Questioning in Silence

Starting my sophomore year, I’ve written a blog post every year on the Day of Silence. While the rest of the nation participated in Day of Silence on Friday, we were busy celebrating our seniors in Lavender Graduation (2012, what’s up!?). As a result, the Blue Devils United Executive Board decided that here at Duke, we’d observe DOS tomorrow.

Which leads me to this post.  

Tomorrow, I’m silent for those who are questioning in silence. After all, I was one of them for far too long.

So what kept me from talking about it? At the time that I came out as questioning on the blog, I wrote that there were “approximately 12318023 barriers along the way.” Here’s four of them. And, while I can’t say that these are the barriers that every person who is questioning faces, I also don’t believe that they are entirely unique unto me.

1. I didn’t want to be “Just another gay LGBTQ Rights Activist” It might be hard for some people to believe, but I’m not an LGBTQ rights activist because of my own sexuality. My activism has and always will stem from the “ally” part of me—the part of me that believes that all people deserve respect, equality, dignity, and safety. It’s the part of me that embraces MLK’s quote, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter,” and out retired NBA player John Amechi’s quote, "Why speak, why act, why exist if not to change the world?"

I didn’t want to be “just another gay LGBTQ rights activist,” because I’m not. I might be gay or bi or something other than straight. And I’m definitely an activist. But those identities aren’t connected for me. To this day, when I advocate to vote against Amendment 1, it’s not because someday I might want to marry a woman. It’s because I believe all people deserve the right to the legal protections and benefits that come with marriage. As people in this community understand all too well, it’s not fun being taken for something you’re not. Coming out as questioning jeopardized people understanding my motives for being an activist.

2. I didn’t want to be “Just Another Gay Female Athlete/Women’s Sports Fan” What I learned from this is that stereotypes hurt people. Both people who are and aren’t a stereotype feel the need to continually prove that they’re not. Specifically, people who fit a stereotype want to be seen as an individual—not as an archetype. The female athlete/women’s sports fan stereotype, especially, kept me from embracing who I might be. I didn’t want people to think I was just another gay female athlete/women’s sports fan, because once again, those things are obviously unrelated for me. And because I’m so much more. I was afraid people wouldn’t get that. So I denied that I was questioning—to myself and others.

3. I didn’t want to talk about it until I had answers/a girlfriend/etc That’s pretty simple. Explaining what you might be and what you might not be—well, it’s confusing and complicated and most people, even if they are embracing/affirming/etc, don’t get it. I didn’t want to “come out” if I was just going to decide that I was actually straight. And if I did decide I was gay/bi/queer, I didn’t want to come out until I had a significant other, because, it seemed pretty irrelevant.

4. No One Else Talked About Questioning Even in the LGBT Center, where people are eccentric and own their quirks…nobody once talked about questioning (in my presence). Everybody seemed to know where they stood—seemed to have this story that they popped out of the womb gay and have known since then. I felt like I was the only one to ever struggle with this, and I didn’t even have words for it.

Obviously, I’ve learned to put those woes aside. People might think that I’m an activist because I’m questioning and they might think I’m just a stereotypical female athlete and women’s sports fan, but they’d be wrong on both accounts. There isn’t much I can do about it, though, and it isn’t worth my time or energy to worry. It sure isn’t worth my energy to be ashamed of who I am because of their narrow views.

I’ve also since learned to live with and embrace questioning. Anybody who’s ever taken a class with me (dating back to kindergarten) knows that questions are what I do best. It seems that this is just another area of my life where that’s true.

It probably won't surprise people reading this who know me that patience isn’t my strength.  In typical Risa fashion, I got tired of waiting to have to talk about my sexuality. Now, I’m not sure I’ll ever have answers—and I’m finally okay with that.

Lastly, I learned that if I want people to talk about questioning, I’ve got to be the one to talk about it. Nobody can share my story if I don’t. I didn’t have the role models I wished I would have had—but I can be a mentor, an ear, a support system for someone else. As I see it, I have an accepting family and community, and so it’s my responsibility to help in any small way I can. I want to empower others to share their stories of uncertainty and coming into their own.

On the Day of Silence, our collective silence is loud. But in everyday life, the silence around questioning is desperately lonely.

My Bubby and Pop Pop

February 7th marked the 15th anniversary of my grandmother (Grandmom)’s death. I was in the second grade when she died, and here I am, about to graduate college. Her husband, my grandfather (Grandpop) died when I was only four years old. I never really got to know either one of them, which continues to upset me to this day. I can’t really talk about either of them (or write this post) without crying. There are so many things about my life that they never saw and that they will never know. A few things stick in my mind as pretty significant: my Bat Mitzvah in 2002, that I’m here at Duke, that my parents divorced (after 30 years), that my sexuality defies labels.

I am incredibly fortunate that both of my mom’s parents (Bubby and Pop Pop) are around and that we’re really close. They have been there for my Bat Mitzvah, have visited me here at Duke, and were incredibly supportive during my parent’s divorce. Still, I haven’t come out to either of them. They’re always telling me how proud they are of me and I’m afraid that probably not being 100% straight will change that.

My Pop Pop is 87 years old and has his share of health ailments. Most recently, right before Thanksgiving, he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. On a night when my mind raced and I couldn’t sleep, I started writing him a letter. I wanted to tell him how much I loved him and to thank him for so many of the opportunities in my life. In part, I wrote:

“I know this isn’t the happiest letter, but pretending that your health woes don’t exist won’t make you better. It will just mean that we don’t ever talk about them, or about this.”

About this. I knew where I meant to be going with this letter. I wanted to thank him for always pushing me to never settle, for sparking my interest in history from a young age, for that family vacation we took. And yet, the letter could have gone in an entirely different way.

About this. My “I love you; thank you” seemed to be writing itself into some sort of coming out letter. I never did give him the letter—I never got around to finishing it. Then I learned that his doctors no longer characterized his condition as congestive heart failure, and it seemed less imperative.

But on this 15 year marker of my Grandmom’s death, and as I reflect on all the things I wish I could have shared with her and my Grandpop, I can’t help but think that I still have a chance to do this whole grandparent thing right, albeit with my mom’s parents and not my dad’s. So what’s holding me back?

I want to be The Perfect granddaughter. It’s flawed that in my mind, coming out to them would jeopardize this. I don’t think being anything other than 100% straight makes anyone less “perfect,” but they’re two generations older. They might. It seems so different.

And yet, my grandparents have (inconsistently) hinted to me that it’d be okay with them if I wasn’t straight! My Pop Pop, a retired surgeon, still receives the American Medical Association Magazine monthly. This summer, when I was visiting, he pulled out two articles on LGBTQ health and left them at my place at the table. “I thought this might interest you,” he told me. A few months earlier, he told me that the symphony was a great place to take a date—whether they are a man or “a special lady friend.” Other instances like this pepper the last year. My Bubby has been less gentle in our conversations about my involvement with BDU, some of my academic work, living in Women’s Housing, etc. But she reads the blog on occasion, and I have reason to believe that she came across my coming out post.

So, really, the only thing left to do is to talk about it. Which is exactly what I plan to do when I see them in April for Passover.

My Security Blanket, a Sentence

(Averted eye contact) “So…like…ugh, I don’t know…okay…okay…I guess…like……….I’m in a place in my life…”

I can’t tell anyone how to come out, or even that they should come out. Everyone needs to do what is best for their specific situation. Some people like writing letters while others prefer sending text messages. Some people simply change the ‘interested in’ portion on their facebook, and still others have the conversation face to face. For some people, coming out isn’t an option. It may not be physically safe or it may alienate them from their family (and financial resources).

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have been born into a family with a feminist mom and a mostly egalitarian father; my brother is your basic socially liberal person of my same generation and does his own thing in life. I may from an overwhelmingly conservative state (hey, John McCain), but my personal community of friends and mentors is mostly a liberal one.

Under the above circumstances, I made the decision to come out in person, wherever possible. By middle of this past summer, I’d come out to my immediate family, whichever extended family came across this on my facebook, and all of my close friends. (Random fun fact: I didn’t actually call it ‘coming out’ for a really long time. I much preferred to say that I ‘told people.’ ‘Coming out’ seemed like such a scary term.)

Sometimes, I tried to weave it into conversation. Other times, I pulled a friend aside and just went for it. Regardless of how it happened, I usually flubbed around at the beginning (see above) and then found myself relying on the same sentence, verbatim: “I’m in a place in my life where I’m questioning my sexuality. I’ve found that I’m mostly not attracted to people, which makes knowing who you’re attracted to a little complicated.”

Then I’d explain that I’m open to dating men, women, and gender nonconforming folks, and would elaborate about my feminist philosophies of why gender is confining and shouldn’t matter. I’d word vomit more of my theories about sex and sexuality (which CP kindly termed ‘a mindfuck’) and end by saying something like “so, yeah…that’s where I’m at.”

That everyone affirmed my experience, told me “Yeah, that makes sense” or “yeah, that’s cool” and chuckled at the part where I circularly explained “I’m not attracted to people, so I don’t know who I’m attracted to” made the rest of the conversation and coming out to the next person that much easier.

Yet, the most comforting part of the whole situation was having my sentences. They were like a security blanket. Even after using those exact words on just two or three occasions, it got easier and easier to say them. By the end, I didn’t even have to think about what I was saying. I knew they’d be there for me.

I never practiced in front of a mirror (though that might work for some people). I didn’t even intentionally use the same sentences each time. But at some point, I realized what I was doing and went with it.

So, I can’t tell you how you should come out or that you should. But if you’re looking for things that have worked for other folks, might I recommend standardizing your explanation.

More in the Closet than Ever Before

[Author's note: I wrote the crux of this post in mid-June. I didn't post it then because while writing helps me to process things and get things off my chest, I'm not always comfortable publicly sharing things I write when the issues are still raw. Now that I'm comfortably past this experience, it seems especially relevant given the nature of going 'home for the holidays.' A lot of people spend the semester out of the closet and engaging in activities related to their LGBTQ identity. If someone isn't out at home, leaving Duke means wrapping all of that back up (see Jonathan's post from yesterday). For me, the only thing harder than coming out of the closet to people the first time was going back in the closet when I moved to a new community for my summer job as a camp counselor.]

I always knew that when people weren't out it took a lot of extra energy on their part to hide that identity. I spent the last several years of my life not out, and in some ways, I'm still not. For one thing, I don't identify as anything. But also, there are people who don't know that about me and who I've intentionally not told. Through this half-in and half-out thing, I've come to understand the potential struggle that closeted, or only partially out, people feel in a way that I never did before, even though I, too, was in the closet. In many ways, it really does feel like living two separate lives.

I only had two weeks at home between my post-school travels and coming to camp. My time was so limited that it forced me to talk about my sexuality a lot. After all, there were a lot of people I needed to fill in. After filling those people in, I posted my blog post, coming out to all of cyberspace. The very next day, I came to camp.

It was weird spending so much time talking about my sexuality and then coming to a place with lots of new people and others to whom I was not out. Those from camp whom I told, via sending them my blog, and I didn't really get to talk about it--they read the blog and that was that.

I'm not sure how much of my identity my sexuality (or lack thereof) is. During those two weeks at home, though, it was a really big focus in my life. After all, it was my first time home in over 5 months and I'd been waiting to tell my high school best friends and immediate family that I was questioning my sexuality in person. I had two weeks to come out some 15 or so times. And then I came to camp--where my complicated sexuality simply doesn't exist.

Even during all the years when I was "in the closet" I never felt like I was in the closet the way I do right now. Every small group discussion we had about our year, I wonder whether I should bring it up. After all, coming to terms with this was a huge part of my year (as in, The Biggest development in my life). I debate with myself in my head, until its my turn to talk. And then I choose--to tell or not to tell. In the end, I've done different things in different situations. But before now, I never debated in my head whether or not to share. (Because it was just a "duh" thing; of course I wasn't going to bring it up.) And I never felt like I was being deceitful when I didn't share this with people. I guess I never felt like I was hiding something, because I wasn't talking about it with anyone. But now that I am, it all feels so different.

In an unexpected way, I spent the last ten months coming out of the closet, but the truth is, I've never felt more in the closet than I do right now.

[Author's note, part ii: I want to make it very clear that my camp's environment played no role in my anxiety. On several occasions during staff week and the summer, our director made it very clear that this was a safe space for counselors and campers of all sexualities (Bravo v'todah, Rav).]

[Author's note, part iii: I'm happy to report that this feeling did not last long. The contrast between the two weeks before camp and the first few days at camp was the source of my frustration. So once I made it past the few days, things calmed down. I didn't come out to everyone, but by the end of the summer, I'd told the people I wanted to tell, even had an age and time appropriate conversation about it with some of my high school campers, and stopped second guessing myself. (Bravo v'todah, Self)]

Girl Crushes

[Author's Note: I originally wrote this post in mid-June.]

Step 1. Tell someone I’m questioning my sexuality (see a future post on how this goes)
Step 2. That person asks if I have a crush on a girl
Step 3. Tell that person, “No.”
Step 4. That person asks if I have ever had a crush on a girl
Step 5. Tell that person, “I don’t know.”
Step 5½. Sound stupid.

The questioning process has raised well, a lot of questions for me. I’ve spent a lot of time examining past crushes (on boys) and past friendships (with girls). I’ve thought about my current friendships, with both boys and girls. I’ve wondered about the many (female) role models I had while growing up.

All of that said, I can’t actually tell you if I’ve ever had a crush on a girl. Maybe it sounds ridiculous for someone who has never had a crush on a girl to be questioning her sexuality. In fact, I remember the first time I told someone I was questioning and they asked me about my crush history. I knew it didn’t really add up. But not having crushes also doesn’t really add up.

So I thought that maybe I had crushes that I just didn’t recognize as crushes, for whatever reason. Maybe I experienced the same feelings that others experience when they’re crushing on someone, but don’t call it a crush. Maybe I had a crush on a guy at some point, but brushed it aside. Maybe I had a crush on a woman and didn’t know because I wasn’t open to feeling those things.

Well, I feel pretty confident that I haven’t recently had a crush on a guy. I have a little more experience with those, and think I’d recognize it as familiar (for instance, five year old Risa was pretty fond of her brother’s 3rd grade best friend, Kyle. And if you're wondering, recent facebook stalking has proven that five year old Risa had great tastes and a keen ability to project future looks).

On the other hand, all of my friends who are queer women have told me that after coming out they realized that they had a crush on such and such a person (or x, y, and z people). But I don’t really know how I’m supposed to know that. I don’t remember ever feeling sexual attraction for my childhood best friend(s) or any other woman in my life—but admittedly, I wasn’t super open to the idea when I was younger (since I thought I knew I was straight). I don’t know how I’m supposed to remember exactly what that friendship was like, so many years after it dissolved, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to know whether whatever those feelings were would constitute a “crush.”

What does it even mean to have a crush on someone? There are tons of people (both men and women) in my life about whom I am crazy. With all of these people, I am invested in their lives, they make me laugh and smile, I’m always excited to see them, I like talking with them, I trust them, I admire and respect them and I want them to have a role in my life for as long as I live. Would I make out with those people? Yeah, probably, sure, I guess; if they started it. But I don’t have any desire or need to do that with them. “Yeah, probably, sure, I guess; if they started it” isn’t exactly the kind of attitude I imagine someone having about a crush.

This exercise of reflecting and examining left me without many answers. And then I read this blog post by a woman who realized what all of her past relationships were missing: “The Ripping Off His Clothes Factor.” She dated a guy who she loved to be around, talk and laugh with, but with whom she didn’t have any sexual chemistry. Now that she is dating another man, one with whom she loves to be around, talk and laugh with, and for whom she has a desire to rip his clothes off, she understands that the personality characteristics aren’t enough on which to base a relationship. (Apparently) there is more to a crush than thinking someone is an amazing human being who compliments you in life. Her wisdom led me to conclude that all of these amazing women in my life are just that—wonderful women and fantastic friends—and that the few men in my life with whom I am close are some of the best friends I could ask for.

So, have I ever had a crush on a girl? Not that I know of.
Have I ever had a crush on a guy? Yes, but not in years.

Which, in short, is why I’m “questioning.”

The Best Part of Questioning

I spent a lot of years hating, really hating, the fact that I was questioning my sexuality. A lot of that probably has to do with the reason why I was questioning, because I really wanted to feel the things that I was “supposed” to be feeling as a high schooler and college student (read: having crushes, experiencing sexual attraction). But I also just really wanted an answer. I wanted it now and I didn’t want to talk about it until then. A year ago, you could never have convinced me that there was an upside to this process. So if that’s where you are right now, I get that, and I won’t try to convince you otherwise.

But as I’ve grown more comfortable with myself, with other people knowing and finally being ‘out’ for some time now, I’ve realized there is at least one really fun thing about questioning: ambiguity. I just really like playing with the ambiguity and flexibility of it all.

It’s fun to hang out in the LGBT Center and make comments with sexual innuendo towards the same sex. And it’s fun to make similarly risqué ‘straight’ comments in other spaces. I get to go to gay bars and play up the potential that I’m gay/bi/queer, basically trying on that identity, if you will. But I also can easily go out to a place like Shooters and interact with men with the possibility of it meaning something, in a way I couldn’t in an LGBT space. Dancing with men is not limited to ‘straight’ spaces, though. There are few things more fun than playing heterosexual in LGBT spaces. I love dancing with gay men because these experiences are as pressure-free as they come. Dancing with guys at Lav Ball, for example, allows me to play the conventional social role of a woman without worrying about the “what-ifs” of the dance. And even better, there is no need for me to get down on myself when I’m not attracted to my dance partner.

Finding the freedom to explore and play with sexuality and traditional gender roles is just that—freeing. It's not just liberating, though. Pushing the bounds of conventionality and inhabiting this ambiguous space as someone who is questioning is actually quite fun.

The Real World?

[Author's note: I wrote this in a moment of frustration last semester. I spent the first month of my summer break professionally networking and found that it isn't as black and white as I first thought it was. That said, I think that the professional world-gothic wonderland dichotomy is something that many student readers of this blog will experience, especially as they get closer to graduation. Here is a look at the choices I found myself facing as I wrote my resume. Also, I'd be remiss not to mention that Kyle Knight (Trinity '08/Duke LGBT Network President/published Fulbright Scholar) and Todd Sears (Trinity '98/Duke LGBT Network board member) wrote an especially relevant column in last week's Chronicle.]

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"Welcome to the real world," she said to me, condescendingly, "take a seat, take your life, plot it out in black and white"...They love to tell you stay inside the lines, that something's better on the other side...I wanna run through the halls of my high school, I wanna scream at the top of my lungs, I just found out there's no such thing as the real world, just a lie you got to rise above...I just can't wait til my 10 year reunion, I'm gonna bust down the double doors, and when I stand on these tables before you, you will know what all this time was for." ~John Mayer

At Duke, I surround myself with affirming, passionate, and eccentric individuals. Sure, we’re in the minority, but with the sheer number of absolutely amazing individuals in my life, I hardly feel that way anymore. In my communities, being a member of the LGBTQA community and identifying as a feminist are points of pride. Unfortunately, I have to start thinking about what exists outside of our gothic wonderland—I have to make myself marketable to future employers. And, depending on the type of job I’m looking for, those aren’t necessarily the keywords I should use to describe myself.

I don’t personally identify with a label like lesbian, gay, bi, trans or queer, but being a member of the LGBTQA community and as of recently, openly questioning, still has repercussions. I don’t ever want to have to feel like I have to choose between what I believe in (which is the foundation of my involvement in the Community, but more on that in a future post), who my friends are (who I love! Sound familiar?), and “making something of myself.” And yet, here I am, being forced to choose.

If I’m applying for a job in the progressive nonprofit world, I’m all set. They love feminists and queers. But if I’m applying for something else, something more corporate and capitalistic, I run into this problem of what to include on a resume and cover letter and what to “hide” or at least not flaunt.

I’m proud to be a member of the LGBTQA community and a feminist. I’m proud to be BDU Blog Editor. I’m proud to have been on the review boards for WOMYN Magazine and Unzipped (Duke’s Journal for Gender and Sexuality). I’m proud to write for Develle Dish and live in Women’s Housing. And damn it, I’m proud as hell to be fighting for equality and dignity for all people.

Really, it comes back to a fundamental question I’ve always wondered as an activist: should I work within the system, or outside of it?

It is better for me to submit a resume which makes it clear that I’m actively involved with the LGBTQA and feminist communities, maybe get over looked because I might be deemed ‘militant,’ but hopefully end up with something in the end, even if it wasn’t my first choice or the most lucrative or I don’t have as many options? I'd be standing up for my idealist principles, after all.

Or is it better for me to present myself in a way which is acceptable to those who are going to be hiring me, get my first choice job/have a lot of job options, gain a reputation, and then break out my rainbow superhero cape and feminazi bullhorn? Maybe that'd even make more progress, because I'd be in an environment where maybe feminism and lgbtqa activism wasn't the norm? But do I even want to work somewhere where that isn't the norm?

And if I take out my commitment to the LGBTQA and feminist communities, what do I have to even put on my resume? “This is Risa Isard…she spent four years attending classes and getting pretty good grades.”

Or maybe, I’m not giving the corporate world enough credit? Maybe they’d totally LOVE to hire “Risa Isard, unapologetic activist for all things gay and feminist!”

All I gotta say is…I hope they don’t google me (which they will), find this blog post (which they will, cause BDU Blog is awesome at search engine optimization), realize that my resume is only half the story (still to be determined), and end up judging me for the half I’ve left off, anyways. ‘Cause that’d sure be a waste of trying to present myself in a way that isn’t threatening to the status quo.

2015ers Leading the Way

Well, if there was ever any question about the role that the class of 2015 would play on campus, let me assure you that they are here and already blazing a trail.

I sort of “came out” in class today (is that what it’s called when you’re questioning and in a complicated place with things?). But I shouldn’t get any credit. Really, the credit should go to the first year student who came out within the first five minutes of class. And who, in doing so, showed me that it could, in fact, be done and that our classroom was safe.

The class, “Race, Gender, and Sexuality” is cross-listed in a bunch of departments. At eight students, it’s a small class. To help us understand the complexity of identities, our professor asked us to share a time when our identities were misinterpreted. One girl talked about being of mixed-ethnicity and therefore being “ethnically ambiguous.” Another student talked about going to a wealthy high school, but actually being from a working class family. Interestingly enough, a few women in my class remembered being cast-type as a lesbian (one is an athlete; the others didn’t dress with a hyper-feminine flare growing up). My gut instinct was to explain how people outside of the LGBT Center/BDU everyone assumed I was straight, and how while in the Center/BDU or other LGBT-spaces people assumed I was a lesbian. As we went around in a circle to share our stories, I debated whether or not I should share that experience. Maybe it would just be easier to explain that being Jewish in a pretty-Christian society left me needing to explain my faith throughout my life (think, especially pre-College). In the end, I opted to share both (many students were sharing a few experiences).

Marianne Williamson once wrote that “as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” If not for that 2015 student who shared that he was gay during an earlier part of the class, I would not have even considered sharing my own experience.

Thank you, 2015er, for shining your light and liberating me. Thank you for letting me, the senior, follow your lead.

"Available."

[Author's Note: This was a year of tremendous personal growth for me. I started talking with those closest to me about my sexuality. After 10 months of talking in hushed-tones and strict confidentiality, I am finally writing for the blog about my personal experiences, past and present. Throughout this process, writing has been a really helpful outlet for me. Some things have changed since I wrote this, and other posts that I will publish soon but that I also wrote in the past. Other things have stayed the same. Regardless, the following post speaks directly to how I felt at the time that I wrote it (mid semester, Spring 2011). I will not be modifying my writings to reflect my current state of mind. Rather, I will denote when posts are backdated and will offer more current reflections in other columns. Finally, I wish to thank those who have been my confidantes along the way. There is no way that I could be posting on the BDU Blog about this without our many conversations and your unwavering support.]

I was talking with a good friend who is a little older than me. She was “out” to me, and frequently updated me with the latest in her relationships with other women, though I wasn’t really sure how she identified, specifically: bi, lesbian, queer, something else? So when she told me that she was considering dating some “dudes,” and we’d never discussed her dating men past high school and coming out, it seemed like a situation in which I could comfortably and appropriately ask her about the nuances of her sexual orientation. Her response? “Available.” She didn’t know it at the time, but that one word just made so much sense to me. In fact, if you pressed me today to “choose a label! You have to pick something!,” that’s probably what I’d tell you. I’m available.

What’s it mean to be “available?” I’d say that it’s…

• …sort of like what others conceive of as bisexual, but it expresses the fact that my “sexuality” is more about philosophy and less about sex (read: not really about sex, at all).

• …sort of like being pansexual, which is philosophically and semantically different from people who identify as bisexual and therefore takes care of the part where “my ‘sexuality’ is more about philosophy,” but it doesn’t adequately express the part where my ‘sexuality’ is, paradoxically, not really about sex.

You might also understand it as being…

• …sort of like being hetero- or homo-flexible, without the hetero- or homo- prefixes (see below for an explanation…and see above about the part where my sexuality isn’t really about sex).

I know, now you’re really lost.

So, here’s the philosophy part: I’m not “gender blind,” but you could probably say that I am “gender apathetic.” I just don’t really give a fuck care if you’re a man or a woman or queer or trans or feminine or masculine or what. Basically, as I see it, gender is confining and I don’t want it to limit me when I choose with whom I want to spend the rest of my life. I want to like and fall in love with a person—not a gender.

Sometime ago, an anonymous post (to which I had a very visceral reaction) asked why more out people don’t show their “interested in” on facebook (see #4). I have a lot of thoughts about this and loved the debate that got going in the comment section, but for right now, I’ll say this: I’m not interested in women, interested in men, or interested in men and women, as my facebook options may be. Rather, I’m interested in people. If you’re an amazing person, I want you in my life.

That’s why it’s sort of like being “heteroflexible” or “homoflexible.” In fact, if I still identified as straight, I’d definitely qualify my being straight with also being heteroflexible. Except that I can’t, right now, tell you whether I would choose the word which emphasizes the “hetero” or “homo” part. Which is where the sex part comes in…

The sex part: To determine which prefix to add to the word “flexible,” I’d have to be able to (and willing to?) identify what gender I was primarily attracted to.

I know we were all basically raised under the following two tenets: one being that two plus two equals four and the other being that “we are all sexual beings” (that’s why we have sex ed in the fifth grade, right? “DON’T HAVE SEX NOW. But someday when you’re married, you will, because that’s what people do when they are married.”)

Well, while two plus two will ALWAYS equal four (this is Duke, which means that some smart math major will probably correct me in the comment section, but roll with it, folks) some of us are more sexual than others, and I’ve found that I’m not really attracted to people, almost ever. And there are 101 reasons why this might be my situation (some more personal than others), and it very well may change, but for now, that’s how it is.

Which comes back to the reason that the labels bisexual and pansexual make me uncomfortable. It isn’t out of some internalized bi-phobia, but rather because the emphasis of the words is on sex, and for better or for worse (I’m, unfortunately, often convinced that it’s for worse), that just isn’t my experience.

Perhaps asexual is the correct way to express where I’m at? But, I’m not really convinced that that sums it up, either. For one, I’ve had crushes before—just not recently (read: a long time). And, I (albeit very rarely) have fleeting moments of feelings for people. Finally, it’s not something I’m super comfortable with.

During the moment when my friend identified as available, she made it sound so simple. The fact that we talked for two hours more, though, confirmed for me what I already knew from my own personal experiences: getting to where we both are today is a long, uncomfortable, and really personal journey with approximately 12318023 barriers along the way.

Today, I'm Silent for My Uncle Malcolm

I wasn’t able to get my picture taken for this year’s Day of Silence, which is unfortunate, because I’d already decided on what my poster would say this year: “Today, I’m silent for my Uncle Malcolm.”

I’m silent to honor the memory of my Uncle Malcolm, a memory which has largely been intentionally forgotten and almost erased from my family’s history.

When well-intentioned people criticize the Day of Silence as being unproductive, I think they are taking the “silence” thing too literally. As I wrote last year, today is not really a day of silence. More accurately, it is a day of not talking. For exactly this reason I write this blog post to protest the silence of my family.

My mom was the first one who told me that I had an uncle who’d been murdered for being gay. I was in middle school then and she told me everything she remembered ever overhearing about it, after all, the adults never spoke about it in front of her. Just about everything else I know, I know from my mom’s first cousin. There is a lot that my cousin still does not know, while other details deceive her memory. What remains is the story I’ll tell here.

Sometime before Stonewall (1969), my grandfather and his older brother traveled from Philadelphia to New York City, where they identified Malcolm’s body at the morgue. Days before, my Uncle Malcolm had been beaten and murdered by two teenaged guys. Malcolm loved to cook. He and the two people who killed him had met at a bar, before going back to his apartment so Malcolm could cook for them. What transpired after that, I don’t know, except that he was naked when they found his body and that he’d been beaten so badly that his body was barely recognizable.

By all accounts, Malcolm lived a bohemian kind of high life and sought to enjoy every day. He was a successful advertising executive (Mad Men, anyone?) and spent a few years living in Japan. He sometimes brought a girl, Cookie, to family functions; she was a lesbian. I’m also told that Malcolm was handsome, had “smiley eyes,” and didn’t like to be interrupted. Born as Malcolm Goldberg, he sought to honor his ancestors by legally changing his last name to “Gurbarg,” the name his mother brought to the states with her before it was changed at Ellis Island.

Unfortunately, while that may be all I ever know about him, it’s only half of the story. Malcolm led a double life for the 40 years that he lived. Before his murder, nobody in my family except Malcolm’s mother knew that he was gay.

The men who so tragically interrupted Malcolm’s life were convicted, though apparently no one from my family went to the trial (which really irks me).

Today, Malcolm, I honor and remember you. With my silence, nobody can interrupt me. And with this blog, your story will no longer go untold.

A BDU Exclusive | Leaked Thoughts From a Sailor: Repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell

[Ed. Note: I know we tend to limit posts to people within the Duke community, but I thought that our Community was so invested in the fight to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell that the perspective of an active Navy Sailor might be really interesting and pertinent. Below are a few thoughts that a friend of mine put together first after DADT's repeal and then again after beginning training to teach service members how to accept LGB people. He actually wrote to me personally after reading the blog for a while (unbeknownst to me!). It was only then that I asked him if I could share what he'd written. He works with an out sailor in a very small team (which as you probably know was a focus of anti-repealers..."What if you're in a small team and someone is gay!? You couldn't work under those conditions!"). Please note that even though my friend is straight, he has to write anonymously because he is not permitted to discuss his views on the policy or his experiences.] (Photo credit: Jeff Sheng; "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Project")

“Today we recall that unity, not uniformity, is our goal, that we need not fear differences among those united to defend our nation's freedoms and its dreams. Today we honor ALL brave men and women, including those who served so long without the honor they deserved. O Lord our God, and God of generations past, help us move forward, toward a nation a little more united, more indivisible, a union a bit more perfect, founded on a great deal more respect.” -Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff, Captain, U.S. Navy (ret.)

I am a straight Sailor in the U.S. Navy, stationed at a seagoing command. I work on a ship of 4,000 people in a department of over 300 people, but in a workcenter of only 5. In our small, yet efficient workcenter, is an openly gay Sailor. He came out to most of the department on his own about two and a half years ago, much to everyone's surprise, honestly. In those two and a half years, there has not been a single incident of hazing or blatant homophobia, and he has not been withheld from gaining responsibility or advancing in paygrade.

We just came back from deployment to the news that Don't Ask, Don't Tell has been repealed. The concept was brought up in our workcenter in an informal matter to a group of about ten to twelve people about six months ago. The most compelling comment came when one of the other straight Sailors quipped that the only people making a big deal about it are those who don't wear the uniform. And it's true. I am not necessarily in a position of combat, but I, like pretty much all of my shipmates, know that I don't care if the person working next to me is male or female, straight or gay, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim--all I care is that they work hard and do their job with superior effort. And I don't see how someone's sexual orientation affects that.

The core values of the Navy are Honor, Courage, and Commitment. The program in which I specifically work demands integrity to the extreme. I don't see how you can tell a Sailor that he must exemplify integrity, yet he must hide who he is from everyone else. I'm glad that enough of Congress has finally opened their eyes to this hypocrisy, and I know that they will not regret their decision.
---
Those words were my first reaction to the abolition of the “closeting policy”. In the months after the new policy was announced, we were told that it would not go into place until we were all properly trained on it. Trained? What, people are aliens or lepers because they are attracted to the same sex?

The training itself incensed me even more. Not a lot of people know too much or understand the extent of the new policy. It sounds like all the problems are solved--not so fast. Sure, anyone is allowed to serve openly in the military. But as far as benefits go? Fat chance. If you have a same-sex partner, he or she is just plain ignored. Your partner is not eligible to receive the same health benefits that straight spouses receive, nor are you able to receive a housing allowance for married couples. That’s only the beginning--every benefit that a married man and woman could receive are off-limits for gay couples, even if you are legally married. The legislative and executive branch are patting their own backs over this idea that everything is fixed now. Whether they realize it or not, they are not done.

The Defense of Marriage Act is the next hurdle. DOMA narrows the definition of marriage to a legal bond between a man and a woman only. Not only do our representatives believe they can regulate the most fundamental aspects of life, but they think they can outdo Merriam-Webster? Fortunately, there is a current movement to overturn this reprehensible law as well, though we as the people they represent need to put more pressure on the legislators to progress. Otherwise, what’s the point in letting people serve openly when the policy of legal discrimination still stands?

D.
Electronics Technician (Nuclear) First Class
United States Navy

"Wonderfully and Beautifully Human": Remembering Mike Penner, Transsexual Sportswriter

Every other Thursday I will be writing about LGBT Issues in Sport. Between each regularly scheduled post I may chime in with more posts if something comes up and/or I have the time. I have a serious academic interest in sport and in this column I’ll be highlighting current events, sharing resources, reflecting on complex issues and sharing athlete’s stories among other things. For more about me, you can read my first post, here. Please feel free to email me with thoughts or if you come across something you’d like me to include on the blog.

This post is the second in a miniseries about trans-identified folk in sports. Two weeks ago I wrote about Kye Allums, the first ever D1 collegiate athlete to openly identify as trans. He plays basketball on George Washington University’s women’s basketball team.*     *     *     *     *
I want to start this post by saying that I’m an ally for trans-identified individuals. That said, I’m still learning how to be a better and better ally (thanks, Lawrence, for already educating me in your first post!). I might make a mistake and I hope that if I do, you readers will correct me. I identify as cis-gendered. I don’t write that because I’m afraid that by talking about these issues someone might think I was trans…I write that because as a cis-gendered person, I have to acknowledge that while I can sympathize with transfolk’s struggles in our society, advocate on their behalf, and support the people in my life who identify as trans or genderqueer or something that isn’t 100% cis, I can’t positively know what it’s like. As human beings who share some characteristics, we have many shared experiences, but we also have different experiences and I am cognizant of that.

Before I even worked at my first women’s basketball practice my first year (and despite having spent the previous summer in the PR office for the Mercury), I pretty much thought that the only people intimately involved with the team were the coaches and players. Like some of the other naïve things one thinks as a first year, I was WRONG. There are other administrative staff members, athletic trainers and doctors, sports information and marketing folk and the media themselves (I’m probably still leaving out some people). It became pretty clear to me that a team isn’t just the 12 players and 4 coaches on the bench during the game. Just like those 16 people on the bench, though, media personnel themselves lead pretty public lives.

November 27th will mark the 1 year anniversary of Mike Penner’s suicide. A Los Angeles Times sportswriter for 25 total years, during his career he covered high profile events such as the Olympics and the World Cup, in addition to being the LA Angels’ beat writer and writing about tennis, the NFL and sports media, among other things. Despite some high profile assignments, Penner’s most famous column ran on April 26, 2007. Titled “Old Mike, New Christine,” he wrote that “Today I leave for a few weeks’ vacation, and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation. As Christine [Daniels]. I’m a transsexual sportswriter.”

Athlete Comes Out as a Man; Plays Collegiate Women's Basketball

Every other Thursday I will be writing about LGBT Issues in Sport. Between each regularly scheduled post I may chime in with more posts if something comes up and/or I have the time. I have a serious academic interest in sport and in this column I’ll be highlighting current events, sharing resources, reflecting on complex issues and sharing athlete’s stories among other things. For more about me, you can read my first post, here. Please feel free to email me with thoughts or if you come across something you’d like me to include on the blog.

Informally called “The Center” by frequenters, the official name for the space below The Loop is The Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Life. That said, our trans community, while several students have submitted anonymous posts, doesn’t get a lot of attention here on the blog. Some events of the last week and other upcoming events make now as good a time as any to talk about what it means to identify as trans within the realm of sports. Consider these next few posts to be a mini-series.

The sports world operates largely operates along gendered lines, which can make it an unwelcoming place for people who don’t fit snugly into the boxes of male, female, man, woman, male=man and female=woman (you follow that?). [In this way, the issue of binaries in the sports world doesn’t just affect trans people—it also applies to intersexed individuals.]

Last week, outsports, a site which focuses on LGBTQ issues in sport, broke Kye Allums’s story. Since then, it's been picked up by a lot of other news outlets. Kye is a junior starter on the George Washington Women’s Basketball Team and he is a (trans)man.* As such, he is the first publicly out Division 1 transgender athlete.

He explained that he “always felt more comfortable dressing like a boy,” and even went through great lengths to do this. [His mom forced him to wear “girl clothes” to school, so he would change into sweats and basketball shorts when he arrived and then back into his other clothes before he left to go back home.] Despite this feeling, Kye didn’t identify as a man or as transgendered. In fact, he said he “used to feel like trans anything was really weird and those people were crazy, and [he] wondered, ‘How can you feel like that?’” Finding that the lesbians at his high school acted and dressed similarly, he identified as a lesbian for several years. During his first year at GW, however, his mother sent him a text message that asked him “Who do you think you are, young lady?” Reading this text message, he realized it was "simple:" he wasn’t woman.

After coming out to teammates a year ago and eventually talking with his coach (this summer), Kye publically came out as a man last week. Coming out to teammates, his coaches, or the rest of the world wasn’t his original plan, but when “it got too tough to not be [him],” he decided to move forward with the process. From all accounts that I’ve read, the university has done a tremendous job in supporting Kye. When he first told his coach, his coach responded by saying “Why would you think I wouldn’t have your back? I’ve had your back through everything. Our relationship has grown from nothing to this, and now you think I’d just turn my back on you because you told me this? No. I love you and I’ll always be here for you.” His coach has since released a statement saying that “The George Washington University women’s basketball program, including myself, support Kye’s right to make this decision.” The team’s co-captain has also issued supportive statements, praising Kye’s “courage and fortitude.”

Kye’s experiences illustrate the “small things” that a school can do to be supportive and create an affirming environment for a trans-identified student athlete without breaking any NCAA rules (ie: testosterone is a banned substance, so they can’t ‘legally’ permit Kye to begin hormone treatments**). For one thing, the team website lists him as, and he will be announced as, Kye —not Kay-Kay, the name he used to go by. His teammates and coaches use male pronouns while all future press releases (ie: post game notes, etc) will also use male pronouns. Those issues may seem small compared to the physical components of transitioning, but for someone who is putting off taking hormones until he’s finished playing and may not undergo surgery until then, either—they make all the difference. “A name is just a bunch of letters, but the letters make up a work and the words that make up my name have so many more emotions behind them. My old name, that’s just not me. When I hear Kye, everything feels okay, everything is right.”

GW officially opens their season on Sunday against Wisconsin Green Bay, just 30 minutes from Kye's hometown.

*In one account, Kye explicitly identified as a “transgender male,” though other reports explain that he sees himself simply as a man and not “female-to-male.”

**In general, student-athletes may receive approval to take typically “banned substances” by having their doctors fill out certain forms. However, it remains unclear if the testosterone levels taken by a transgender individual would be permitted, even with proper documentation.

A Rarity in Women's Basketball; Duke Leads the Way

I have a serious academic interest in sport and in this column I’ll be highlighting current events, sharing resources, reflecting on complex issues and sharing athlete’s stories among other things. For more about me, you can read my first post, here. Please feel free to email me with thoughts or if you come across something you’d like me to include on the blog.

Basketball season starts this week. Friday, to be exact. That's tomorrow, for those of you thrown off by fall break starting our week on a Wednesday. For most Duke students, that probably means attending Countdown to Craziness, painting our faces in blue and white, losing our voices and engaging in traditional cheers all for the first time this year (or if you’re a first year, your first time ever). If you’re a manager for one of the basketball teams, it means working a three hour practice (which means working for at least four hours, mind you), filling up more water cups, chasing down and rebounding more balls, wiping up more sweat, and resetting the shot clock more times than you have during the previous four weeks of preseason work outs. And if you happen to play basketball for Duke, it means surrenduring your soul social life for the remainder of the school year (and you thought the school year just started!).

So, what’s that have to do with anything? Well, every so often Duke Women’s Basketball releases a question and answer style update on the life of a former player. Most (though not all) of these “Catching Up” pieces ask a question about the alumna’s spouse and kids. It’s a pretty heteronormative question and I always wondered if they only asked it of straight athletes (I sort of figured that they only asked it if they knew that person was in fact married, though I don’t know this for a fact). But what about a player who was in a committed same-sex partnership? Would Duke Women’s Basketball ask former players they knew to have a partner about this aspect of their lives, the same as they ask their straight counterparts? Or would it be a matter of reporting on the relationships of the straight athletes while simply not reporting on the “love lives” of any LGB-identified former players, thereby ignoring any same-sex relationships?

My skepticism isn’t unfounded. Women’s basketball—both the professional and collegiate ranks—along with other women’s sports—has a sort of complicated relationship with the LGBTQ community. The WNBA, for instance, is notorious for highlighting on their website and during telecasts the weddings, kids and spouses of straight players while never mentioning the commitment ceremonies and partners of LGB-identified players. This is a different issue than the internal culture of teams—though they’re not necessarily totally unrelated to one another. But as advertising/fan outreach goes—it’s rare to see coverage of an LGB-identified athlete which acknowledges their sexuality. I want to recognize that it’s possible that this lack of coverage is at the request of the athlete, but I have a hard time believing that every athlete falls into this category [especially considering that it occasionally comes up in other, non league/team related publications, but then is never highlighted on that league’s/team’s website, the way that other news releases and articles are indexed]. This isn't unique unto the WNBA. It's the story across the board.

Well, I’m here to applaud Duke Women’s Basketball, GoDuke.com and Nicole Erickson! This June, Duke Sports Information posted a question and answer feature called “Catching up with Former Hoops Player Nicole Erickson.” In her interview, Erickson mentions her partner of nine years multiple times!

When GoDuke asked her “Do you have a spouse and children?” She answered that “I have been in a nine-year relationship and we have two weimeraner dog kids :) Gracie and Guinness…” Earlier in the interview she mentioned that she and her partner are partial owners of two restaurants. Check out the full interview here.

Erickson played for Duke during the 1997-1998 and 1998-1999 seasons after transferring from Purdue (along with fellow former Boilermaker Michele VanGorp [also openly gay]) following the 1995-1996 season (she sat out during the 1996-1997 season per NCAA rules). She helped lead the team to its first Final Four and championship game appearances in 1999 (to get there, Duke defeated three-time-defending Champion Tennessee) and was named to the Final Four All-Tournament Team. [Side note: Duke played Purdue, Erickson and VanGorp's former school, in the championship game.] She was also named to the all-regional (NCAA tournament) teams during 1998 and 1999. During the 1998-1999 season, Erickson was tabbed ACC player of the week on at least two occasions and was an All-ACC selection each of the two years that she played in a Duke jersey. At the time she graduated, she held the school record for number of three pointers in one game (7) and the number of three pointers in a season (62) [ten years later, she is tied for record for number of three point field goals in one game and is fourth in number of three point field goals made in a season]. During her Duke career she shot 88.0% from the free throw line, which is still the best in ACC history and her 32 consecutive FTs (in 1999) is still the longest FT streak in Duke history.

I've detailed some of the complexities between women's sports and the LGBTQ community in other posts (Elena Kagan comes to mind) and could probably write a lot more about it than what I'll say here. Despite all of the complexities between women's sports and the LGBTQ community, though, there are promising signs of a time when women's sports won't feel like it can't talk about LGBTQ individuals in sport. I'm proud that Duke is already moving in that direction.

The season starts Friday and Duke Women's Basketball has more to be proud of than the fact that the team's five first years make up the top-ranked freshman class in the country, Jasmine Thomas continues to rack up the honors (named a preseason first team All-American and to the watch lists for the Wade Trophy and Wooden Award) and national publications rank the Blue Devils as high as sixth (and as low as eighth) in the country (though, those are pretty awesome accomplishments, too).

[Author's note: In the interest of transparency, I spent my freshman year as a manager for the women’s basketball team and have since resumed my responsibilities after not holding the job last year. Also, thank you to Duke Sports Information for providing me with accurate up-to-date statistics on Erickson's career.]

Homophobia Strikes Out in the Golden Baseball League

I have a serious academic interest in sport and in this column I’ll be highlighting current events, sharing resources, reflecting on complex issues and sharing athlete’s stories among other things. For more about me, you can read my first post, here. Please feel free to email me with thoughts or if you come across something you’d like me to include on the blog.

I’m back from an absolutely amazing nine weeks in Colorado. I made several mental notes throughout the summer and hope to write a commentary on the (more-positive-than-I-could-have-even-dreamed-of) dynamics and attitudes that I encountered. First, though, I want to write about this story that appeared as the “cover story” on msn.com the day I got home.

On July 31st, Billy Van Raaphorst was an umpire for the Golden Baseball League (GBL) game between the Edmonton Capitals and the Orange County Flyers. In the first inning Bowers disagreed with a call made at first base. For the second day in a row, Van Raaphorst ejected Bowers from the game. After being thrown out for his antics (he reportedly rolled up his sleeves and mocked Van Raaphorst with a “gun show”), Bowers began screaming homophobic remarks at Van Raaphorst, who identifies as gay. “You know what I heard? I heard you’re a f---ing f----t." Bowers continued, yelling derogatory language and even “acting out” an offensive scene (I’m sparing the details; you can read about the rest here).

The GBL immediately suspended Bowers for two games and fined him an additional $500. Unsatisfied with this judgment, umpires from all over the league demanded that the league come down harder. They even threatened to strike. Following an investigation, which concluded August 6th, the league moved to suspend Bowers for the rest of the season and increased the fine to a $5,000 penalty. Soon thereafter, Bowers resigned. The Capitals have also announced that all of their employees will undergo mandatory diversity training.

The rest of Van Raaphorst’s personal story illustrates how being in the closet often negatively affects one’s sports performance:

Billy Van Raaphorst grew up in a sports-charged environment. His dad played in the NFL and both his brothers played football in college. Billy also played college football until he suffered a career ending injury during his senior season. The whole time that he was growing up and even as he continued to play football at a Division I level, Van Raaphorst yearned to be behind home plate in a major league stadium. His career ending injury gave him the perfect opportunity to break away from his family’s legacy of football and pursue his passion for calling balls and strikes. He graduated No. 1 in his class from “the Harvard of umpiring,” the Harry Wendelstedt Umpire School. Working his way up through the ranks of the minor leagues, Van Raaphorst made it to the double-A level in 2001. Van Raaphorst, who says he knew he was gay “pretty much all [his] life” but had never “acted on it” before, went to his first gay bar and had his first relationship with another man around this same time. Subsequently, things started going poorly for him as an umpire. He dropped to being 27th in the rankings and then was 45th (of 47). He wasn’t out to his colleagues, so he lied about his post-game plans and tried to ignore his coworkers’ questions about who he was seeing. By 2002 he was released from the minor leagues. He wanted to fight his release in 2002, but he says he was discouraged by family members and friends who “didn’t want all of the attention that would’ve brought.” He’s learned a lot since then and regrets ending his first relationship because he was scared and not coming out. Now? He refuses to ever make those mistakes again.

"I don’t make decisions out of fear anymore. I try to make fearless decisions now.”

Something we should all aspire to do.

Now, for a few scattered thoughts:

1. Serious kudos to the umpires who threatened to strike over this. Seriously. I’m so impressed that they took it so seriously and really saw it as an injustice and a threat to a safe working environment. The league had already “dealt” with it and there was no reason (excluding injustice, of course) that they had to intervene. That they did so on their own volition is HUGE. Call me an optimist, but while some may see this whole incident as evidence for the “sad state of sports,” as Jason Whitlock does, I can’t overlook the evidence of progress as demonstrated by the courage of these umpires.
2. I was utterly shocked to read what Bowers said (and did) in its entirety. I know that homophobia is out there and I know that it can get “really ugly.” But I’ve never seen it or even read about a recent incident which went to the level that Bowers did.
3. In an interview since the incident, Bowers said that “I didn’t care that (Van Raaphorst) was gay…My mom works with a lot of gay hairdressers and I joke around those guys all the time. My cousin, she’s a lesbian. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as people are happy.”
   
   I don’t know what all of this means 100%. Is this like the “I can’t be racist, I have a black friend” mentality? And what does he mean to imply by saying that he jokes around with his mom’s colleagues? It sort of seems to suggest that in his mind he was “just joking” and that Van Raaphorst just didn’t get it. Which, given the explicit nature of his comments and actions, is just ridonculous.
4. It isn’t really clear to me whether Van Raaphorst was released from his position as an umpire because his performance declined (presumably due to being in the closet and having to exert so much energy to stay there) or if he believes that it was some sort of homophobic firing decision (though he did not come out to any of them, he believes that other umpires found out he was gay since they all started incessantly questioning him about his romantic life).
5. Also kudos to msn.com for featuring this story on their home page. Another sign of progress, if you ask me.

Elena Kagan, Lesbians, and Women's Sports Stereotypes

Back in May President Obama nominated current Solicitor General Elena Kagan to be the next United States Supreme Court Justice. Kagan, if confirmed by the Senate, will replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

Following her nomination, the news reported several key findings about her background. In addition to mostly being unsure of her stance on many issues, since she has never presided as a judge over a case, the media reported that Kagan has never married, has no children, played softball and has short hair. Well, the later of those one has to discern for themselves, which isn’t hard to do given her photo accompanies many of the articles (as it should/would for any other candidate). Nonetheless, the information is out there: She is "unmarried." She is not a mom. She has short hair. She played softball.

I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean. I mean, I know what I’m supposed to conclude. The media wants me to think that she is gay (an obvious deduction…not). Call me stupid, but I don’t really understand why those facts lead to that conclusion. These details don’t reveal to me any information about to whom she is sexually attracted.

I can’t isolate her history with softball from the other information of being unmarried or having short hair to make any assertion about the role her athlete status has on this suspicion. If she hadn’t been involved with sports, but was unmarried, without kids and had short hair, the same rumors would likely be circulating. And, if she were Jennie Finch (two-time Softball Olympic medalist), who with long blonde hair, a husband and an infant epitomizes the feminine construct, playing softball would probably not be seen as a marker for her sexual orientation. But in Kagan’s case, when all of these forces combine, a lot of people will have a hard time divorcing them from her perceived sexual orientation.

The softball storyline came out just the day after Kagan was nominated when a photo splashed across the front pageof Tuesday May 11th’s Wall Street Journal. It almost seems to me that this softball thing is supposed to be the icing on the cake, convincing people she’s gay. Like, “If yesterday you thought she was a lesbian…congratulations, you’re right! She is! Because look, she played softball!”

I don’t have to tell the readers of this blog that whether one is an athlete or not doesn’t mean anything about one’s sexuality and the assertion that it does is absolutely ludicrous. What it does tell us, though, is that she’s a competitor (even if only in a friendly way), she understands the value of teamwork and…get this: SHE LIKES SPORTS. (Is this really such a revolutionary conclusion?) Let’s not forget that Obama is a big basketball fan (he even attended the Duke-Georgetown men’s basketball game in January), but that only makes him “cool.” [sigh; double standards.]

I don’t know what to make of the fact that Kagan played other sports, yet softball was the one the media really latched onto. While completing graduate school at Oxford, Kagan was a coxswain (the small person who functions like the coach in rowing). She also played in pickup basketball games while clerking for the Supreme Court. What does it mean, though, that both of these other experiences were largely ignored in favor of softball? Does coxing pose less of a threat to patriarchy and therefore isn’t deemed to be as unfeminine because it’s not a physically exerting task? After all, the coxswain role is more analytical than anything else. But what about basketball? The stereotypes and stigmas surrounding women in basketball can be pretty harsh. Is something about softball “more gay?” [Aside: I don’t really believe in the construction of some things being ‘gay things.’ I use this language merely because I’m trying to understand how everyone else perceives different activities.]

In any case, this scenario is merely another example of the frequently tense relationship between the gay community and women’s sport. There is this stereotype which exists and like most stereotypes, there is some truth to it. By that I mean, some gay women have and continue to play sports. The problem is that this stereotype is seen as “damaging.” And I can't really argue with that on a practical level. In a homophobic culture (which ours tends to be), things associated with the LGBT community are negatively affected (even if they shouldn't be). This stigma is especially problematic when, like women's sports, the institution requires money to function and therefore relies on a capitalistic business model. It's equally problematic when the individuals affiliated with this institution feel the need to "protect" their image. What ends up happening as a result of this, though, is that the “higher ups” in women’s sport and many participating athletes seem to deny that gay women participate in athletics--which is just bad all around.

Because the truth is: some gay women play sports. Just like some straight women play sports. Some bi women play sports. Some transwomen play sports. Some tall women play sports. And some short women. And some brunettes. And blondes. And Protestants. And Catholics. And Jews. And Muslims. And...well, you get the picture.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that...I can't wait for the day when mainstream media and the rest of society finally come to understand that you can’t extrapolate anything about someone’s sexual orientation based on athletic preferences.

[For the record, Elena Kagan identifies as straight.]

Glad for GLAD

I have a serious academic interest in sport and in this column I’ll be highlighting current events, sharing resources, reflecting on complex issues and sharing athlete’s stories among other things. For more about me, you can read my first post, here. Please feel free to email me with thoughts or if you come across something you’d like me to include on the blog.

When I started blogging I mentioned that I would be covering interesting stories and sharing resources. I haven’t done very much of the former yet, but I’d like to take this post to promote a survey sponsored by the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD).

An organization that fights legal battles against discriminations based on orientation, HIV status and gender identity and expression, last year GLAD launched an effort against homophobia and transphobia in sport. On October 2, 2009, GLAD issued the following statement about their recent undertaking: “To determine how we can best address homophobia and transphobia in sports, GLAD is researching the ways in which anti-gay and anti-transgender attitudes affect LGBT athletes and coaches.”

To do this, they’re collecting the stories and experiences of anybody currently or formerly associated with any sport at any level—rec, high school, college, pro, athlete, coach, family member or friend of an athlete. The hope is that these stories will illuminate the obstacles keeping LGBTQ-identified individuals from participating, having success or gaining positive experiences in sport. Of course, they’re also optimistic about the current climate on teams and ask for stories of positive experiences as well.

Though there are already several [read: too many] well documented cases of homophobia in sport violating the rights of individuals (such cases will be highlighted in future blogs), I believe that this is the right first step for GLAD to take. For every case which is fought in the courtroom (or settled out of it), far too many instances of homophobia and transphobia in sport are never brought to light. When the environment is toxic, most people (especially children and teens) will just stop playing the sport, rather than take action. And, seriously, who can blame them?

This survey will help to identify common themes among our experiences. How do homophobia and transphobia manifest themselves? What’s it look like in the locker room? During practice? During formal competition? During travel? Is it coming from the coach? The parents? The players/teammates? How are LGBTQ-identified coaches or administrators in sport affected differently than the athletes themselves? Is it in negative recruiting practices? Is it jokes or gossip from their athletes or colleagues? How does the environment change at each level (rec vs. high school vs. college, varsity vs. club vs intramural)?

I’ve been involved with sports for a long time and in a lot of different ways. As such, I’ve played for LGBTQ-identified and straight coaches and I’ve had LGBTQ-identified and straight teammates. I’ve witnessed really positive scenarios and not so positive incidents. In writing his personal story of being a gay athlete, Jamal Brown “look[s] forward to a day when the challenges LGBT athletes face come from competition, and not from teammates.” And so do I.

I would encourage every reader of this blog to take the time to fill out the survey and share your stories. Furthermore, I invite you to share your story (anonymously or not) in the comments section below. Share with GLAD and with us what your experiences have been, so we can all be aware and so that together we can team up to make athletic spaces safe, inclusive and embracing of everyone.

[Author’s note: Thanks for allowing me to vary the content of my columns. I often find myself having thoughts that I want to write about for the blog. Though several of my most recent posts have not been sports centered, LGBT Issues in Sport continue to be in the front of my mind as I go through every day. I’m excited to devote my next few entries solely to these topics.]

On a High!!!

I'm on such a high right now. It's one of my last nights home before I leave to be a counselor and I just got back from the 19th Annual Awards Dinner for Equality Arizona. With everything that's going on these days, espcially around the hot topic of immigration, it's easy to name all sorts of not-so-good things going on in my state. I left the dinner, though, with a lot of hope and enthusiasm [once in the car on the way home, my exact words may or may not have been "I wish I could go back to Duke tomorrow and get started on stuff for BDU"]. Hundreds of people gathered tonight for this dinner, all of whom are well-connected and all of whom actively support efforts towards equality through their money, time and/or energy. I was fortunate to be invited last minute by a good family friend (she's my parents' age; a lady at our table asked us if we were on a date...I'm not making this up) and Equality Arizona made it possible for me to attend free of charge as a "Young Emerging Leader." I joined public officials, business leaders, educators and so many other passionate and hardworking people. Donna Rossi, an out lesbian and senior reporter for CBS News in Phoenix, emceed the event; David Mixner, activist extraordinaire and a contemporary of Harvey Milk, gave an inspiring keynote address.

Last but not least, as the BDU blog (and sports) are always on my mind...I even managed to score (pun intended!) a picture [below] with 2006 Olympic Ice Dancer, Ryan O'Meara. O'Meara shared his story as the evening's prelude speaker. Be on the lookout for a future post featuring O'Meara, who's agreed to let me interview him!

A few more pictures...

With eight-time (count it...that's 16 years, folks) Arizona Legislator Ken Cheuvront (left) and Phoenix City Council Member Tom Simplot.

With Kyrsten Sinema, who visited Duke in February.

With keynote speaker, activist, political strategist and contemporary of Harvey Milk, David Mixner.

With Arizona's Attorney General and Gubernatorial Candidate, Terry Goddard.