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Helping
black athletes out of the closet
By
Dan Woog
"We're
here. We're queer. We're gay student-athletes, and also
people of color."
OK, so
that's not the jazziest sports slogan since "Just do it."
But it's reality for more folks than anyone in either the
gay or black community realizes.
Lea
Robinson's mission is to bring young gay athletes of color
out of the closet and into what she hopes will be a better,
more comfortable place for everyone.
The
pressures on African-American LGBT athletes are immense, and
no one has felt them more strongly than Robinson. A
basketball player at Western
Kentucky University
from 1990 to 1994, she spent the next 12 years coaching
Divisions I and III women's hoops. She had few lesbian role
models of any race, and struggled as a player and coach with
both homophobia and racism.
When
Robinson was an assistant at one school, the head coach told
her to "recruit thoroughbreds from across the track" - in
other words, athletic black females. However, she was told,
"Be sure they’re not too manly."
"Sometimes
I felt I was there just to relate 'across the tracks,'" she
says. "In many cases, coaches of color are hired primarily
to recruit and relate to student-athletes of color. We're
seldom in positions of power or positions in which we make
crucial decisions." She felt she could not confront the head
coach about the "thoroughbreds" comment.
But after
several years of coaching from the closet, Robinson met the
woman who is now her partner. "Elizabeth
was finishing her Ph.D., and totally out," Robinson recalls.
"I thought it would be damaging to my young career to be out
in women's basketball, but we both knew we had to figure out
a way to make it work."
Robinson
came out at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, but at
her next job - Morehead
State
University in
Kentucky
- the environment was tougher. Things were better at the
University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
especially after Robinson found Helen Carroll and the
National
Center for Lesbian Rights' Sports
Project. "I realized I could have a voice for LGBT people
and people of color, in sports as well as academics,"
Robinson says. She spoke on panels and at workshops.
Recently,
she enrolled in an education program at
Suffolk
University in
Boston. This fall she began studying
for her master's degree, and thanks to a fellowship is
working in Suffolk's
Office of Diversity Services with LGBT students and students
of color. "An amazing chapter of my life is opening up," she
says.
That
chapter will include a significant project. One of
Robinson's major goals is to develop a leadership program
helping gay students of color make the transition from high
school to college.
Drawing on
models like "It Takes a Team" - the Women's Sports
Foundation kit that teaches athletes, coaches, and
administrators about diversity - and "University 101" -
which instructs college freshmen about academic, health, and
time management - Robinson's leadership program will
introduce African-American LGBT students to resource
centers, wellness centers, and mentors.
"If you're
a person of color and you step onto a new campus, you may
find not a lot of people look like you," she explains.
"Finding communities of color may become very important to
you. If you're also queer, you wonder: Will I alienate
myself from these communities if I come out? In many cases,
being queer is seen as a 'white thing.' Queer students of
color may not know what resources are available, or how to
find them."
For
athletes - often insulated from campus life by the demands
and traditions of their teams - the issues are even
thornier. "Student-athletes also need to be able to find
community, and find the confidence to be open with their
teammates and coaches in expressing themselves," Robinson
says. "We as educators would like to help them work through
those issues."
Robinson
acknowledges that male and female gay athletes of color face
different challenges. "I think it's even more dangerous for
men to come out," she notes. "But I'd like more young men of
color to have the confidence and support to be out and
visible in standing up for LGBT issues within their
communities. Hopefully, this program will encourage dialogue
surrounding the issues and defining the processes."
Robinson
points to herself as an example of someone who could have
used such a program. "As a student-athlete, I found myself
having to suppress a very important part of my identity.
Even as a coach, I felt I was holding a certain part of
myself back. We need more out people of color in athletics,
so we can sit and talk about our families.
"We lose
too many queer people of color at the door," Robinson
concludes. "Instead of being forced to choose, they must
realize they can have a community, too. We just have to help
them find it."
 Dan Woog
is a journalist, educator, soccer coach, gay activist, and
author of the "Jocks" series of books on gay male athletes.
Visit his website at
www.danwoog.com. He can be reached at
dwoog@optonline.net.
Nov. 27,
2007 |
