Women Address Gay Issue Panel Says Dialogue Needed To Combat Female Sports Biases
Women’s Sports Foundation panelists discussing lesbianism Saturday at Summit ‘95 suggested a stock answer for anyone who asks, “Are there a lot of gay women athletes?”
“Yes, there are lesbians who play sports,” said San Francisco psychiatrist Dee Mosbacher. “We don’t know how many.
“So?”
The issue examined at the Adolphus Hotel gathering of about 250 women’s sports leaders was one previously left untouched. However, recent comments attributed to CBS golf commentator Ben Wright have helped bring it out of the closet.
And so, before a packed conference room, WSF members Saturday found themselves immersed in debate over just how to counteract pervasive stereotyping that drives women out of sports.
Perhaps it was high time, even before Wright was quoted last week as saying the LPGA tour is being hindered by “paraded” lesbianism.
In 1989, an NCAA study showed 75 percent of female athletic administrators believed sexual-preference stereotyping has been a major barrier for attracting and retaining women in sports.
Moreover, 54 percent said their participation in sports led others to automatically assume they were lesbian, although there are no studies that have proved female athletes are more prone to homosexuality.
And, as Mosbacher pointed out, gender preference problems can be deadly. Gays statistically are 30 percent more likely than heterosexuals to commit suicide, she said.
“I think we need to stop questioning, ‘Are there lesbians in sport,”’ Mosbacher said. “Of course, there are lesbians. There are lesbians everywhere.”
The bottom line is that labeling is a form of discrimination against all women who participate in sports, Mosbacher said. “If you’re a man, there’s no way you’re gay,” she said.
The automatic questioning of female athletes’ sexual orientation, she said, is used as a tool to stop equal access to sports facilities, jobs and participation.
Carole Oglesby, a Temple professor and chair of the physical education department, went further. She pointed to the reception in America’s Cup sailing circles of the all-women crew for America3. She heard the entry being identified as the “lesbo boat,” which she says points clearly to the warped logic of discrimination.
“I felt many people were missing a core assumption - that real women weren’t able to sail,” Oglesby said.
That assumption is a slap in the face to all women, she said. It makes women afraid to express bonds with other women, she said. And, she said, it makes women afraid to even get involved.
As a practical matter, said Mills College athletic director Helen Carroll, women’s sports leaders must begin addressing the lesbian issue because athletes are already discussing it among themselves.
“Most teams in their first practice are looking at each other saying, ‘Who is? Who isn’t? Is the coach? Maybe,”’ said Carroll, a former coach who now leads her school’s Oakland, Calif., athletic department.
The theme of the panel was best summed up in a video prepared by Mosbacher. In it, Martina Navratilova talks as the camera focuses on the joyous celebration that ended the 1994 NCAA women’s basketball championship.
“If that person sinks a 3-pointer with 2 seconds to go and we’re down by two, I don’t think you’re going to care if she’s Jewish or black or gay or anything,” Navratilova says. “You just want to make sure that she makes that shot.”