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Rodeo: Cowgirl revolution |
Like many sports, rodeo is still
obsessed with the ruggedly masculine. Yet in the sport’s
beginning, women actually enjoyed some equality -- along
with a little room for unconventional gender profiles.
Indeed, rodeo, and the LGBT people in it, has a history of
bloody battles about “gender appropriate” events and dress
code. |
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Basketball: Evolving from "muscular
Christianity" |
Certain sports seem to be a
tougher nut to crack than others – they are more homophobic,
more fiercely resistant to change. In the United States,
basketball makes the short list of “tough nuts,” along with
football and baseball. Among the three, basketball stands
out because of its unique history, which gives it a special
place in American culture that even football and baseball
don’t have. |
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Horse racing: George Villiers, 2nd Duke
of Buckingham |
My take on Villiers is
different. He’s a fascinating character -- a mercurial mix
of opportunist and idealist, over-achiever and n’er-do-well.
Not only did George have passionate convictions in personal
and religious freedom in a violent and intolerant time, but
he lived out those convictions in a sex life that would
stand out today – and he almost got himself executed for it.
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Auto racing: You go fast, girl! |
Many LGBT
people have their own love affair with cars. In motor
sport, four race-car drivers have come out since the
Seventies – three professionals and one amateur. One of the
four is an extraordinary transgender story that exploded
right in the NASCAR he-man heartland, complete with a
glimpse of girl’s panties through a torn fire-suit as a top
stock-car driver is hauled out of a wreck. |
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Hyacinth:
Immortal of the discus |
There’s a
myth about Hyacinth and how the god Apollo loved him. But,
as many historians admit, the core of myth is real history.
Ancient historians can help us reconstruct who the real
Hyacinth might have been. It’s yet another story that shows
how gay people have influenced sports since the earliest
times. |
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Equestrian:
Olympian Robert Dover |
Dover has not felt compelled to hide his
sexual orientation in recent years, nor his 16-year
relationship with Robert Ross, long-time associate in
horseshowing. Indeed, while baseball and some other sports
are still danger zones for GLBT athletes, the equestrian
world doesn’t appear to have huge issues with sexual
orientation. |
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Equestrian:
Carson Kressley |
There he was on my TV screen -- Carson
Kressley, style savant of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."
But he wasn't standing in a trendy shop talking about style
at the top of that nasal falsetto of his. He was standing
in a barn ... talking about equestrian sport. The half-hour
special was airing on RFD-TV, as part of its evening
equestrian coverage, and Kressley was the host.
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Gay Stallions and Tomboy Mares |
There may be
another reason why we give the horse a place at our sports
table. Unlike other domestic animals, we saddle the horse
with some significant baggage about sexuality and gender. |
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following profiles below are no longer online but can be
found in the book,
"The Lavender Locker Room: 3000 Years of Great Athletes
Whose Sexual Orientation Was Different" |
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George Villiers: Horse breeder and lover
of a king |
The two
men saw each other not only as lover but also as family.
George called the King “my dear Dad and Gossope” (meaning
“chum”). James called George “my sweet and only child,” “my
wife,” and wore a tiny portrait miniature of George inside
his waistcoat, next to his heart. |
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Rodeo: The real gay cowboys |
Unlike pro
rodeo, the rainbow circuit has stayed amateur by choice, so
it is open to community participation. The old formula is
pretty much the same: the core events, the announcer with
his drawly patter, the colorful grand entry, the flags
carried by galloping riders -- Old Glory and Old Rainbow
fluttering side by side. But the gender bars have tumbled
here. Women get to ride broncs and bulls, while men get to
compete in barrel racing, traditionally a female event.
Last but not least, LGBT creative minds have created new
events for tenderfoots -- like "goat dressing," where you
wrassle a pair of men’s boxer shorts onto a goat. |
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Skiing: Erik Schinegger |
After six
months of surgery, the world champion walked out of the
clinic wearing men’s clothes and a first name that was
legally changed to Erik. Determined to pick up his career,
Schinegger joined the men’s Europa Tour, amid a tabloid news
storm. The International Ski Federation (FIS) did not impede
his competing as a man, and he won three races in the winter
of 1968-69. One would think that the Austrian ski
establishment might have supported him in his new life. |
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Achilles and Patroclus
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I get
more irritated at the film industry’s cowardice about gay
themes in big-budget pictures. In "Troy," Tinseltown de-gayed
one of the great gay couples of all time, Achilles and
Patroclus, whose relationship is documented in many ancient
sources. Along the way, “Troy” missed the boat on
something else too – namely, the sizzling sports fest of
those funeral games held in Patroclus’ honor. Indeed, we
can safely say that Western sportswriting started with the
Iliad’s riveting report on those games. |
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Author:
Jim Bouton |
So now the
big question is – will a gay player ever come out while he’s
still playing? Not long ago, ESPN asked Bouton: “Do you
think baseball players are ‘ready’ to accept gay players?”
Bouton’s
answer: “I think they are ready, as ready as players
were for Jackie Robinson. Enough players will accept him at
first, and those who don't accept him will be the ones who
get traded. You can't wait for every single player to accept
a gay player. … I think it will be healthy for the country
for a good player to come out.” |
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Swimming:
Diana Nyad |
Often an
athlete’s fierce inner battle over sexual orientation can
drive that person into an equally fierce battle with outer
challenges and barriers in the sport and society itself.
Pilots talk about “pushing the envelope,” a term for taking
an aircraft to the limits of its technical capabilities. In
sports, the “craft” is usually the human body. Nobody
pushes that envelope harder than the gifted athlete who is
still closeted or struggling to come out. And nowhere do we
see this phenomenon more clearly than in the sports that
some call “extreme”, where humans test their own nerve,
skill, training and talent in a manner that’s off the scale
for most people. |
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Heroine:
Joan of Arc |
Even in Joan’s lifetime, many people pondered her gender and
sexuality. At the nullification hearings, her former
confessor Jean Pasquerel testified: “I have heard it said
that Joan, when she came to the King, was examined by women
to know how it was with her, whether she was a man or a
woman.”
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Football:
David Kopay |
Kopay is
anything but your typical geezer jock who’s ready for green
pastures. He’s emotionally, spiritually and intellectually
angry about where our country is heading, and politically
determined to make a difference. In short, Dave is getting
back in shape for the road games of activist politics.
“I
may retire economically, meaning from my office job,” he
says, “but I have no intention of retiring. There’s
too much to do.” |
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Athlete: Ana María Sagi |
The shattered
relationship would become the benchmark of Sagi’s life. As she later
told De Prada, she decided to dedicate the rest of her life to
Mulder’s lost love. She wrote openly about loving a woman, but the
woman was not identified. Her poetry became a javelin launched into
the blue, into the very face of heaven, and would not touch earth
again till the day she died. |
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Tennis:
Martina Navratilova |
We live in a time of global obsession with
youth, with the 15 minutes of fame. But Martina Navratilova
is that rarity in sports – the icon that endures. As this
great tennis player nears 50, we may not have seen the last
of the Navratilova revolutions. |
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Boxing: Bad
boy of the ring |
Privately, if he
talked about his sex life, Norbert made it clear that the
Beatle Boxer had taken on all contenders, regardless of
gender. But we never saw Norbert with girlfriends or
boyfriends in tow. He seemed to be the perennial loner. |
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Fencing:
Gay blades |
Ultimately the sword can still teach us about balance -- about the
dark side of humanity but the bright side of our human potential as
well. Today, many young GLBT Americans who re-discover sport fencing
may be looking for that bright side – to remind themselves that they
have the right to fight back, to claim their full rights as human
beings. |
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Skating:
Gay pioneers |
U.S. figure skating suffers from a distinct
kind of home-grown homophobia. Not only does the attitude
infect the sport from within –- from some skaters, coaches,
judges, fans and sponsors, but it also infects the sport
from outside. |
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Alberto Santos-Dumont:
Pioneer of flight |
Alberto could
have dallied in women without censure. But he never went
beyond courteously kissing a woman’s hand. Indeed, he was
never rumored to be doing anything that a heterosexual man
of the Gilded Era did if he was avid for female company.
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Babe Didrikson Zaharias: Golfing Amazon
of the newsreels |
Half a century after her death, this woman’s
achievements still leave feminists and historians
breathless. Professor Carolyn A. Thompson, who teaches
diversity studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania,
states: “There was hardly a sport in which Babe Didrikson
did not excel." |
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Amelia Earhart:
'Odd Girl' of Air Racing |
Slowly, Amelia
Earhart began to stand out. It wasn't her flying -- she was
clearly competent, but there were better pilots in the
bunch. And it wasn't the tomboy thing -- Earhart wasn't the
most flagrant tomboy around. She didn't even smoke
cigarettes! Maybe it was her dignity and quiet modesty, and
her passionate devotion to women's issues. Maybe it was the
fact that the camera loved her. |
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John
Damien's
Last Ride |
Damien found
himself facing two ministers, and was flabbergasted to learn
that the Ontario Racing Commission and the Jockey Club were
refusing to reappoint him as steward. It was a bolt from the
blue, but he instinctively knew why.
"Is it because I'm a homosexual?" he asked. |
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The
Olympics:
The Early Days of Gender Testing
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The real reason
why gender became an issue at the Olympic Games, back in the
mid-1900s, is almost forgotten -- along with the two Soviet
sisters whose "masculine" appearance pushed gender testing
into place. |
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Bill Tilden:
Tennis pioneer |
He
got more arrogant and cantankerous with success, throwing
tantrums, tossing rackets and arguing with officials. Partly
his arrogance came from an intense sense of sportsmanship,
and his determination to have his way with what he perceived
as a bad call by the linesman. But many players hated him,
and the public often booed him. Society was aghast.
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