UNIT 6: Sexual Identity in Sport

NOTES:

-It is important to note the various forms of institutionalized homophobia and gender discrimination that exist the realm of sport which for centuries has been based on the gender binary.

-Gender is a socially constructed term based around concepts of dominant gender ideology and doesn’t always correspond to definitions of biological sex.

-Sport is often tied to traditional view of gender, which emphasizes heteronormative ideals, and LGBTQ persons disrupt that ideology.

-Sport is also a space of gender socialization and ideology that dictate certain ways bodies should look and determines types of masculinity and femininity are valued.

-Dominant sporting masculinity values aggressiveness, strength, domination, and heterosexuality and marginalizes athletes that don’t fit that mold.

-Dominant sporting masculinity has also bred a culture of silence which results in individuals are closeted about their sexuality in order to be accepted.

-Esera Tuaolo and John Amaechi are athletes that have come out but felt required to maintain their machismo in order to fit into dominant sporting masculinity.

-Women athletes constantly deal with negative reactions to showing any kind of masculinity in the sporting world.  Femininity is applauded and masculinity must mean lesbian!

-Hyperfeminity is the opposite of hypermasculinity and it values beauty, grace, and submissiveness.

-It’s important to understand the current state of gender and sexuality in this country is disassemble the hatred that leads to gay and lesbian teenagers accounting for the largest number of suicides amongst that age group.

FINAL THOUGHT:  Gender and sexual identity are complicated characteristics that are based around individuals understanding of themselves and the acceptance of others.  Slowly but surely, the paradigm is changing with more and more athletes coming out and the sports culture in going to have to appropriately adapt in order to be accepting to other genders and sexualities out side of male/female binary that is so pervasive and deep seated into American society.

Scholarly Research Analysis Protocol

Instructions: While reading the assigned text, answer the questions below in the space provided. 

Please use direct excerpts from the text whenever possible in your responses.

What structural features define this text as falling within the genre of scholarly/ academic writing? (Create a bulleted list.)

-The piece includes various details of the lives, trials, and tribulations of examples of transgender athletes.

-In order to truly conceive of the lives of transgender athletes, the article provides quotes and primary source documents of transgender athletes in order to comprehend their experiences dealing with social construction, bigotry, and gender identities first hand.

What is the argument statement of this text?  (Write one sentence.)

Playing fields have long been segregated on the basis of sex. But what happens to the athletes whose physiology doesn't match their gender identity? 

Identify the jargon of this text. [Jargon is specialized terminology characteristic of a particular discipline or area of theory.]  (Use bullets.)

-transgender

-gender identities

-reassignment surgery

-bodies

-gender

What are five statements that the author uses to support the argument statement? Use only direct excerpts; frame them with quotation marks, and note the page number.

1) "For transgender men and women, the physiological traits that distinguish them as male or female don't conform to how they feel about themselves". 

2) "In 2004 the International Olympic Committee ventured the first answer, ruling that any trans athlete who wants to compete against those not of their birth sex must undergo sex reassignment surgery and then two years of hormone therapy—either testosterone supplementation (to go from female to male) or testosterone suppression (to go from male to female)".

3) "Now, whether Godsey makes the Olympics or not, a new life awaits. He cannot help but admit that the throwing circle has long been his safe space: a place segregated by sex, yes, but one in which success does not depend on outward manifestations of gender—his genitalia, his clothing, his voice".

 4) "A physical therapist who was known as Kelly until his senior year of college, in 2005, Godsey is the first American Olympic contender in any sport to openly identify as transgender".

5) "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."

What values or views were represented in the message? (Write no more than three sentences.)

This piece almost feels like an introductory article about what it is to be a transgender person in Amercian sports culture.  Given that this was written in Sports Illusrated, I wonder how much of their readership understood transgender issues before reading this.  The reality is that gender needs to be navigated and considered as a spectrum which is a difficult thing to accomplish given that much of sporting culture is based around the gender binary.  This article encourages the importance of recognizing and accepting individual gender identities within the traditional sporting world.

LEARNING MODULE:

STEP 1:

When unveiling his support for equal marriage, Obama explained that he’s been “going through an evolution on this issue”.  He says that he originally hesitated on pushing the need for equal marriage further because he thought that “civil unions would be sufficient” and because he knows that the idea of marriage in this country is built “very powerful traditions, religious beliefs and so forth”.  He also sites watching his staff or soldiers in the army wanting to commit themselves in marriages he wants to be able to support that right to marriage for everyone.

STEP 2:

1) “2 out of 3 americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear”.

2) “The average homosexual is promiscuous.  He is not interested in or capable of a lasting relationship like that of heterosexual marriage”.

3) Ellen DeGeneres “On February 12, an openly gay 15 year old boy named Larry who was an eighth grader in Oxnard, CA was murdered by a fellow eighth grader named Brendan.  Larry was killed because he was gay.

Over the past 60 years in this country, homosexuality has been discriminated in many truly disgusting ways, with statements such as “2 out of 3 Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear” being a common place belief in the earlier part of the 20^th century up until today.  For a long time, people that didn’t understand that homosexuality is a sexuality people are born with, would think things like “the average homosexual is promiscuous.  He is not interested in or capable of a lasting relationship like that of heterosexual marriage”.  I think the human consciousness has evolved over the years, and stories like the one Ellen DeGenres told about the Larry King, the 15^th year old eighth grader that was murdered for being gay, are stories that people are truly terrified and disturbed by.  Slowly but surely the paradigm has shifted in America to the point that equal marriage was legalized on June 26, 2015.

STEP 3:

Bryant Gumbel editorial on Sean Avery’s coming out as gay in hockey world was really more of a chance for Gumbel to call out all mainstream sports for being so behind on not openly accepting homosexuality and wonders when such stories of coming out will become “common place. It’s 2011!”.  He explains that many other areas of American life such as politics, education, and media have begun to move past the “issue” of homosexuality and Gumbel wonders, “why is the sports world still lagging when the law says it needn’t be and logic says it shouldn’t be”.  He explains that he applauds Avery’s bravery to come out and that he admires the way Avery “isn’t making a big deal out of something that shouldn’t be” considered a big deal.

STEP 4:

The argument of this video is that while straight people assume that their own sexuality is “normal” or “natural” and that homosexuality is “foreign” or “unnatural” the reality is that they are not taking into account that no one has the ability to choose their life course and sexuality, it’s something each person is born with.

STEP 5:
I was extremely confused when watching the trailer for the film The Celluloid Closet.  The film appears originally appears to willing to discuss the issue of homosexual stereotypes and issues in film over the years but the tone of the trailer and the commentary is bright and happy.  This film appears to be groundbreaking film considering it's subject matter but instead comes off as more of a fluff piece with a bunch of A list actors talking about how they feel about Hollywood's view of homosexuality.

STEP 6:  It is incredibly ironic that Hilary Swank won the Academy Award for best actress playing a woman who identified as a man named Brandon.  Amercian culture and society is built upon ideas of labels and the binary that leads to very narrow ways of thinking.  In politics for example, for years there were only Democrats and Republicans, or men and women, or good and evil.  Gender is a spectrum, and I think it's very difficult for people to truly acknowledge that if they grew up in a heteronormative social construct.

STEP 7: The students from the "You Can Play Project" at Ohio University realize the various fears, inner struggles, and discrimination people face when wanting to join a sports team in college and they are working to make collegiate sports inclusive and supportive of all sporting participates regardless of factors of sexual orientation, religious belief, or race.