Female Star Comes Out as Gay and Sports World Shrugs

At first glance it seemed implausible. After all players fans coaches and league executives had been waiting with bated breath for weeks if not months and years to see if an active team sport athlete would come out. So how could this sort of revelation be treated with such nonchalance

Because it was a woman said Jim Buzinski a founder of Outsports.com a Web site about homosexuality and sports. Can you imagine if it was a man who did the exact same thing Everyone s head would have exploded.

The aftermath of the former Baylor star Brittney Griner s revelation in several interviews this week was muted to say the least. Griner who was chosen with the No. 1 pick in the W.N.B.A. draft Monday did not treat the issue with any outward hesitation in fact she appeared to refer to her coming out in the past tense as though it had happened before giving a casual feeling to the entire episode.

It was an odd juxtaposition as there is increased speculation about whether a male athlete any male athlete will come out while still playing a major professional team sport one of the best female athletes in the history of team sports comes out and the reaction is roughly equivalent to what one might see when a baseball manager reveals his starting rotation for a three game series in July.

A few weeks ago we had a story on Outsports about the rumors that an N.F.L. player was going to come out no one knew who or anything more than that Buzinski said. All it had was I think some player might possibly come out but I don t know who essentially.

Buzinski gave a wry laugh. That story got 10 times the traffic of Brittney Griner on video saying that she is a lesbian he said.

There is obviously a more substantial history to female athletes coming out and continuing to play. Individual sport stars like the tennis legend Martina Navratilova and team sport players like basketball s Sheryl Swoopes and soccer s Megan Rapinoe are among the women to continue playing after publicly discussing their sexuality.

But those players generally received a similarly subdued response with nothing close to the expected surge in attention that figures to follow a male athlete s coming out. The reaction to Griner s disclosure then was simply the latest example of a disturbing trend according to some leaders of L.G.B.T. causes.

We talk a lot in the L.G.B.T. community about how sexism is a big part of what contributes to homophobia said Anna Aagenes the executive director of GO Athletes a national network of L.G.B.T. athletes. It s disheartening when there are so many great role model female athletes out that we re so focused on waiting for a male pro athlete to come out in one of the four major sports.

Context may not be the only factor in the ho hum public response to Griner s disclosure. Stereotypes that top female athletes are gay continue to persist and that probably played a role in how the sports world responded to Griner said Sherri Murrell the women s basketball coach at Portland State and the only openly gay basketball coach in Division I.

Murrell praised Griner for her low key approach she was being who she is Murrell said but added that stereotypes about women involved in sports clearly still existed.

There s certainly going to be people who say Oh it s just another lesbian Murrell said. I still get people that say to me You re beautiful I can t believe you re gay.

She continued I think we re always going to be living in that bias. I think it s getting better but there is still that tag.

That persistent stereotype about female athletes does damage on multiple levels said Patrick Burke a founder of You Can Play a prominent advocacy group for L.G.B.T. athletes. While a number of heterosexual male athletes including the N.F.L. players Chris Kluwe and Brendon Ayanbadejo have publicly supported the efforts of L.G.B.T. athlete groups it has been much harder to find straight female athletes to speak out in support Burke said.

In sports right now there are two different stereotypes that there are no gay male athletes and every female athlete is a lesbian Burke said. We ve had tremendous success in getting straight male players to speak to the issue we re having a tougher time finding straight female athletes speaking on this issue because they ve spent their entire careers fighting the perception that they re a lesbian.

Kluwe a punter for the Minnesota Vikings said I think it s clear that there s reverse stereotyping if you want to call it that going on as well as the general sexism.

Not surprisingly Kluwe added that he did not think it was likely that the reaction to Griner s decision to come out would have much of an impact on any male athlete considering a similar revelation if only because the experience figures to be so different. And that of course is the problem Burke said.

We re all waiting for the first gay male active athlete in a major professional team sport in North America to come out Burke said. That s something like eight adjectives or descriptors. We re all ignoring people who don t fit into those exact adjectives and it s frustrating that we don t recognize the enormously important contributions that are already being made.

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