A Tribute to Rodger McFarlane

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

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

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)

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

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?

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

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?