Is Softball Gay? - Gothamist

Contents:

• 9 BASEBALL PLAYERS WHO CAME OUT AS GAY
• GAY BALL
• PLAYG SOFTBALL PROV YOU'RE GAY
• GAY LLEGE SOFTBALL PLAYER NAVIGAT AN ACCEPTG TEAM AND SILENT FAY
• SOME TRANS SOFTBALL PLAYERS ARE LLG FOR THE GAY WORLD SERI TO BE MOVED OM TEXAS
• HOW THIS GAY SOFTBALL PLAYER OVERME HIGH SCHOOL TNTS, AND EMBRACED HER TE SELF
• IS SOFTBALL GAY?
• TEAM USA SOFTBALL STAR HAYLIE MCCLENEY OUT AS GAY: ‘I’M OVER-THE-MOON HAPPY’
• TRANS SOFTBALL PLAYERS PRSURE GAY WORLD SERI TO BOYTT TEXAS OVER ABBOTT ORR
• EXPLORG THE EXCEMENT AND IMPACT OF GAY SOFTBALL: STORI OM THE BIG PEACH TOURNAMENT
• CANDICE WIGGS SAYS 98 PERCENT OF WNBA IS GAY, CLAIMS SHE WAS BULLIED FOR BEG STRAIGHT

9 BASEBALL PLAYERS WHO CAME OUT AS GAY

Informally, female softball players will wear a bow wh their uniform to show others that they are not bow/no bow ncept softball and other tradnally mascule sports such as soccer is homophobic.

This means that a softball player not wearg a bow is not always gay and a softball player wearg a bow is not always ’t wearg a bow softball mean you are a lbian?

GAY BALL

”The bow/no bow nnectn wh sexual orientatnWhile is mon the softball muny to wear a bow to exprs that you are straight, that do not mean one’s sexual orientatn is pennt on clothg or example, a female softball player fettg to wear a bow or choosg not to wear a bow is not necsarily gay.

Likewise, a female softball player who always wears a bow wh her softball uniform is not necsarily the end, the only thg that affects whether or not you are homosexual is if you are sexually attracted to the same sex, not what you the bow/no bow ncept homophobic? LGBTQ+ alli believe that what you wear shouldn’t terme your sexual preference, cludg a bow wh a softball term “no bow lbo” is a homophobic stereotype of female softball players.

Fettg to wear a bow n rult homophobic tntg om like softball have a stigma around them when to the sexual orientatn of the players. This bow/no bow ncept is homophobic bee a person’s sexual orientatn should not be pennt on cisn to wear a bow wh your uniform or not is up to you. However, some people are still homophobic and may make negative ments about softball players or other athlet who choose not to wear a bow.

PLAYG SOFTBALL PROV YOU'RE GAY

Also, they are the on who have ma a notable announcement to openly lbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, and transgenr sportspeople.

“I don’t see sexualy as fluencg my beliefs or opns or perceptns of anybody, whether they’re gay, straight, bi, trans, experimental, I don’t re. Furthermore, he has openly e out as gay, and th, he is the first high-profile Atralian sportsperson and the first gby footballer the world to be such. Rogers is a former profsnal soccer player and the first openly gay man to pete a top North Amerin profsnal sports league.

Consequently, Robbie me out as gay back 2013, and 2016, he married his longtime boyiend, televisn wrer-producer Greg Berlanti.

GAY LLEGE SOFTBALL PLAYER NAVIGAT AN ACCEPTG TEAM AND SILENT FAY

So, here we gonna talk about some of the bravt of all begs; as we know, Like other sports, homophobia is still prevalent baseball.

The prsure toward acceptg pri players baseball may be why homosexual players who e out as gay before or after retirement have a short reer.

SOME TRANS SOFTBALL PLAYERS ARE LLG FOR THE GAY WORLD SERI TO BE MOVED OM TEXAS

Moreover, Santan ma headl after g out as gay ont of his mother and teammat while filmg This Is Life, a TLC documentary 2017.

HOW THIS GAY SOFTBALL PLAYER OVERME HIGH SCHOOL TNTS, AND EMBRACED HER TE SELF

Later, terviewg wh SB natn outsports, he mentns hearg anti-gay slurs by teammat the locker room or gam felt like havg a knife the heart. Moreover, he later beme the first major league affiliated player and send active profsnal baseball player to e out as gay publicly.

In 2003, Bean wrote the book named Gog the other way to answer cricism and hope of gay athlet accepted by others sports. Sce 2016, no homophobic slur has been chanted for the first time, and looks like MLB is dog s bt to change the perspective toward homosexual players. None of this particularly surprised a sport that has wrtled wh the issue — If you play, you’re probably gay —for s.

“It is one of those ltle touchstone thgs, ” said Rosalyn Bugg, an official wh the Greater Los Angel Softball Assn., found as a slow-pch league for gays. ” By then, the game had bee a central part of the culture, said Pat Griff, thor of “Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lbians and Homophobia Sport.

IS SOFTBALL GAY?

” “It’s the bone marrow of women’s sports, ” she said, “the whole issue that sports will turn you gay or sports have a disproportnate number of lbians. ” This dynamic leads to negative recg — llege ach tryg to fluence prospects by whisperg that rival programs are pervasively gay — and ncerns among parents. Currently, more than 17, 000 players om 52 ci across Canada and the Uned Stat participate member leagu, and the bt of the teams nverge once a year for head-to-head petn at the annual Gay Softball World Seri.

The 2008 Gay Softball World Seri was unr way, an alternate universe of petive sports that mov each year to a different cy, brgg wh nearly 200 gay softball teams om across the Uned Stat and Canada, as well as thoands of spectators. For the Seattle world seri, the San Francis Gay Softball Associatn, one of the olst gay softball clubs the Uned Stat, sent a team that lled self D2. They'd been together for some time, but so far the bt they'd ever done at the Gay Softball World Seri was place fourth.

On Augt 30, 2008, havg sailed through the early rounds of petn at the Seattle Gay Softball World Seri, D2 found self the semifals. The accatn, which end up spawng a feral lawsu that uld change the way gay sports are played around the untry, was simple and yet very hard to prove: D2 was fieldg too many heterosexual players.

TEAM USA SOFTBALL STAR HAYLIE MCCLENEY OUT AS GAY: ‘I’M OVER-THE-MOON HAPPY’

The North Amerin Gay Amatr Athletic Alliance, which puts on the Gay Softball World Seri, was found the 1970s by gay players San Francis and New York seekg to promote a safe and separate space for gay softball.

It wasn't until 1993, as harned cultural animosi toward gays were begng to crack, that the flat-out ban on straight people loosened. Melani and I were seated across the table om each other at Sndals, a gay bar Portland, as he told me about this evolutn. He pch for a gay team known as the Portland Brewers, and he apologized advance for the way he speaks—explosive emotn, choppg hand gtur—sayg 's a batn of his passn for gay sports and his Italian herage.

TRANS SOFTBALL PLAYERS PRSURE GAY WORLD SERI TO BOYTT TEXAS OVER ABBOTT ORR

He went on: "There was one time, a few years ago, where we spl a double hear wh a straight team—they were ready to take baseball bats and e to blows bee we were gay. This is one of the many hard-to-duplite experienc that e wh playg on a gay sports team, this opportuny to humble—and enrage—straight people who aren't ed to gays beg good at sports.

Even our quickly shiftg culture, gay people still face discrimatn and hostily, still spend a certa amount of time crisscrossg the divi between explicly queer spac and domantly heterosexual spac.

Partly bee of this, for many the gay muny there's still a powerful pull toward moments, like the Gay Softball World Seri, which that kd of divi-crossg gets put on extend pse.

EXPLORG THE EXCEMENT AND IMPACT OF GAY SOFTBALL: STORI OM THE BIG PEACH TOURNAMENT

The problem —as NAGAAA is now fdg out feral urt—when a group of people tri to fend queer space by enforcg a lim on exactly how many non-gay people n be clud. ) The NCLR is mandg unspecified moary damag for the "emotnal distrs" suffered by s clients—scribed urt documents as "vivid flashbacks, " "loss of sleep, " and feelgs of "huiatn, embarrassment, and anger"—pl a natnwi junctn agast enforcement of the two-straight-players-per-team lim at the Gay Softball World Seri. It's taken the unual step, part, bee has a profoundly different sense of the current culture—and what's required to fend gay space—than Melani's anizatn do.

"The l are a legacy of an olr time, " Stoll said, speakg of the two-straight- players-per-team p at the Gay Softball World Seri. Today, a le that lims participatn based on sexual orientatn jt isn't necsary to have a gay sports league, or any kd of gay-iendly space.

CANDICE WIGGS SAYS 98 PERCENT OF WNBA IS GAY, CLAIMS SHE WAS BULLIED FOR BEG STRAIGHT

This summer, Vanuver, BC, will play host to the North Ameri Outgam, an Olympics-style petn volvg gay teams petg agast each other soccer, swimmg, hockey, volleyball, nng, mounta bikg, badmton, golf, poker, and, y, softball. That's a very different policy than at the Gay Softball World Seri or the Natnal Gay Flag Football League, which also lims the number of straight players allowed on a team to 20 percent.

" All the D2 players waed outsi as, one by one, their teammat were brought before a panel posed of lears the natnal gay softball associatn.