REASONS WHY ATHLETIC DEPARTMENTS NEED TO ADDRESS LESBIAN,
GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER ISSUES
- All schools include lesbian, gay and bisexual, transgender (LGBT) students,
staff, and parents even if they have not made themselves known to the school
community.
- Coaches have a responsibility to make their teams safe for all athletes,
including LGBT athletes.
- LGBT athletes and coaches are successfully using legal resources to address
discrimination and harassment when administrators and coaches fail to address
these issues.
- Athletes are highly visible in the community and can be leaders helping
to make schools safe and welcoming schools to any students who are marginalized.
- All athletes interact with LGBT teachers, coaches, friends, or family
members.
- Athletes will be living in a world in which LGBT people are present and
increasingly visible. Young people need to have an opportunity to develop
attitudes and beliefs not based in fear or ignorance.
- Interpersonal tensions among teammates and acts of discrimination or harassment
within athletic teams can have a negative effect on team performance and
unity if not addressed.
- Coaches are important role models in athletes' lives. Coaches have responsibilities
and opportunities to teach more than sport skills and strategies. They can
also set examples of how to live in a socially diverse world.
- A 1989 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study reported that
up to 30% of suicides among young people are lesbian and gay youth who are
so isolated and depressed in the face of societal condemnation that they
kill themselves. College and high school coaches are working with this age
group.
- Statistics show that hate crimes and harassment directed at many minority
groups including lesbian and gay people are often committed by high school
and college aged young men. Coaches can provide leadership to stop this
violent behavior.
- Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender coaches and athletes do not
protest discrimination against them because they do not want to jeopardize
their athletic careers or because no legal protections are in place.
- Naming LGBT people in athletics as the problem, rather than discrimination
and prejudice, perpetuates ignorance, fear, and bigotry.
- In an athletic hostile to LGBT people, many LGBT athletes learn to feel
shame and self-hatred and hide their identities at great psychological cost.
- Many heterosexual athletes are defensive and fearful because their prejudices
about LGBT people are unchallenged.
- Out of fear and prejudice, many heterosexual young people are afraid of
being perceived as LGBT. They restrict extracurricular interests, career
choices, and friendships to avoid association with LGBT people.
- Fear and prejudice about lesbians limit and marginalize women's sports.
Many women avoid sport participation because they do not want to be called
lesbians.
- Fear and prejudice about homosexuality can encourage men and boys to avoid
feelings, interests, activities that they see as contradictory to rigid
traditional conceptions of masculinity.
- Unless leaders in athletics take responsibility for addressing LGBT issues,
the next generation of coaches and athletes will inherit the same prejudices
of previous generations.
Developed by Pat Griffin
griffin@educ.umass.edu
www.lesbianandgaysports.com