Straight Women Allies in Sport: Rare Sightings of An Important Species

Over the last several months an impressive number of high profile straight men in sport have stepped forward to speak out publicly in support of marriage equality and the inclusion of LGBTQ people in sports as well as against anti-LGBTQ bullying in schools.  NFL players Chris Kluwe, Brendon Ayanbadejo and Scott Fujita; NHL players Sean Avery and Tommy Wingels, NBA players Grant Hill and Steve Nash are among the increasingly visible straight male allies speaking up publicly.

In addition, several MLB teams, including the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox, have produced “It Gets Better” videos adding their voices to the thousands of others offering hope to LGBT youth who are bullied by their peers.  Recently, San Francisco 49er Coach, Jim Harbaugh, spoke in support of gay football players on the eve of his team’s appearance in the Super Bowl.

In addition to these expressions of support, three straight male allies, Hudson Taylor of Athlete Ally; Patrick Burke of the You Can Play Project; and Ben Cohen of the Stand Up Foundation, have taken their LGBT advocacy to the next level by creating organizations that focus on making sports a safe and inclusive place for LGBT athletes and coaches and take strong stands against anti-LGBTQ bullying. 

The visibility and outspoken support of high profile straight professional team sports athletes and the education and advocacy efforts of allies like Hudson, Patrick and Ben are a vital part of making sports inclusive and respectful for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities/expressions. Truly, the increasing visibility of straight male allies in sports is astounding given the pervasive silence and even hostility surrounding LGBT issues that was more typical of men’s sports prior to the last couple of years.

I define allies as members of privileged social groups in relation to a particular form of social injustice. For example, white allies standing against racism, male allies speaking out against sexism and straight allies fighting heterosexism/homophobia broaden the reach of change efforts and serve as visible role models for others to act and speak for social justice. Allies play a vital role in all social justice movements including the LGBTQ sports equality movement.

Amid the celebration of visible straight male allies in the burgeoning LGBTQ sports equality movement, however, we must ask the question: Where are the high profile straight women allies? What professional or Olympic straight women athletes are speaking out for marriage equality and LGBT inclusion in sport? What high visibility college women coaches are taking a public stand against anti-LGBTQ bullying and discrimination in sports?  Where are the counterparts to Hudson Taylor, Patrick Burke and Ben Cohen starting advocacy organizations to challenge anti-LGBTQ discrimination in sports?

It isn’t that there are no straight women allies in sport.  I have spoken to many straight women coaches and athletes who decry discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. Sherri Murrell, the only publicly out lesbian coach in D1 women’s basketball, receives a lot of personal support from her straight coaching colleagues. Straight women college and professional athletes are embracing their lesbian and bisexual teammates on teams all across the US.  In working with college student-athletes, I find that women’s teams are often much more open about and comfortable with the sexual orientation diversity on their teams than the men are.

The problem is that straight women allies in sport are invisible and they offer their support privately.  By confining their support to private conversations within their teams or one on one to coaching colleagues, straight women athlete and coach allies fall victim to the same old homophobia and fear of association with lesbians that has plagued women’s sports since Senda Berenson organized the first women’s basketball game at Smith College in 1893.   Don’t get me wrong, private allies are better than no allies.  But we need public allies who speak out consistently and boldly if we are to change the culture of fear and secrecy that persists in women’s sport.  To most effective challenge heterosexism and homophobia in women’s sports, straight women allies must be willing to speak out publicly.

When lesbian athletes and coaches like Seimone Augustus, Megan Rapinoe and Sherri Murrell come out; we need their straight teammates and coaches to publicly and privately support them. We need straight women on NCAA panels speaking out against LGBTQ discrimination in sport.  We need straight women allies in sport to take their place beside the lesbians and bi women, the straight men and the gay and bi men, the transgender men and women who are already working to challenge anti-LGBTQ discrimination in sport. Their absence speaks volumes about the difference between heterosexism/homophobia in women’s and men’s sports.

Several factors account for the silence of straight women allies in sport.  Certainly sexism in sport combined with homophobia affect straight women in ways that straight men don’t even think about. The lesbian label has a long history in women’s sport of being used as an effective means of silencing, intimidating and discounting women in sport as well as women’s sports in general.  Male athletes and men’s sports are privileged in terms of resources, media access and gendered cultural expectations. While individual straight men who speak out publicly against LGBTQ discrimination in sport may be called “gay,” in an attempt to silence them, the effects of this gay-baiting are not as damaging as they are under the persistent shadow of negative lesbian stereotypes that still looms over women’s sports and all women athletes. Negative recruiting based on actual or perceived sexual orientation is still a reality in women’s sports.  Lesbian coaches still lose their jobs because of their sexual orientation. Lesbian athletes are still dismissed from teams or shunned by teammates because of their sexual orientation.

It is also possible that straight women allies do not get the media attention that male straight allies receive. We know that women’s sports in general do not and that lesbian athletes who come out publicly do not.  It might be that there are high profile straight women athletes publicly expressing their support for LGBT people in sport, but it is not perceived as newsworthy by the male-dominated sports media.  Another reason straight allies might not get the media attention they deserve is that too many sports journalists assume that discrimination against lesbians and bi women in sport is no longer a problem.  They assume, incorrectly, that we must focus all of our attention on men’s sports and, they become obsessed (in my opinion) with when the first major team sports professional male athlete will come out while he is still actively competing.  Given gender and sexual orientation stereotypes, the public and the media see gay men and straight male allies in sports as more surprising and therefore, more newsworthy. This perspective often masks a more damaging fundamental belief that all women athletes are lesbians so it isn’t news when a women athlete announces publicly that she is what everyone assumed she was anyway.

These and other factors could offer explanations for the relative silence of high profile straight women when it comes to the public discussion of LGBTQ issues in sport.  However, none of these factors excuses the near total absence of straight women’s voices in this conversation.  At a time when the President of the United States welcomes the LGBT rights movement into the civil rights mainstream in his second inaugural address, it’s embarrassing to say that I cannot name a single high profile straight women athlete or coach who speaks publicly, proudly and consistently on behalf of LGBT inclusion in sport.

 Consider this an invitation. Consider this an exhortation. Whatever it takes, we need the voices and faces of straight women athletes and coaches to help us transform sports for all women and men. We need you to join your straight brothers if we are to make sport an inclusive and respectful place for all of us. Come out; come out, wherever you are!

The Incredible Omnipresent Yet Invisible Lesbian Athlete

For someone like me who has made a career advocating for the elimination of the discrimination and harassment that LGBT people experience in sport, it has been a dizzying two years of progress.  The topic of LGBT inclusion in sport is now a standard fixture in mainstream sport media. Everyone seems to be speculating about when the first gay athlete in the NFL, NBA, NHL or MLB will come out while he is still playing.  More and more straight male professional athletes are championing gay rights, speaking out against discrimination against LGBT athletes and declaring that they would welcome a gay teammate.  

 It feels like every two weeks another organization pops up with the purpose of making sports a welcoming place for LGBT athletes: Changing the Game, Athlete Ally, You Can Play, The Last Closet, GO! Athletes, Br{aching Silence, the Equality Coaching Alliance, the Stand Up Foundation to name some, but not all of them.  Nike hosted a national LGBT Summit in June to which representatives of all the major players in these and other sports and LGBT organizations gathered to discuss how to maximize our effect in this LGBT sports “moment” we are in.  I could go on.

Alas, no progress comes easily or without steps backward even as we move forward. As I celebrate the growth of what I call an LGBT sports equality movement, I have had a nagging concern that has blossomed now into a full blown red flag of frustration.  It is this: Concern about homophobia in women’s sports has somehow taken a seat on the bench as all the starters in this game focus on men’s sports.  Now, don’t get me wrong, the silence about gay men in sport has been deafening for far too long and I am thrilled that barriers for gay men coming out in sport seem to crumbling at all levels. I love hearing about gay high school and college male athletes coming out. I love it that the Toronto Blue Jays recently suspended Yunel Escobar for painting an anti-gay message in his face black and that his salary for the three days (around $80,000) will be given to two organizations fighting for LGBT inclusion in sport.  It’s great that Escobar met with Patrick Burke of You Can Play and openly gay soccer player David Fasto. I am thankful for straight male athlete allies like Hudson Taylor, Patrick Burke, Ben Cohen and all of the male professional athletes who are speaking out.  It is all long overdue and absolutely necessary to change men’s sports culture.

The problem for me is that somehow with all of the attention focused on men’s sports, homophobia in women’s sports is in danger of being treated as either a non-issue or a less important issue.  I’ve noticed for some time that media coverage of “gays in sports” has focused almost entirely on men’s sports.  Women’s sports, if mentioned at all, are dismissed in the first couple of paragraphs. The final straw for me was an article on NPR.org this week which was a thoughtful piece generally about homophobia in (men’s) sports with quotes from male athletes. The writers had this to say about homophobia in women’s sports:“Today, (Billie Jean) King is also an advocate for gay rights, but for most of her career, she stayed in the closet. Now, it's not uncommon for a female pro athlete to come out.”  

That’s it. Homophobia in women’s sports? It used to be a problem. No problem, today though.  Women’s sports are full of lesbians, don’t you know? 

Every time I am interviewed by a reporter about LGBT issues in sports, I talk about the differences in how homophobia is manifested in men’s and women’s sports. I talk about the ways in which homophobia in women’s sports is still a huge problem.  The reporters listen politely and then ask me another question about when I think a gay man will come out in professional baseball or football. The article comes out – nada about women’s sports.

I know, I know. I should be used to women’s sports taking a back seat to men’s sports in the media, even when the topic is homophobia. 

But it isn’t just the mainstream media, it is the LGBT community and our allies too.  This past weekend dot429 Magazine, an LGBT publication, sponsored StraightTalk, “an annual event bringing together LGBT influencers for a weekend of discussion and debate, where politicians, business professionals, celebrities, and educators explore issues important to the LGBT community. The event exemplifies dot429’s mission to connect and engage our members so that together, we can move forward and achieve even more.” 

StraightTalk included a panel on, I quote, “LGBT in Athletics.”  The panel was moderated by LZ Granderson, a gay ESPN columnist and CNN commentator.  The panelists were Hudson Taylor, founder of Athlete Ally; Wade Davis, a gay former NFL player; and Chris Mosier, a transgender male triathlete.  Not one woman on the panel. I could name at least five or six amazing women in the New City area alone who could have been a part of this discussion. Were they asked? I cannot believe the organizers of StraightTalk could not find a woman athlete for this panel. Don’t get me wrong. I know and have great respect for every man on this panel, but how can a panel that purports to address LGBT issues in athletics not include at least one (token) woman? 

I need to ask Hudson, Wade, LZ and Chris if they knew about this omission before the event. I need to ask if they called it to the attention of the organizers. I need to know if they called it to the attention of their audience during the panel.

Last week Hudson Taylor wrote an article in the Huffington Post entitled, Sexism and Homophobia in Sports.  It’s a wonderful description of the connections between homophobia and sexism in sport and how they affect the ways women athletes try to counteract the masculine and lesbian associations that are placed on them because of their athleticism.   It’s a great piece of writing by Hudson who is Straight Male Ally in Chief in my book.  Beyond the connections that Hudson makes in his article about how homophobia and sexism lead many women athletes, particularly straight women athletes, to defend themselves from the lesbian label is this: Homophobia and sexism in women’s sports is at the root of on-going discrimination and harassment of all women who are perceived to be or who actually are lesbians. All is not well for lesbians in sport. Sport is not the lesbian mecca some imagine it to be. This is what sports reporters, bloggers and even LGBT conference organizers do not seem to understand or are not interested in.

Yes, I would agree that many college and professional women’s sports teams are generally open to and comfortable with lesbian teammates. Yes, many lesbian professional athletes are out to their teammates and coaches.  Of course, lesbians have always been important participants in and advocates for women’s sports.  On some teams lesbian coaches and athletes are welcomed and invited to be as open about their sexual orientation as they choose to be.  Yet, as we celebrate this openness, we must understand that situations like these are also true:

• College coaches of women’s teams still have “no lesbian” team policies
• Lesbian athletes are dismissed from college teams, find their playing time limited or are harassed until they quit teams solely because of their sexual orientation or gender expression
• College coaches of women’s teams still use negative recruiting tactics to insinuate that coaches of rival teams are lesbians
• College coaches who are lesbians are afraid to identify themselves out of fear that it would be used against them in personnel decisions and recruiting
• Only one Division 1 women’s basketball coach in the entire United States is publicly out as a lesbian (Sherri Murrell at Portland State University)
• Lesbian athletes are discouraged from being open about their lesbian identity lest it “tarnish” the entire team’s reputation
• Lesbian coaches, athletes and sports administrators are targeted with anti-LGBT vandalism and anonymous harassment

With regard to the last item on this list, read this article about a lesbian high school athletic director in California who is currently under attack by vandals who are targeting her because she is a lesbian.

In closing I want to offer a couple of challenges:

• To sports reporters, bloggers and others who are writing about homophobia in sport: Be inclusive in your coverage. If you are talking about LGBT issues in sports or homophobia in sports, remember that women play sports too and that homophobia in women’s sports is a serious continuing problem
• To straight and gay men who are speaking out about LGBT issues in sport: Educate yourself on how homophobia is manifested in women’s sports. Talk about how homophobia affects women’s sports in general and lesbians in particular.  If you are on a panel about LGBT issues in sports and no women have been asked to participate, call out the organizers and make it happen. That’s what male allies do, whether straight or gay.

Let’s make sure that we are advancing the cause of the LGBT sports equality movement and not just the LGBT sports movement.

Purple? Man, That’s So Gay!

This is what the banner said. The banner was held up by student spectators at a nationally televised high school football in Alabama.  You can read about it here.  The purpose of the banner was to insult the opposing school team whose team color was purple. The thinking goes like this: In most high schools (and many colleges too) being called gay is an insult. You never call something gay as a compliment. “Gay’ is a substitute for stupid, boring, ugly or anything that is seen negatively. If the color purple is gay and your school football team wears purple, then we can insult your team by calling it gay. 

Two years ago a similar incident occurred in Ohio when student football fans chanted, in response to the light blue uniforms of their opponents, “Powder blue faggots!”  Calling opposing players anti-gay names or yelling other insulting comments from the stands happens in professional and college sports too. I assume many high school sports fans learn this behavior from watching these events.  There is nothing new or unique about any of these incidents, unfortunately.

Some people excuse this fan behavior as harmless expressions of school spirit.  Others claim that “gay” as an insult has become so pervasive that it no longer has any association with being homosexual so it’s use as a putdown does not hurt anyone.  A few years ago, a college athletic director claimed that school attempts to control sports spectators’ use of anti-gay slurs was an infringement of free speech. I am not kidding. This was in response to an incident when now NBA star, Kevin Love and his family were subjected to unrelenting anti-gay harassment during an entire game. 

I know it will come as no surprise that I disagree with those who excuse or defend anti-gay, or any other fan behavior that is racist, sexist or in any other way meant to be insulting or demeaning. I think it is important for all schools and professional sports organizations to set and enforce standards of appropriate behavior for sports spectators. It is particularly important for schools to take the climate at athletic events seriously. If it isn’t ok to yell out slurs and insults in the school hallways, locker rooms or cafeterias, why is it ok at school-sponsored sports events? Excusing or ignoring this behavior contributes to a school climate of disrespect and hostility for all students.  No one is learning anything good when mean-spirited and thoughtless behavior is tolerated. For students, like many LGBT students, who might already feel marginalized, the effects of a hostile school climate can be devastating, even life-threatening.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Read the recently released 2011 GLSEN School Climate Survey.  Two items from the survey illustrates this point: 84.9% of LGBT students surveyed heard “gay” used in a negative way frequently or often at school. 91.4% reported that they felt distressed because of this language.  Even more disturbing, 56.9% of students reported hearing homophobic remarks from their teachers or other school staff.

A couple of other items specific to athletics:

•  LGBT students cite the locker room as one of the least safe areas in schools.
•  More than half of the LGBT students in the survey reported being bullied or harassed in physical education classes.
•  LGBT students are half as likely to play interscholastic sports as their heterosexual peers.
•  5% of the LGBT students who do play sports report being harassed or assaulted while playing on a school team.
•  Of all the adults in schools, coaches and PE teachers are the ones that LGBT students are least likely to feel comfortable talking to about LGBT issues.

Sports are a central part of high school culture. At their best, they are positive and engaging opportunities to experience a sense of belonging, develop social, physical and psychological skills and express school spirit. The potential for school sports to provide these positive results for students makes it all the more disappointing when these opportunities are tainted by coach or student behavior that makes some students unwelcome and unsafe.  Name-calling, hazing, bullying and harassment in the hallways or on the athletic field or in the stands are unacceptable and schools that do not take these actions seriously or who throw up their hands in response to them are not serving their students, any of them, well.

The point is not to blame the students or the adults affiliated with schools that experience these problems. Instead, we need to find better ways to help all schools create a school climate, in and out of athletics, in which respect and safety are the prevailing norms for everyone. Check out GLSEN and their sports project – Changing the Game - for resources for K-12 schools.

The Olympics Are Coming!

The London Olympic Games begin in a little over a week so, of course, speculation begins about the number of openly LGBT athletes will be competing.  This Advocate article identifies a handful of openly lesbian and gay athletes who will be competing and I am sure this number will increase as we get closer to the opening ceremonies.  This number has topped out around 13-14 openly LGBT athletes in past Olympics and I hope that number will increase in London. Though the number of openly LGBT athletes is a small percentage of the thousands of athletes who will competing in London, it is safe to assume that there are many other LGBT athletes who will competing from the closet.  

Apparently, a heterosexual married couple who are on the Australian shooting team believe that there are huge numbers of same-sex couples who will rooming together in the Olympic village.  They claim that they are being discriminated against because, as heterosexuals, they are not allowed to room together in the athletes’ village and are making a big deal out of it.  Please.  Is this really how they want to spend their time preparing for their competition? Is this how they are making their mark on the London games? 

Like the Vancouver Olympics there will be a Pride House in London open to all athletes and other visitors. Pride House is not sponsored by the Olympics, but by a local group as was true in Vancouver. Nonetheless it does provide some LGBT visibility at an international sporting event.

Why does it matter if athletes come out publicly or if there is a Pride House at the Olympics? It’s about visibility and role models. It’s about athletes not needing to spend energy hiding and keeping secrets and using that energy to focus on the competition. It’s about being honest with teammates and true to yourself.  It’s about sending a message to young LGBT athletes that the world is changing and their future in sports looks better and better.  

 Oh, and that Aussie couple? Instead of crabbing about sleeping arrangements, they should count the many other privileges they have as married heterosexuals and stick to trying to shoot straight.

Keelin Godsey talks about his experience as transgender athlete

Keelin Godsey is a world class athlete who competes in the women’s hammer throw. Keelin recently placed fifth in the US Olympic Trials, narrowly missing the cut for the team going to London.  Keelin is a transgender man who has not made a medical transition so that he can continue to compete in the women’s hammer throw.  Not making a medical transition means that Keelin is not taking testosterone and has not undergone any surgical procedures as part of his transition.  

Keelin sat down for an interview with Ann Schatz after the trials:

 

Many people are confused by the thought that a transgender man would want to or be allowed to compete in women’s sports.  Some would say, “Ok, if you are a man, compete in the men’s hammer throw.” One of the many powerful parts of this interview is to hear Keelin talk about the importance of his identification as an athlete, and even more specifically, an elite hammer thrower. He talks about how being an athlete saved his life.  He talk about how being a hammer thrower is such an important part of his identity and a source of his positive feelings about himself.  I don’t see how you can listen to Keelin talk about this and not understand how devastating it would be to take away his opportunity to compete in his sport, women’s hammer throw.  

You also can get a little insight into the process of deciding to transition, whether that is a social transition and/or a medical transition. You also get a small insight into the internal struggles and social obstacles that transgender people face in and out of sport just to live their lives as their truth demands.  You feel the pain, the struggle, the courage and the determination to define yourself in opposition to powerful gender expectations that push us all into little boxes that limit our ability to see ourselves in any way that defies the gender binary we are taught is “normal.”

Keelin’s interview should be required viewing for anyone in sports who wants to learn, up close and personal, what it is like to be transgender and an athlete and to insist on the right to honor both parts of that identity.  

It is also important to recognize that Keelin’s story is his. Every trans athlete has her or his own story and that Keelin’s story is only one of a larger mosaic of transgender experience that is as diverse and personalized as any of our stories.  I recommend taking the 20 minutes necessary to watch and, more importantly, listen to Keelin. I promise you will come away with a deeper appreciation for what it means to be a transgender athlete.