Australian Olympic Diver Matthew Mitchem
I’m not a huge sports fan, but I am a big Olympics fan. It’s an event that strikes several chords for me: athletes represented from around the world, good drama, the pageantry, the epic-ness—all things that may have a lot to do with my literary (and gay) sensibility.
I root on the underdogs, who in most cases do not represent the U.S. (bad American, I know). This year, I’m enthralled by the extensive tennis coverage on Bravo.
A nice sidestory to the event is the record number of out gay athletes, who were recently profiled by Huffington Post. Twenty-three have been identified, more than double the number at the Beijing games.
Some still say that’s a ridiculously paltry number, considering there are 11,000 athletes total. That calculates to .02 percent. They’re also mainly women and mainly White. The guys – Australian 2008 Gold Medal diver Matthew Mitcham has the highest profile – compete in individual sports, giving credence to the conventional wisdom that it’s harder to come out in a team environment.
Per the message boards, the main issue under debate is: “Why is this story important anyway?”
Including and beyond the religious bigots, a lot of people say an athlete’s sexuality has no place in media coverage. Fans are interested in athletic ability and competition. We don’t need to know what an athlete does in her/his “private” life. Win a gold medal, and then you earn the right to the media spotlight. By profiling gay athletes, it’s actually hurting the cause of “mainstreaming” queer lives; we’re just like everyone else.
That’s a quick condensation of the message boards.
I don’t believe that LGBT athletes have a moral imperative to come out, but I do feel strongly that it’s a wonderful thing when they do. And I think the hypocrisy of the anti-coming out argument is exposed in due course when you consider how many athletes use their platform for personal causes, whether it be cancer research, disability awareness, ethnic/cultural pride, or whatever.
A great example is tennis player Andy Murray. He plays for Great Britain, but is quite ‘openly’ Scottish. Should he shut his mouth about that? (Yeah, just try to get him to do that).
