 30 years, was included in the documentary. Adding commentary and context were Helen Carroll, NCLR Sports Project Director and former NCLR attorney, Karen Doering, who was one of the attorneys who represented Jennifer Harris. It was my honor to also be included in the documentary as a “talking head.”

Hugs and introductions were exchanged as we all waited in the VIP line to enter the theatre. The sense of anticipation and pride I think we all felt about the roles we had each played in the making of this fine documentary was palpable. I felt like we were a band of sisters who shared a common purpose in seeing justice done by getting this shameful story of cruelty, abuse of power, irrational fixation on lesbians and blatant discrimination out in public so that no athlete ever again has to suffer the way the courageous women featured in the film did.

The documentary is extremely well done. Dee and Fawn have created a riveting story line weaving interviews, action shots and information into a compelling narrative that shocked the few audience members who did not know about this regrettable era in Penn State Athletics. The film is an amazing educational tool that will spark discussion and self-reflection for everyone connected to women’s athletics whether they are athletes, coaches, administrators, parents or fans.

The core of the documentary is the experience of the former basketball players who speak out. Jen Harris bravely stepped forward and initiated the final fall of Rene Portland, who resigned shortly after the lawsuit was settled in 2007. Muzzled by the terms of confidentiality imposed by the lawsuit’s settlement, Jen Harris was unable to speak to us at the premiere, but her lead role in the documentary and in the lawsuit was acknowledged with another standing ovation from the audience as she stood shyly before us after the film ended. Jen and her parents, with the able and committed resources of the NCLR took on Penn State and Portland in a bitter legal battle that lasted over two years. Harris’s claims alone might have been dismissed as the complaints of the disgruntled troublemaker that Portland claimed she was, but the willingness of the other five former PSU basketball players and one former assistant coach to step forward in support of Harris’s claims make it impossible to ignore the truth that comes through in their collective accounts of each one being targeted by Portland’s lesbian purges. That their experiences spanned the entirety of Portland’s 25 year career at Penn State, from the Gulas twins in 1980 to Jen Harris in 2005 is a stunning monument to institutional indifference or complicity. I don’t know which is worse. Maybe it was a little of both.

Hearing these women recount what Portland said and did to them is wrenching. Portland was a bully and carelessly destroyed dreams and tried to crush spirits with intimidation and threats. And she did it over and over anytime her twisted “gaydar” twanged. I was left wondering how many other former Penn State basketball players were similarly bullied, but did not have the courage to speak up. I wondered how many others there are who have not recovered from their Penn State experience and cannot tell their stories.

My final impression is, after seeing the documentary and then talking with each of the former players after the film, that far from crushing their spirits, these women are amazingly strong and resilient. These women are survivors who, despite the fear and intimidation they endured, refused to allow Portland to steal their spirits or make them feel shame or doubt about who they choose to love. They each stepped forward when asked, with the common purpose of shining a light on perhaps their darkest and lowest moments so that younger generations of athletes will not have to endure what they did. All of these women are sheroes and I thank Dee and Fawn for giving them the opportunity to close a difficult chapter in each of their lives.

Portland was a successful coach for many years, by the standard of wins and losses. Her teams were in the top 20 and made two trips to the Final Four. She never won the big games though. They always fell just short. The former players in the documentary talked about the fear and stress that all women on the team learned to live with as they protected themselves as best they could from their coach’s judgmental and prying eye. After the film, they spoke about the numbers of players they knew who left the team over the years, unwilling or unable to tolerate Portland’s rampages. Is it any wonder then that Penn State could never win the big ones? Basketball is a game of trust and teamwork. How could they, playing under clouds of suspicion and fear, bring their best basketball to the stressful final three minutes of a close game?

The documentary also calls attention to the entire women’s collegiate basketball coaches’ community. They knew about Portland’s “training rules” yet their silence about Portland’s rule was complete. To the contrary she was honored twice by the WBCA as Coach of the Year. How are we to understand this reaction? We can only hope that the bravery of Jen Harris and the other former players featured in Training Rules encourages coaches to reflect on the cost of their silence to young women’s lives and moves them to choose a different response in the future to prevent the egregious abuse of power tolerated at Penn State from ever happening again.

The good news is that in the wake of Portland’s resignation, change is afoot at Penn State. The athletic department has taken several steps to educate staff and student-athletes about the necessity to respect the rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual athletes and coaches. The new women’s coach, Coquese Washington, shows an active interest in making sure that everyone on her teams are treated with respect and is quietly rebuilding a team left in shambles after the public controversy at the end of Portland era.

Dee tells me that Training Rules will be in distribution in October. In the meantime it will be screened at film festivals around the country. Go to the Training Rules web site for information about where you can to see it. If you care about women’s sports, if you care about social justice in women’s sports, you need to see Training Rules. If you don’t understand why people like me keep harping about LGBT issues in sport, if you think the days of discrimination against lesbians in sport are past, you need to see Training Rules.

In fact, I have a new training rule I’d like to propose for all sports: No bullies, no bigots, and no bystanders. It has a nice ring, don’t you think?

On The Road to the Final Four

2009-04-03T12:40:00.002-05:00

I will on the road for the next five days. First stop - Philadelphia - to attend the premiere of "Training Rules," Dee Mosbacher's documentary on the Rene Portland "no lesbian" era in Penn State women's basketball, which thankfully ended in 2007 when Portland resigned. The film will be part of the Philadelphia Film Festival.

I am looking forward to seeing the film and will post my reaction to it here. I did see a rough cut about a year ago and what struck me most then was hearing several of women Portland targeted over a 20 plus year period talk about their experiences. It is a powerful testimony to the damage and pain Portland caused and to the strength and resilience of these women who chose to tell their stories publicly for the first time in the documentary.

Then I am on to St Louis for the Final Four and the WBCA convention. I am part of a convention session entitled "Seeking Common Ground: Lesbians and Christians in Women's Sports- Take 2." Last year at the convention I helped plan and participate in a similar session with some women from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Athletes in Action, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

We are doing the session again, but instead of a panel, this year we are focusing on small group discussions among the folks who attend the session. Last year we had a wonderful dialogue and this year we hope to extend it to include more voices. We hope to leave the session with a brainstormed list of ways to make sure that all women on a team - Christian and non-Christian, lesbian, bi or straight - feel respected and included. I'll post something after the session which is Tuesday, right before the final game.

I'm hoping for a Stanford vs. Oklahoma final game, by the way. I know I am probably fighting an uphill battle rooting for Stanford to beat UConn, but they did it last year. Why not a repeat?

Take care and I'll talk to you from the road.

What Would You Do?

2009-03-30T08:59:00.001-05:00

ABC has a new TV show called, What Would You Do? I’ve never seen the show, but I read about it on Bilerico.com and then went to YouTube and watched a few of the different segments of the show posted there. Apparently, the show focuses on setting up a situation in a public place to see how people react. It involves hidden cameras and actors setting the scene and then recording people’s responses and interviewing them afterwards. A little creepy, but actually several of the segments I watched pose interesting questions exploring how people respond to “controversial” behavior, like two men kissing in the park or illegal behavior like three teenagers vandalizing a car, or when they have to make a choice about ignoring or intervening when they witness homophobic, racist, or sexist behavior. Here’s the set up for the segment highlighted on Bilerico. A white gay male couple (who are actors and partners in real life) engage in a public display of affection in a sports bar in New Jersey. A “homophobic” provocateur who is in cahoots with the program stirs the pot by making negative comments to other bar patrons about the gay men and then we watch how people respond to the situation.

I put aside my initial fear that the gay couple might be opening themselves to a violent response and was pleasantly surprised by the reactions of most of the people. The “homophobic” provocateur actually ticked most people off, not the gay couple. People stood up for the right of the gay couple to be physically affectionate with each other in the same way that a heterosexual couple (also in cahoots with the TV show) at the other end of the bar were.

The scene was repeated later in the evening with more people in the bar and the gay couple being more demonstrative in their affections. They also upped the ante by having the planted straight couple make negative comments about the gay men. One white male bar patron seemed particularly upset by the gay men, calling them disgusting. He was aggressively challenged by a woman at the bar who became quite upset by his homophobic comments. The TV crew interviewed her and the guy who made the anti-gay comments after she confronted him. She said that she had gay friends and it upset her to see the two gay men in the bar treated as they were. The guy who comfortably and vocally expressed his disgust at the sight of two gay men being affectionate in “his” bar when he did not know the camera was rolling, turned into a “live and let live” “I don’t care what other people do” kind of guy when he knew he was going to be on TV. It seems the light of public scrutiny induced a conversion experience for him – from blatant homophobia to professed tolerance.

Here’s the video segment. Check it out and then let’s talk about it.

So what is the take away from this little experiment?

• Most homophobes are cowards who back down or are silenced when confronted, find out they are in the minority, or that they are on TV.
• More heterosexuals (at least in this bar in NJ) are more offended by vocal homophobes than gay men kissing
• Having gay friends, co-workers or family members makes it more likely that people will be offended by homophobic behavior (actually research does tell us that having gay people in your life does make you more accepting of gay people)
• I wonder what difference having a lesbian couple or a gay couple of color kissing would have made? Or if the gay couple had been a little more stereotypical in their appearance or mannerisms?

I think about this TV show segment in relationship to recent news articles about the increase in homophobic chants and jeers by large groups of fans at men’s sports directed at opposing players. I have never attended a sporting event where this was happening so I have not personally witnessed this. I don’t know if other fans who are offended by the homophobia confront the ones yelling or holding up crude posters.

Maybe it feels less personal at a sports event because no one really thinks the targeted players are actually gay. It’s just a way to put them down, get them to lose their concentration, throw their game off. It is all at the expense of gay people though. It assumes it will be upsetting and insulting to be called gay.

The problem, of course, is that it isn’t only the targeted players who feel the impact of homophobic fans’ abuse. It contaminates the entire sporting climate for everyone attending the game. It scares people who are lesbian or gay. I imagine it makes lots of other people uncomfortable. I worry about the message it sends to young fans. At sporting events where alcohol is served, the potential for violence is increased. It puts heterosexual allies in the position that the people in the bar were in –You have to decide whether or not to speak up. You have to decide whether to be a silent bystander, which is often read as support or approval, or make your disapproval known, like the heterosexual people in the bar did.

Going back to the title of the TV show – What would you do? It’s a great question to ask ourselves. If your teammate is making anti-gay or racist comments in the locker room, if one of your opponents on another team is taunting you or a teammate with gay or sexist slurs, if fans sitting near you at a game are holding up anti-gay posters or calling someone on the opposing team “dykes” or “fags,” what would you do? And remember, chances are, if you do speak up, others will follow your lead and back you up. That’s a big take away from that little bar in New Jersey.

Ground-Breaking Scholarly Conference on Sex and Sexuality in Sport

2009-03-25T09:12:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday through Friday, I attended a conference on Sport and Sexuality at Ithaca College in NY. The conference was organized by Dr. Ellen Staurowsky, a professor in Sport Management and Media at Ithaca. Over the course of two days and an evening, attendees were treated to a wonderful menu of research presentations, panels, Jeff Sheng’s Fearless photo exhibit, and a captivating two hour talk by John Amaechi. This conference was ground-breaking. As far as I know, it was the first scholarly conference to focus on sport and sexuality.

Established sport scholars like Sue Rankin from Penn State, Diane Gill from UNC-Greensboro, Vikki Krane from Bowling Green University and Becky Beal from Cal State-East Bay and Mo Smith from Cal State, Sacramento were joined by a younger generation of up and coming sport scholars like Erin Buzuvis, JD from Western New England College, Amy Sandler from UNLV, Kerrie Kauer from Cal State Long Beach, and Tre Wentling and Kristenne Robison from Syracuse. I hesitate to mention any names because all the presentations I attended were high quality and it is impossible to list everyone here. It was encouraging that so many young scholars are interested in and receiving support for research on LGBT issues in sport.

Those of us who focus on the practical side of these issues also had a chance to talk about our work with coaches and athletes. Some of these presentations were made by me, Helen Carroll from the NCLR Sports Project, Karin Lofstrom from the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women’s Sports, Ted Rybka from the GLAD Sports Desk, and Allison Subasic, LGBT Center director from Penn State. Good work is happening in the world of athletics to make sports a safer and more respectful place for all athletes and coaches, including LGBT people. I left the conference energized and excited about the connections I made and ready to get back to work.

Next time around (and I hope there will be a second conference on sport and sexuality), I hope we can focus more on intersections among gender, sex and sexuality with race, disability and religion. That would provide an even richer discussion of these important social justice issues in sport.

Kudos to Ithaca College, Ellen Staurowsky and all the folks to helped for planning and conducting a wonderful event.

Bayard Rustin: Black Gay Activist AND Athlete

2009-03-17T14:39:00.001-05:00

Here is a fascinating history lesson from Patricia Nell Warren about Bayard Rustin. I knew he was one of Martin Luther King’s top lieutenants in the early Black Civil Rights Movement and that he organized the March on Washington in 1963 and that he was a closeted gay man. I also knew that MLK asked him to step down to avoid controversy because of his homosexuality. I did not know that Rustin was also an athlete. Leave it to the ever fabulous Patricia Nell Warren to educate us all.

Sport in Society Announces “Athlete Bill of Rights”

2009-03-12T11:04:00.002-05:00

The Center for Sport and Society lives at Northeastern University in Boston. Their mission as described on the web site is:

“Through innovative programming and extensive outreach that impacts thousands both locally and worldwide, Sport in Society uses the power and appeal of sport to foster diversity, prevent men’s violence against women, eradicate youth violence, and improve the health of disenfranchised urban youth, all of which are critical to the health and safety of our citizens.”

CSS is a long time leader in addressing multiple social justice issues in sport, including racism, sexism, homophobia/heterosexism, and ableism. I attended and gave a keynote speech at their Power of Sport Summit last summer. Human rights and athlete activism in sport were themes that ran through the entire conference.

Eli Wolff, the manager of research and advocacy at the center, sent me their newly developed Athlete Bill of Rights. The Sport in Society Athlete Bill of Rights focuses on the rights of athletes within athletics. One of the main goals of the Bill of Rights is to “empower athletes to advocate for their own rights” through open discussion and debate and through this process, encourage athlete activism.

Athletes are sometimes thought of as products owned by professional franchises or college athletic departments. Some coaches assume as their prerogative the power to control an athlete’s personal and political expression including how they spend their time out of the athletic context, and with whom they socialize. Potential distractions from the athletic agenda are discouraged. From this perspective, an athlete’s “job” is to maximize their athletic performance to produce championships and fill sports arenas. Scholarship athletes in Division 1 programs are often expected to be single mindedly focused on this goal, and of course, get grades that enable them to maintain their athletic eligibility. In this context, little time or discussion is devoted to human rights or athlete activism in sport.

Being a member of a team and a representative of a school in the case of collegiate sport does require submitting to some common expectations and “rules” and coaches should make these expectations clear to team members. The rub, of course, is deciding what are reasonable expectations for team rules. Is it reasonable for a coach to forbid an athlete from: Speaking at an anti-war rally on campus? Assuming leadership of a campus political advocacy group? Coming out publicly as lesbian, gay or bisexual? Participating in a political protest? Wearing a style of clothes or choosing a hair style the coach objects to?

Coaches have amazing power over the athletes on their teams. Coaches decide who gets to play and who sits on the bench. Coaches are sometimes given incredible license to act in ways that would not be tolerated by a professor with students in the classroom or a supervisor with employees in the workplace. Screaming at an athlete nose to nose on national TV, shaking an athlete or in some other laying hands on them, throwing temper tantrums (and chairs or clipboards), using obscenities and slurs and any number of other behaviors that would not fly in another educational or professional context.

In response to such coach behavior, athletes have few options: suck it up and try harder, transfer and play at another school, quit the team and sport altogether, or in rare cases, bring a lawsuit if they don’t like the coach’s rules or treatment. They could complain to athletic administrators, but, if the coach has a winning tradition or the backing of powerful alumni, it takes a lot of courage to challenge a coach. An athlete in this situation sometimes can’t even count on teammates to back them up. Most athletes choose to suck it up. Some even believe that this kind of coach behavior is merely evidence of intensity and commitment, necessary components of motivation and a winning attitude. They might even be suspicious of a coach who didn’t act this way.

Because this description is reality for some athletic programs, the idea of protecting athletes’ rights in sport and encouraging athlete activism in or out of sport challenge some deeply embedded practices and beliefs in big time collegiate and professional athletics.

Sounds like a plan to me.

College Student-Athlete Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Teammates

2009-03-05T10:54:00.004-05:00

This article is a report of an interesting informal email survey of student-athletes at Bryn Mawr-Haverford College in Pennsylvania about their perspectives on lesbian and gay teammates. A few gay, lesbian and bi athletes also talk about their experiences with straight teammates. OK, granted these are Division 3 athletes at small relatively elite schools and I have found that the climate is generally more open and accepting in Division 3 schools. Nonetheless, their comments, both men and women, are generally positive and thoughtful. They do note a difference in the climate for gay athletes on men’s teams: Women’s teams are generally perceived to be more open. I’ve also noted this difference when I speak to collegiate student-athletes. I think it would be fair to say that I’ve never spoken to a group of athletes where it was NOT the general consensus that women’s teams are more open and accepting than men’s teams are, especially the men’s team sports.

It Takes A Team completed an evaluation project of how viewing our DVD and discussing LGBT issues in sports affected the perspectives of collegiate student-athletes. We developed a 10 item pre-post survey which student-athletes completed before and after viewing the video and discussing the topic of LGBT people in sport. One of the most interesting results was that there was no significant difference in the perspectives of men and women athletes on having a gay teammate or coach. They were all fairly positive before and became more positive after viewing and discussing the video. It is true that we did not do any long term follow up, so it might be that our short-term results were not reliable. However, if we assume that the results of our survey fairly describe the perspectives of the athletes in our evaluation project, what does it mean that the men’s attitudes about gay teammates fly in the face of conventional wisdom about the chilly climate in men’s sports as compared to women’s sports?

I have a theory, untested, but interesting to think about. I wonder if individual men, even football players, who have the reputation of being most hostile about gay teammates whether deserved or not, are more open in private than they are willing to express in front of their teammates. Is it possible that individual male athletes writing anonymous answers are more likely to express their personal perspectives rather than the one they think their teammates would agree with?

If the men’s locker room is a place where “fag” jokes and slurs are commonplace, it would take a strong and independent team member to object to this talk or express acceptance of gay teammates. I could see how some men might join in just to go along. I suspect that to express a different, more accepting point of view in this context might invite a lot of teasing and perhaps suspicion about why he was speaking up. So, might it be that there are lots of guys in that locker room who don’t participate in the “fag” bashing talk and don’t agree with it, but remain silent about their beliefs?

The concept of the “Bystander” is used often when educating about bullying, sexual harassment or other forms of abuse to describe people who are present and observe this behavior, but do nothing to object to or stop it. I’m wondering how many bystanders there are on men’s teams when it comes to creating a hostile or intolerant climate in men’s sports. I’m wondering if the number of male athletes who are actively anti-gay is actually a small minority and it is the large numbers of bystanders who enable the persistence of the perception that men’s sports is a hostile place for gay men.

I’ve also thought that the concept of “social norming” is a useful way to think about changing the climate in men’s sports. Social norming is used a lot on campuses to change attitudes about the abuse of alcohol. Briefly, the idea is to make students aware that it is a small minority of students who drink to excess and that most students do not think it is cool to get puking drunk every weekend. I wonder if this might apply to homophobia in men’s sports. If male athletes knew that anti-gay attitudes were in the minority on their teams and that most of their teammates were open and accepting of gay teammates, would it empower those silent bystanders to speak up more? Would it help to change the conventional wisdom that men’s (team) sports are dangerous places for gay men to come out? Would it make it uncool to be homophobic? Would it silence the anti-gay minority? Would it begin to change their perspectives? Am I a Pollyanna?

I’d be interested to hear what you think about all this.

Imagine…The First Openly Gay Male Professional Athlete

2009-03-03T10:11:00.000-05:00

I found this video on YouTube while casting about trying to decide what to write about this morning. It is a fictional account of the first openly gay professional baseball player. Sean Chapin, who put the video together, uses almost verbatim commentary from news accounts and reactions to the first Black professional baseball player in (white) professional baseball, Jackie Robinson to imagine what the reaction to the first openly gay baseball player might be. It is an interesting comparison of racism in 1947 and heterosexism/homophobia in 2009 in men’s professional sport. Listen to the language. Listen to the fear and hatred expressed.

I wonder if the first openly gay professional baseball player would be greeted with the same level of hatred and prejudice that Jackie Robinson endured in 1947. I’d like to believe that the John Rockers and Tim Hardaways of the professional sports world are increasingly in the minority. I’d like to believe that male sports fans and team management are more concerned about athletic performance than sexual orientation. Recently, Larry King asked Joe Torre, manager of the LA Dodgers, about acceptance of gay baseball players. Torre said having an openly gay player was no big deal for him and he hoped players would feel the same. We have yet to see how this fictional scenario would play out since all of the male gay professional athletes who have come out waited until their playing days were over.

I believe that the first male openly gay professional athlete will already be out when he gets to professional sport. There won’t be some big surprise announcement from an already established pro. Instead, he will have played collegiate sport as an out gay man and will make the transition to professional sport having already dealt with the media and fan reactions. He will have the support and respect of most of his collegiate teammates and coaches. This is how I believe men’s professional sport will change – as younger players, gay and straight, come into the professional ranks. For many, perhaps most of the straight players, gay athletes will not be remarkable. The questions for them will be: Can he play the game? What kind of teammate is he? Can I count on him on the field and off? The same questions they ask about any teammate. Younger gay athletes will come into the pros will greater confidence about and comfort with who they are and this will influence how teammates, coaches and fans respond to them.

I also believe this day will come sooner rather than later. Somewhere out there, a young boy is playing youth sports. Coaches are starting to notice his talent. He might not be out yet, but he will be. He will be the first male openly gay professional athlete, not be the last. Like Jackie Robinson, he will break down barriers of prejudice, fear and hatred, but I am hoping it will be an easier task for him than it was for Jackie Robinson.

It’s Not Whether You’re Gay or Straight, It’s How You Play The Game

2009-02-25T11:40:00.002-05:00

This is the title of a panel held at Penn on February 18th. The panel was sponsored by PATH (Penn Athletes and Allies Tackling Homophobia). PATH is a group of Penn Athletes who are committed to making athletics at Penn a safe sport environment for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. The group has also applied for funding from the campus Student Activities Council.

I met PATH co-chair, Anna Aagenes, a junior on the cross country team at Penn, in Denver at the Creating Change conference last month. I was excited to learn from her that PATH has grown and is thriving so much that they have applied for official recognition and funding on campus.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the actions of a new generation of athletes, like the members of PATH at Penn will be the driving force behind making athletics a safe environment for LGBT athletes. In most schools I work with, the athletes are way ahead of the coaches in terms of their comfort with LGBT teammates. Campus-based groups of student-athletes like PATH and national networks like Our Group are playing an integral role in making athletics a welcoming climate for all. Much like the Gay Straight Alliance movement in high schools across the USA, these student-athlete groups empower members to speak out about social justice issues in sport and educate their teammates and coaches about the importance of dispelling stereotypes and creating space for athletes of all sexual orientations and gender identities to bring all of who they are to the game.

I guess you could say Penn is on the right PATH.
l

Taking A Week Off

2009-02-13T13:34:00.004-05:00

Just a note to let you know I am taking a week off and will not post another blog until the week of February 23. Think of me in a warm place with water. Thanks for checking in. Pat

The Lesbian Bogeywoman Strikes Again?

2009-02-12T12:22:00.004-05:00

Brooke Heike, a former basketball player at Central Michigan State University, has filed a lawsuit against CMU coach Sue Guevara. According to this article Heike claims that Guevara benched her and then revoked her scholarship because she wore make up and because she was not a lesbian. Further, the lawsuit claims that Guevara tried to persuade Heike to give up her heterosexuality and become a lesbian. The suit also claims that, while Guevara was coach at the University of Michigan, certain unnamed players there reported that she invaded their personal lives “such as being upset because they wore make-up or tight clothing or otherwise acted in a feminine way." This article provides more detail.

OK, let me say at the outset that it is not acceptable for a coach, any coach, to discrimination against a player because of her sexual orientation or gender expression, whatever they are. It is no more acceptable for a lesbian coach to discriminate against a heterosexual player than it is for a straight coach to discriminate against a lesbian player. If Heike’s allegations are true, the coach was wrong. Let me also say I have no information about Coach Guevara’s sexual orientation.

But, at the risk of being accused of lesbian bias, I have to say that I find these allegations wildly improbable. Possible? Sure. Lesbian coaches are capable of unethical conduct just as heterosexual coaches are, but most lesbian coaches I know are very careful about their interactions with players to avoid any hint of impropriety that might blow their cover. They do not want to call attention to their sexual orientation because they are afraid they will be targeted by negative recruiting or some other kind of discrimination. It happens all the time.
For a closeted lesbian coach, accusations of this kind would be a complete nightmare. They raise the specter of the lesbian bogeywoman stereotype: hostile to feminine gender expression and fixated on recruiting young straight women to the lesbian “team.” It sounds like a 50’s lesbian pulp fiction novel: The evil coach/PE teacher/camp counselor/prison matron (take your pick) preying on the sweet young thing. It sounds like a cartoon or something written by anti-gay activists to scare parents with daughters who are athletes.

The worst part of this story is that, it doesn’t matter if the charges are true or not, lesbian coaches everywhere will be affected by them. When Anson Dorrance, the UNC women’s soccer coach, is accused of (and finally apologizes for) sexual harassment of his players, or when Todd McCorkle, the University of Georgia golf coach resigns after showing Paris Hilton sex tapes to his team, or when Tom Mutch, Boston College women’s ice hockey coach, is found texting sexually explicit messages to one of his players who he is having sex with we don’t shake our heads and generalize their bad behavior to all other male coaches of women’s teams. When women coaches are assumed to be lesbians, as in this case, and accused of comparable outrageous behavior, every lesbian coach and every woman coach perceived to be a lesbian suffers the consequences of the accusations.

Until we can create a climate in athletics where lesbian coaches and athletes can come out and live openly, the lesbian bogeywoman will continue to cast a long shadow over women’s sports. Let us all hope these charges are as ridiculous as they sound. Unfortunately, Sue Guevara’s career may never be the same whether they are true or not. The accusation is all it takes. Meanwhile Anson Dorrance has just finished another year as the highly paid and successful coach of women’s soccer at UNC. (Thanks to Megan Andrews for calling my attention to this story)