In a society dominated by sports, there is a constant magnifying glass on professional athletes and the hyper-masculinity that dominates sports culture. In professional sports team leagues across America there have only been a handful of professional athletes who have come out as gay and supported the LGBTQ community. There is a constant societal pressure in professional sports to maintain a sense of masculinity and strength. Particularly in sports such as football or basketball, which are contact sports that can often turn violent, weakness is not an option. The media preys on weakness and does not hesitate to blast players who come across as soft. Displaying femininity in the arena of professional sports for male athletes opens up the doors for sports commentators to bash on athletes and attribute their failures to their lack of masculinity.
Due to the hyperawareness of masculinity, the world of sports pushes men to show as many macho tendencies as they possibly can. In the NFL in particular, the entire sport of football is driven by heteronormative masculinity (https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/masculinity-is-killing-the-nfl-deflategate-wasl/). Players bang their heads against lockers before games, they pound their chests to induce a testosterone filled rage, and they even abstain from sex during football season, believing that this build up of testosterone will better their play on the field. When looking at Dude You’re a Fag, by C.J. Pascoe, the boys Pascoe discusses also engage in extreme heteronormative masculinity. The very essence of the book is these boys doing whatever they can to avoid being deemed a fag, and acting in a feminine manner. The boys, similarly to professional athletes, would only engage in activities that would make them look hyper masculine. This is very evident in a lot of endorsement deals done with professional athletes. The advertisements are often times done in a manner to target young boys who want to look like and act like their role models, who are the professional athletes. I’ve noticed in advertisements for professional basketball players, the ads focus on how to achieve the look of the player and mimic their actions to the best of one’s ability.
This complete focus on masculinity in professional sports can be very daunting to athletes who may be afraid to come out as gay. This arena is not a safe place where judgement is not present. Michael Sam was the first player in the NFL to be drafted after coming out as a gay man. While a good portion of people were very supportive of Michael Sam, he received serious backlash for kissing his boyfriend on camera when he found out he was drafted. This was considered a feminine action by a lot of sportscasters, who blamed Sam for not keeping the focus on his talent. However, when a straight player kisses his wife or girlfriend when being drafted, no one even looks twice.
This constant need to focus on masculinity in professional sports is discouraging for all young athletes who are afraid to be themselves and come out as who they are. As a society, we need to move away from this intense focus on heteronormative masculinity in sports and be accepting of all people.
It's interesting how you said that there has been only a handful of professional male athletes who have come out as part of the LGBTQ in the NBA and NFL. I've noticed that there is significantly more professional female athletes who have come out as part of the LGBTQ community especially in the WNBA and NWSL. For males, this is probably because coming out would make them seem less masculine perhaps in a testosterone-filled profession of sports. They may feel the need to upkeep this level of hypermasculinity and if they don't, they may unfortunately receive negative backlash from society. However, for females, having a sports profession already gives them an underlined label of being masculine, so it may simply just seem easier for these individuals to come out because they won't receive as much backlash than men.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me a lot of my experience as an athlete-turned-theater kid in high school. The majority of the insults I received for it were along the lines of homophobic or sexist comments. When I'd reply with examples of LGBT athletes, the normal response was "well, they're still less gay than you are." Like, what? How does that make any sense? It's exactly the same as some of the things Pascoe talks about, like how "fagness" can be conferred from person to person (and isn't necessarily gender specific). Nice post!
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