College Student-Athlete Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Teammates

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

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

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

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?

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)

That's Coach Sheryl Swoopes, Please

The Seattle Storm waived Sheryl Swoopes last week. It seems like a disrespectful way to end her time with the Storm, but I guess it shows that the WNBA is a business and that’s what happens in the sports business world, no matter how amazing your past accomplishments are.

However, this article caught my eye. It seems Sheryl has been doing some coaching on the side. She is a volunteer coach for a middle school girls’ basketball team. What I love about this article, besides the fact that it is so cool that Sheryl is interested in coaching and seems to have an unbelievable sense of humility, is that the Overlake School team, parents and athletic administration are darned happy to have Sheryl Swoopes coaching the team. Well, of course, you say. Why wouldn’t any team, boys or girls, be thrilled to have a three time WNBA MVP, three time Olympic Gold Medalist and NCAA Champion be their coach?

That is exactly the point. The article focuses on Sheryl Swoopes, the basketball star with one sentence noting that her partner, Alisa Scott, is helping her coach the team and raise her son. The completely matter-of-fact nature of the article is a model for how it should be. The reaction of the folks at Overlake School to having Sheryl Swoopes, an out lesbian, and her partner coaching middle school girls is a model for other schools about how to focus on what is important when hiring a coach. Does she have the basketball credentials? What kind of person is she? Will she be a good role model for our young people?

If only more high school and collegiate programs would follow the lead of the Overlake School Middle School Girls, their parents and the school athletic administrator, John Wiley. If they did, maybe more lesbian coaches would feel safe being more open about who they are.

Tough Guys Wanted: No Sequins Required

Skate Canada has a new ad campaign to promote men’s figure skating. The ad campaign is called “Tough” and focuses on how dangerous and “rough and tumble” figure skating is. A Skate Canada spokesperson promotes the “death defying” aspects of the sport by recalling an incident at a recent competition where a skater required 80 stitches when her face was sliced by her partner’s skate. Uh huh, maybe we should just change the name to Ultimate Skating that would change the image.

Skate Canada insists that this campaign has nothing to do with “masculinity” and is merely a “rebranding” of the sport to get away from its “genteel” image. Right, we all buy that.

There is nothing new or fresh about this campaign unless it is that it is a little wacky. Figure skating has always been a little embarrassed by the perception that the male figure skaters are gay. When skaters like Elvis Stojko win championships you can envision skating officials high fiving the success of an openly butch male skater. More “artistic” and “flamboyant” skaters like Johnny Weir, on the other hand, are tolerated with an uncomfortable, yet genteel forbearance.

The Skate Canada ad is merely the flip side of the gender coin. It is the same thing as the WNBA trying to sell its stars as just your average girly girl who just happens to be 6’4” and can crush a basketball back in your face. Remember, the make-up and hair styling sessions the WNBA held at rookie camp this year?

The Skate Canada ad is also confusing gender and sexuality. It assumes that an artistic sport that requires grace and style (in addition to strength and endurance) is for women and gay men. The Skate Canada ad campaign assumes that emphasizing the rough and tumble or tough aspects of the sport will “straighten up” the sport’s appeal. Tell former NFL lineman Esera Tuaolo that gay men can’t be tough. Tell Mikhail Baryshnikov straight men can’t be artistic.

This perception that women or men who do not express their gender in traditional ways are gay or that no gay men and lesbians enjoy traditional gender expression is so off base and soooo tired. Does a sport have to be sold as violent and dangerous to be appealing to men?

I think it is great that sports come in all varieties and call for a wide range of skills and sizes, none of which is connected to the gender or sexuality of the participants. The irony is that, by trying to sell figure skating as the NHL with music, they might lose the guys who like the artistic challenge of figure skating, whether they are gay or straight.