Out in Sport by Eric Anderson Rory Magrath Rachael Bullingham

Author:Eric Anderson, Rory Magrath, Rachael Bullingham [Eric Anderson, Rory Magrath, Rachael Bullingham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, LGBTQ+ Studies, Gay Studies, Lesbian Studies, Sports & Recreation, General, Cultural & Social Aspects
ISBN: 9781317295419
Google: fn2PCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-02-12T02:52:24+00:00

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OPENLY GAY AND LESBIAN ELITE ATHLETES

In this chapter, we first address the lack of representation for gay and lesbian athletes at the professional level of sport. We highlight the oxymoronic concept at play: whereas gay men are highly under-represented in professional sport, partially because they are less interested in playing competitive, contact sports and perhaps because they are less powerful than heterosexual men, lesbian athletes are both interested in these types of sports, and perhaps more powerful than heterosexual women. Lesbian athletes are both attracted to sport, and potentially benefited by a more masculine biology that helps them succeed in it. This chapter examines why, then, there is poor representation of lesbian athletes in professional sport.

Acknowledging that it is difficult for us to conduct interviews with openly gay professional athletes for this book, we include three interviews at the end of this chapter. But to bolster our arguments, we necessarily draw on published media accounts. Here, we show that professional athletes who come out of the closet, in either American or British sports, and regardless of the sport, are experiencing social inclusion. Collectively, male athletes have come out and played in rugby union, rugby league, American football, soccer, basketball, Olympic boxing, cricket, weight lifting and a host of more individual and more feminized sports.

In women’s professional sport, athletes have come out in basketball, tennis, field hockey, soccer, softball and many other sports.

Still, there are gaps in this roster. There are a number of sports that have not yet had an openly gay player in them. For men, hockey, baseball and tennis are a few; for women, rugby union, cricket and other sports have yet to have a professional athlete come out. Given the over-representation of lesbian athletes playing in sport, compared to what we argue is an under-representation in men’s, we argue that in some ways, lesbian athletes have further to travel toward public openness than gay male athletes.

In addition to examining the experiences of openly out athletes in professional sport, we also take a more comprehensive approach to the topic of study. We do this by examining the relationship between professional gay athletes and sport through exemplars related to changing media narratives and Internet fan forums. Here we show that fans of professional men’s sport are largely desiring to be inclusive; and we show that the media has changed its perceptions on gay men in sport, too. We conclude by suggesting that there are complicating factors for coming out at this level of play, but that athletes are nonetheless slowly emerging from their professional closets.

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