Tag: sports

Sports + Outness

Posted by helenboyd – May 10, 2013

There have been some interesting articles turning up some interesting facts in light of Jason Collins coming out.

For starters, he wasn’t the first. Glenn Burke was:

Burke made no secret of his sexual orientation to the Dodgers front office, his teammates, or friends in either league. He also talked freely with sportswriters, though all of them ended up shaking their heads and telling him they couldn’t write that in their papers. Burke was so open about his sexuality that the Dodgers tried to talk him into participating in a sham marriage. (He wrote in his autobiography that the team offered him $75,000 to go along with the ruse.) He refused. In a bit of irony that would seem farcical if it wasn’t so tragic, one of the Dodgers who tried to talk Burke into getting “married,” was his manager, Tommy Lasorda, whose son Tom Jr. died from AIDS complications in 1991. To this day, Lasorda Sr. refuses to acknowledge his son’s homosexuality.

And then this one, about Vince Lombardi:

“My father was way ahead of his time,” Susan Lombardi said. “He was discriminated against as a dark-skinned Italian American when he was younger, when he felt he was passed up for coaching jobs that he deserved. He felt the pain of discrimination, and so he raised his family to accept everybody, no matter what color they were or whatever their sexual orientation was.

Now *there’s* an argument for why I should be a Packers fan – if there is one. (Which there isn’t. But still, this one’s better than any. No one told me the famous Packers coach was born in Brooklyn, either. He was only about 15 years older than my dad, and got his start in the NFL working for the Giants.)

I love the way one person comes out and the whole thing pretty much implodes. It’s really, really great to see this happening in professional sports.

Of course the ladies – Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova – both came out in 1981.

(Sadly, in the meanwhile, LGBTQ allies Kluwe and Ayanbadejo have been sacked. So much for the NFL.)

CA College Sports

Posted by helenboyd – May 9, 2013

California has just made it possible for trans college students to play as the gender they are instead of as the gender they were declared at birth.

It’s a good move, although it’s bound to come with complications.

First Out in Major Sports

Posted by helenboyd – April 29, 2013

It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is, because the machismo of professional sports keeps so many of these guys in the closet. Not anymore: Jason Collins of the Washington Wizards just came out, and I expect a lot more will follow.

Glad someone took the first leap.

Collins says he didn’t set out to be the first out gay athlete playing in a major team sport, “but since I am, I’m happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn’t the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, ‘I’m different.’ If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I’m raising my hand.”

Interestingly, he was motivated to come out due to the Boston bombing: life is short.

The Onion Wins Again

Posted by helenboyd – March 20, 2013

The Onion has saved me from having to say: fuck CNN & their coverage of the Steubenville verdict. (But do sign the petition, which has now collected 200k signatures, and which demands an apology for their rapist-sympathetic coverage.)


College Basketball Star Heroically Overcomes Tragic Rape He Committed

Just fuck the idiots who treat athletes as if they don’t have to be civilized. I hate the sports cult bullshit, hate it.

(That said, these two NFL guys spoke at the GLAAD awards about being allies to the LGBTQ communities, and I was impressed. My wife had a nice chat with Kluwe, too. More of this, please.)

Int’l Olympics Sets Sex Policy

Posted by helenboyd – June 23, 2012

Wow, this is huge news. Since Caster Semenya’s case first hit the headlines – which it never should have done for the sake of her privacy – there’s been a lot of speculation about women and competition.

That is, there wasn’t just a desire to define “woman” – since most experts know that’s impossible. (Trust me.) But the Olympics Committee instead are trying to define “woman athlete” or what might give a woman an “unfair” competitive edge against other women, and they’ve just decided how it’s going to be.

First, here’s what they came up with:

  1. Under the new policy, an investigation into the possibility that an athlete has hyperandrogenism can be requested by an athlete concerned about her own condition; a medical official for a country’s Olympic committee; a member of the I.O.C. Medical Commission or a member of the Olympic organizing committee’s medical commission; or the chairman of the I.O.C. Medical Commission.
  2. If the chairman decides to conduct an investigation, relevant documents like medical records will be gathered. If further investigation is needed, a panel of one gynecologist, one genetic expert and one endocrinologist will try to determine whether hyperandrogenism is present and if it offers a competitive advantage.
  3. If need be, the athlete and her international federation can appeal the decision within 21 days to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. She can also compete in men’s events if she qualifies.
  4. The guidelines do not address whether a woman found to have hyperandrogenism could undergo a treatment to make her eligible to compete as a woman.

So, point by point:

  1. Any female athlete can request another athlete’s sex and gender tests. No potential for bullying or gender baiting or witch hunting or policing of gender there. *sigh* What a nightmare: women judging other women’s “acceptable” level of womanness.
  2. There’s no distinction being made between people who take androgens and people whose bodies produce them.
  3. I have to say, I love the idea of women being able to compete in men’s events if they want to. That fucking rocks. & Just lit a nice green light for trans guys, too.
  4. Could undergo could mean: be encouraged to, be bullied into, willingly choose, feel required to. Problematic, but when it comes to many other decisions about gender, it can be hard to judge whether a person is choosing freely or making a coerced decision. This one will be no different.

I first thought that their decision to use T levels at the determining factor was a good idea. I still think it is. BUT:

More→

Title IX: Equity in Education (Not Just Sports)

Posted by helenboyd – June 23, 2012

I’ve been a self-proclaimed feminist for 20 years now, and it took me a very, very long while to realize that Title IX was not ONLY about sports. It states:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity.

There is no specific mention of sports, you’ll notice. I’ll be honest that that bias toward the sports issues it raised really pisses me off. And to clarify: I don’t hate sports. I just hate the way sports take up all the air in the room, all the time. And in this case, one of the reasons every reference we hear to Title IX concerns sports is because right out of the gate there were people more worried about how this might disrupt male athletes for a tiny goddamn second.

So to clarify, Title IX actually addresses all inequities in ANY EDUCATION PROGRAM OR ACTIVITY, which includes (but is not limited to):

  • Access to Higher Education,
  • Career Education,
  • Education for Pregnant and Parenting Students,
  • Employment,
  • Learning Environment,
  • Math and Science,
  • Sexual Harassment,
  • Standardized Testing
  • Technology

Imagine.

That said, today it has been 40 years since Title IX was enacted by President Nixon, and I’m glad we’ve got it. Lately, honestly, I’m wondering what happened that we seemed to abandon so many of the amazing goals of the 60s and 70s, or exactly when we took our eye off equity.

Sandusky Convicted

Posted by helenboyd – June 22, 2012

45 out of 48 counts, too.

Sports Illustrated on Trans Athletes

Posted by helenboyd – May 25, 2012

I have to say that this is kind of amazing: Sports Illustrated has taken on the topic of trans athletes.

For transgender men and women, the physiological traits that distinguish them as male or female don’t conform to how they feel about themselves. Some have undergone sex reassignment surgery or hormone therapy to make their biological and gender identities match. Others, such as the 28-year-old Godsey, have not: He was born as a female and therefore competes as a female, but he identifies as male. Imagine a body, especially one as finely tuned as an elite athlete’s, feeling inescapably foreign—as if it were intended for the opposite sex. “I take a lot of pride in the fact that I have a good amount of muscle mass, and I’ve done it naturally,” says Godsey. “But in some ways, this is the last body I would ever want.”

. . .

Consider something as simple as going to the bathroom. When using men’s rooms—his preference—Godsey usually tries to conceal his chest; in women’s rooms he accentuates it by wearing what he calls tight “girl shirts.” Still, he has been escorted out of an airport ladies’ room by security, interrogated at restaurants and once had to flee a group of snarling men at a truck-stop bathroom in Nebraska.

The world is a-changing. Maybe not fast enough, but faster than I expected.

Go Giants!

Posted by helenboyd – February 5, 2012

I’m watching tonight with a fellow NYer and dedicated Giants fan, once again, of course, to stand in for my dad, who was a huge fan. So: GO GIANTS!

Of course no matter who wins, it will be a blue state victory, and an East Coast one, to boot.

& So It Begins…

Posted by helenboyd – September 9, 2011

… Football season, that is. For those of you who don’t live in Wisconsin or in some other place where football is de rigeur, I’m not sure you can understand exactly how awesome a beast football fandom is. I manged to avoid it for 40 years of my life, happily. I’ve never liked the violence of football; I’ve never been comfortable in a room where people are yelling violent things at a TV screen. It’s just not my cup of tea, & never has been. That’s not to say that I don’t attend Superbowl parties – I do, and always have, because the ads and the Half-Time show are entertaining – and I’ve certainly decided to watch with friends who love the game but didn’t have anyone else to watch with. I know how the game works, for the most part, or did: I used to play football, tomboy that I was.

I’m glad that it gives some people joy & camaraderie. The Packers, for instance, are actually owned by the people of Wisconsin, which I think is a damned cool thing. There is something to be said for a sport that helps people bond. There’s a lot of to be said for the lessons of winning and losing graciously, and learning how to put ego aside for the sake of a group effort.

But I am still a Gender Studies professor, and it’s nearly impossible for me to shut my critical eye. It’s not that I don’t have guilty pleasures – porn is certainly one of them – that I have conscientious qualms about enjoying. But I can’t say I partake in anything so mainstream, so culturally-validated, so intensely insisted upon. And I certainly don’t insist that anyone else who might have objections to porn like the stuff in order to hang out with me.

People might assume – because of who I am, because of what I do – that I’m somehow immune to feeling left out. I’m not. Since I think a lot too about bullying, and about how queer kids are often made to feel like they don’t fit in, I’ve been paying close attention to the things that make me feel both lonely and isolated here. I’ve considered doing an “It Gets Better” video, but this past year was not one that made me feel like it does. No, in new, acute ways, even as an adult, even if you’re known as a bit of a firebrand, a crank, or eccentric in whatever way, standing down peer pressure is still difficult. Sometimes it taxes me in ways that sadden me; I would have expected, by now, not to feel that kind of sting. But I do. I wish I didn’t. More→

Trans Triathlete

Posted by helenboyd – August 28, 2011

The NY Times did a story on NY transgender triathlete Chris Mosier, and Mosier followed up with his own article and commentary after the race.

How to Defeat Bigoted Bullshit

Posted by helenboyd – April 15, 2011

What an amazing story: a Brazilian volleyball player was heckled with the chant “faggot” during an uber-important match and was shaken by the incident. He came out – acknowledging that he was gay, & that everyone knew it – and the rest of him team showed support by wearing pink shirts, rainbow shirts, and unfurling a huge banner that said “Volleyball against prejudice” and fans brought thundersticks that had the player’s name on them.

Here, we pretend this is all about Kobe Bryant – as if no one else in sports uses these kinds of slurs! Please.: the whole “I didn’t mean gay people when I used ‘fag’ as an insult” is so 1994. There is absolutely no excuse for anyone to use words that have been used to oppress, intimidate and threaten people of whatever minority group anymore.

(h/to to SS!)

ESPN Interview with Kye Allums

Posted by helenboyd – April 8, 2011

Surprisingly sympathetic, no?

Roller Derby Trans Grrrl

Posted by helenboyd – March 5, 2011

I’ve known other (trans) women in roller derbies before, but I’m happy to see an official policy by a women’s organization siding in favor of inclusion. Bethany Johnson said:

“We’ve yet to send out a formal press release regarding this, but we are very proud of the diversity represented by our league and we’re glad that our league can be one of the leagues to formally create a policy allowing transwomen skaters . . . For The Chicago Outfit, I think that having this policy is another step for our league to show how open and accepting of women from all walks of life we are. This policy also hopefully will help to continue the legitimization of transwomen athletes in this sport in other leagues throughout the country.”

Although “allows” really chafes, even if the person who said it is trans herself.

Are You Ready for Some Sex Trafficking?

Posted by helenboyd – February 3, 2011

Because I live in Wisconsin where football – or at least Packers – is a state religion, I’ve been poking around the edges of the thing because I don’t get it, and I’m absolutely sure it’s not because I mind beer, yelling, processed foods and funny hats. Beer + yelling + processed foods + funny hats are my idea of a good time, generally speaking.

I came across this sentence the other day. at change.org:

The trafficking of children for sale at the Super Bowl is well documented.

And I was honestly flabbergasted: not surprised, because where men with money gather, children are sold for sexual pleasure. Still, it’s sickening. So many people watch and play football because it’s fun — shoot, even I go to Super Bowl parties! What a way to mess up an otherwise (mostly) harmless sports event.

More→

But Think of the Children

Posted by helenboyd – December 13, 2010

A lesbian soccer coach gets fired by a university after admitting that her partner is pregnant.

I’m not sure I can even count how wrong that is or in how many ways. How incredibly Christian of them, to fire the partner of an expectant mom.

Trans Guy Plays Ball

Posted by helenboyd – November 3, 2010

A trans man is playing on a women’s basketball team:


But Monday was anything but ordinary because it was the day the world would learn about the decision Allums had embarked on one year earlier: to come out as a transgender man playing on a women’s basketball team.


He noted that he was biologically identical to any other female, but said, “I just would prefer for people to call me a he.”

“I decided to do it because I was uncomfortable not being able to be myself,” Allums, 21, said in a telephone interview Monday, hours after an article about his experience was published on the Web site Outsports.com. “Just having to hear the words ‘she’ and ‘her,’ it was really starting to bother me.”

NCLR (National Center for Lesbian Rights) has a piece about the Trans Student Athlete Guide, as does the NCAA (National College Athletic Association).

The Guide itself can be found in .pdf format on the NCLR’s site.

For those of you who know anything about sports, and/or are trans yourselves, I’d love to hear your take on this report.

Semenya’s Return

Posted by helenboyd – August 26, 2010

And another via my friend Matty, with whom I will be team teaching Gender Studies 100 this fall, about Caster Semenya’s return.

She added: “Even if she is a female, she’s on the very fringe of the normal athlete female biological composition from what I understand of hormone testing. So, from that perspective, most of us just feel that we are literally running against a man.”

To which I might say: isn’t the whole point of athletic competition pushing the envleope / finding the fringe of “normal”?

Tragedy, Again

Posted by helenboyd – August 21, 2010

If you can bear to read it, there’s a long story about Christine Daniels / Mike Penner in The LA Times. The whole thing is so fucking tragic, a huge waste. There are times I get so pissed off about how euphoric people get about transition that I want to spit nails.

Toward the end there’s this soulless quote by Marci Bowers:


Bowers believes Penner put one foot in the grave by abandoning the transition. “If we had done surgery, it probably would have saved her life. Now she died as an unhappy soul who never got a chance to align her body and soul, and that’s the greatest tragedy about her.”

I’m not sure that doesn’t win an award for most self-serving pile of crap I’ve ever seen.

Her whole story, I’m going to say, makes me want to scream. PEOPLE CAN AND DO CHOOSE TO TRANSITION. People can and do choose not to when what they might lose is a too much to lose. It is not “transition or die.” Sometimes it’s “transition and die.” That does not mean I’m saying people shouldn’t transition, or that late transitioners shouldn’t transition. What I’m saying is that the larger trans community – and especially the gender therapists who “serve” this community – have got to get it through their heads that someone who has lived a long time in one gender & who has had something like a good life, career, and marriage, might want to think long & hard before deciding to transition.

Or, as we were told, DO AS LITTLE AS YOU CAN to relieve the gender dyphoria.

World Man Cup

Posted by helenboyd – June 22, 2010

No, really: why do so many cool people watch World Cup? There isn’t one woman on a team anywhere, & if any other industry were so blatant in its discrimination, so many people wouldn’t watch, & might actually be out protesting.

Not having women on World Cup teams isn’t discrimination, you say? How, exactly? Are the try-outs open to women? As far as I know (& I’m willing to stand corrected), there is no “separate but equal” league, or set of teams, that gets the same kind of attention, that represents their home countries on the world stage.

I will confess that it’s no skin off my nose not to watch because I don’t really like sports (and I’ve certainly got no truck with a field full of athletic men in shorts).

I’m not for quotas or lowering standards – though I’d ask my liberal friends to consider how full of shit that argument is when you apply it to any other category of human competition – just for opening the try-outs to women.