Jog the world's first gay gby team changed my life. So I ma a film about | Film | The Guardian

Contents:

• LESTER’S NICK MCCARTHY OUT AS GAY AND THANKS CLUB FOR THEIR SUPPORT
• RUGBY PLAYER GRABS OPPONENT’S CROTCH AND A GAY FORMER PLAYER MAK A JOKE OF
• JOG THE WORLD'S FIRST GAY GBY TEAM CHANGED MY LIFE. SO I MA A FILM ABOUT
• NFL ACH OUT AS GAY HISTORIC MOMENT AMERIN SPORTS
• 10 GAY RUGBY PLAYERS WHO MA THEIR COME OUT
• DISMANTLG STEREOTYP: 10 INSPIRG GAY RUGBY PLAYERS AND PERSONALI
• HEARD OF THE STEELERS? NO, NOT THEM, THE GAY GBY TEAM OM LONDON
• TO GAY GBY, WH LOVE – MATT CARTER ON MAKG ‘IN FROM THE SI’

LESTER’S NICK MCCARTHY OUT AS GAY AND THANKS CLUB FOR THEIR SUPPORT

Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho/ShutterstockFellow Lester player Dunne revealed his bisexualy last year, around the same time Nassib announced he was gay and a few months before Atralian Cavallo ma headl across the world by sharg his news. Here, queer people were reclaimg their place on the pch – an arena they grew up beg told they didn’t belong Israel Fol began postg “hell awas homosexuals” on social media I realised I had to tell the story of the club – and my own story.

RUGBY PLAYER GRABS OPPONENT’S CROTCH AND A GAY FORMER PLAYER MAK A JOKE OF

There was the ocsnal homophobic sledge, but over time the Steelers won the rpect of the straight burly Brish men bee not only did they beat them on ocsn, they showed them that we’re all pretty much the forward to me takg my mera to Amsterdam to film the club at the Bgham Cup, the world cup of “rabow” gby.

Kev Maxen, a strength ach for the NFL anchise the Jacksonville Jaguars, has publicly e out as gay a landmark moment Amerin men's profsnal sportsJacksonville Jaguars strength ach Kev Maxen (R) has publicly e out as gayJacksonville Jaguars ach Kev Maxen has ma history by beg the first active NFL ach to publicly e out as gay.

The Bachelor star and former football player (who was signed by the San Diego Chargers as an undrafted ee agent and was on the practice squad of the Oakland Rairs and the Philalphia Eagl) me out as gay April, sayg he had fally e to terms wh his sexualy and the "next step all of this was sort of lettg people know. Corey Walsh, the 27-year-old pro BMX rir and Vans spokperson, said he isn't normally the type of person to "let people " on his personal life, but felt was important to e out as gay a March Instagram post bee "there are a lot of people still stgglg wh the same suatns" and he "jt wanted to let people know that they are not alone.

JOG THE WORLD'S FIRST GAY GBY TEAM CHANGED MY LIFE. SO I MA A FILM ABOUT

In this article, we’ll name ten of the most notable gay gby personali, analyze their acplishments, discs how they are shapg the game today, and asss their impact on the overall perceptn of homosexual profsnal athlet around the world.

Niamh LewisMar 1, 2021, 09:52 AM ETWhen Eammon Ashton-Atkson, an Atralian televisn reporter, cid to film his gby club as they went to the biannual Bgham Cup 2018, he uld never have imaged the posive reactn a documentary about would film Steelers is about London-based Kgs Cross Steelers, the world's first gay gby club and one of over 60 such sis world-wi. "She's got a certifite for the hight achg level, and sce she left the Steelers she's been nsistently overlooked and not even shortlisted [for jobs] than men who are ls qualified and ls experienced than her, which is heart-breakg and disgtg, " Ashton-Atkson beg gay 2021 wtern society is often unremarkable today, you don't have to go back very far to fd trmatic stori. "For those guys who were settg up that team 1995, they were real trailblazers bee they were gog out to different teams Essex week--week out smashg down stereotyp one game of gby at a time and om what I heard, the men Essex, they had never met an openly gay man before, let alone an openly gay sportsman.

NFL ACH OUT AS GAY HISTORIC MOMENT AMERIN SPORTS

It’s ma by one of the London-based club’s former players, Atralian reporter Eammon Ashton-Atkson, who is narrator, director, wrer and edor, tellg the story of three queer people volved wh the team as they pete agast other gay clubs the Bgham teas out some movg ttimoni and provis a stgg remr for many straight viewers that g out isn’t always the happy endg many thk is, and there are still wounds that need to heal over. We uld not have veloped the list whout the help of several people who dug ep to their archiv for many of the moments: Gay wrtlg gu Gene Dermody; Longtime gay-sports advote and current head of the GLSEN Sports Project Pat Griff; Author and high school soccer ach Dan Woog; and thor Patricia Nell Warren, who has wrten about the history of gay athlet for Outsports for years. 1) Dave Kopay out / 1975 / football2) Marta Navratilova out / 1981 / tennis 3) Billie Jean Kg outed / 1981 / tennis 4) Publitn of 'The Front Runner' / 1974 / books 5) First Gay Gam / 1982 / var sports 6) Corey Johnson's story is told / 2000 / football 7) Billy Bean outt / baseball / 1999 8.

) John Rocker spews homophobia to Sports Illtrated / 1999 / baseball 9) First gay softball world seri / 1977 / softball 10) Matthew Mcham ws divg gold / 2008 / divg 11) Ian Roberts out / 1995 / gby 12) Renee Richards ws right to play U. Open / 1977 / tennis 13) Magic Johnson announc he has HIV / 1991 / basketball 14) Greg Louganis out / 1994 / divg 15) John Amaechi out / 2007 / basketball 16) Esera Tuaolo out / 2002 / football 17) Brendan Burke pass away / 2010 / hockey 18) Gareth Thomas out / 2009 / gby19) ESPN airs 'World of the gay athlete'' / 1998 / media20) NCLR iat sports project / 2001 / sports 21) Tim Hardaway tells rad host, 'I hate gay people'' / 2007 / basketball 22) IOC allows trans athlet to pete / 2004 / Olympics 23) Jt Fashanu ms suici / 1998 / soccer 24) Out John Curry ws world figure skatg tle / 1976 / figure skatg 25) Mike Piazza announc he's straight / 2002 / baseball 26) Umpire Dave Pallone fired by MLB / 1988 / baseball 27) Intersex Spanish hurdler banned om track / 1986 / track & field 28) Sheryl Swoop out / 2005 / basketball 29) Majory of pro athlet would wele gay teammate / 2006 / sports 30) 11 out athlet at Athens Summer Olympics / 2004 / Olympics 31) NBC airs 'He's here, he's Weir' / 2006 / Olympics 32) Brendan Lemon reveals MLB boyiend / 2001 / baseball 33) Mark Bgham killed Sept. 11 attacks / 2001 / gby 34) Canadian volleyball ach Betty Baxter fired / 1982 / volleyball 35) First gay roo / 1976 / roo 36) Jeremy Shockey says he don't want gay teammate / 2002 / NFL 37) Eric Anrson's nner attacked / 1996 / cross-untry 38) Gay Gam III Vanuver is first outsi San Francis / 1990 / Gay Gam 39) ESPN hir LZ Granrson / 2004 / sports media 40) John Damien su over dismissal / 1975 / horse racg 41) The foundg of the Internatnal Gay Bowlg Org.

10 GAY RUGBY PLAYERS WHO MA THEIR COME OUT

/ 1980 / bowlg 42) Lana Lawls ws right to play on LPGA Tour / 2010 / golf 43) Brian Sims tells his story / 2009 / llege football 44) Kye Allums out / 2010 / llege basketball 45) Hudson Taylor openly supports gay rights / 2010 / wrtlg 46) NBA f Kobe Bryant $100k / 2011 / NBA 47) Rene Portland leav Penn State / 2007 / llege basketball 48) Figure skater Andrej Nepela named Slovakia athlete of the century / 2000 / figure skatg 49) IOC ends mandatory genr ttg / 1999 / Olympics 50) Rick Welts out / 2011 / NBA51) Amelie Mrmo ws Wimbledon / 2006 / tennis52) Roger Brigham out to general manager / 1982 / sports reportg53) Kirk Walker be only male D. 1 head ach / 2007 / softball54) Glenn Burke out / 1993 / baseball55) 'Ball Four' TV show clus gay ballplayer / 1976 / baseball 56) Supreme Court l agast 'Gay Olympic Gam' / 1987 / var sports 57) Bodybuilr Bob Paris out / 1989 / Bodybuildg 58) Christe Daniels out as transgenred sportswrer / 2007 / media 59) Diana Nyad swims om Bimi to Florida / 1979 / swimmg 60) Stanley Cup part of Chigo's gay pri para / 2010 / NHL 61) Terrell Owens impli Jeff Garcia is gay / 2004 / NFL 62) CBC airs "The Last Closet"/ 1993/media 63) NCAA workshop on sexual orientatn / 2003 / var sports 64) Bill Konigsberg out at ESPN / 2001 / media65) Caster Semenya asked to unrgo genr tt / 2009 / track & field 66) Formatn of Penn's Athlet & Alli PATH / 2003 / var sports 67) Homophobic chants at Brazil volleyball match / 2011 / volleyball 68) NCAA chief enurag embrace of sexual orientatn 69) Ed Gallagher surviv suici attempt / 1985 / football 70) World Outgam spls om Gay Gam / 2003 / var sports 71) Anton Hysen out/ 2011 / soccer 72) Sean Avery leads New York gay marriage charge / 2011 / hockey73) Steven Davis is first ternatnal cricketer to e out / 2011 / cricket 74) Irish hurlg star Donal Óg Cack out / 2009 / hurlg 75) 'Take Me Out' hs Broadway / 2003 / baseball 76) San Francis Giants say 'It Gets Better' / 2011 / baseball77) First Trans Stunt-Athlete thk tank / 2009 / var sports 78) NAGAAA sued over straight-athlete lim / 2010 / softball 79) Canadian Olympian Mark Tewksbury out / 1998 / swimmg 80) Sherri Murrell is first out Div.

1 basketball ach / 2009 / basketball 81) Brendan Burke out / 2009 / hockey 82) Gay and Lbian Athletics Foundatn nference / 2003 / var sports 83) Greg Congdon outed / 1998 / football 84) Lbian uple ejected om Dodgers Stadium for kissg / 2000 / baseball 85) First EuroGam held / 1992 / var sports 86) Former NFL player Roy Simmons out on 'Donahue' / 1992 / football 87) Jen Harris su Penn State / 2005 / basketball88) Nong Toom ws first petive match / 1998 / kickboxg89) Washgton be first state to adopt trans high school athlete policy / 2008 / var sports90) Mike Mka named athletic director at Oberl College / 1998 / var sports91) Robert Dover elected pta of U. As a rult, has tradnally rerced an orthodox form of twentieth-century masculy that is lked to those who are whe, middle class, able-bodied, and, most important to this analysis, heterosexual (Symons, 2009) is now wily regnized, however, that twenty-first-century sport is a social stutn that shap and impacts upon the liv of gay and lbian athlet too. Sce soclogist first began to qutn the role that sport plays the productn and reproductn of mascule inty the mid-1980s (Dunng, 1986), there was a slow progrsn om examg sport as a se of male ntrol over women, to regnizg the tersectn between sport and sexualy that rults om the largely heteronormative and homophobic culture of profsnal sport the 1990s and the first of the twenty-first century (Rowe, Markwell, & Stevenson, 2006) was this hospable perd of time that gave rise to sexual orientatn-segregated sportg spac for gay men.

DISMANTLG STEREOTYP: 10 INSPIRG GAY RUGBY PLAYERS AND PERSONALI

Concerng the foc of this chapter, gby, the first soclogil vtigatn occurred the Uned Kgdom by Price and Parker (2003) and they found the existence of the untry’s first gay club (formed 1995) was prcipally anized around pg perceived or actual homophobia of mastream new Millennium brought chang attus toward homosexualy, not only to society, but also to mastream sport (Anrson, 2014). This was a fdg that was affirmed by yet further outlook upon the gay male athlet by straight men 2011 (Anrson, 2011), has been repeatedly shown that heterosexual athlet, generally, are creasgly acceptg of homosexualy (Anrson, Magrath, & Bullgham, 2016; Anrson & McCormack, 2015; Bh, Anrson, & Carr, 2012) reason for this acceptance has to do wh changg attudal disposn toward gay men and changg masculy among heterosexual mal.

347) was the first to e the term “clive masculy” to scribe mascule performanc that view hegemonic masculy as unsirable wh a willgns to embrace femy “ls ncerned wh migatg homosexual spicn through homophobia and heterosexism”. There is also evince for creasg societal acceptance of gay athlet and a softeng of media attus toward gay male athlet both the Uned Kgdom and Uned Stat wh a shift toward clive masculy (Cleland, 2014, 2018; Kian & Anrson, 2009) and MasculyRugby, which Dunng (1986, p. In this manner, twentieth-century gby players nsolidated their masculy wh gby servg to privilege prence of gay players the hypermascule, physil gby environment may be the ultimate subversn of the myth of gay men beg effemate and un-mascule (Symons, 2010), a siar manner to the challeng to tradnal nstctns of femy that female players prent (Wright & Clarke, 1999).

This is bee the volvement of gay players a space that has been a fundamental source of heterosexual male power unrm masculy and challeng the boundary between gay and straight mal and ultimately the perceived differenc between men and women as a whole (Anrson, 2002) example, former Welsh ternatnal player, Gareth Thomas—who is one of the most well-known and rpected players Welsh gby history (McGivern & Miller, 2017; Zhu, 2016)—me out December 2009, to an “overwhelmgly supportive” rponse (McCormack & Anrson, 2010, p.

HEARD OF THE STEELERS? NO, NOT THEM, THE GAY GBY TEAM OM LONDON

Th, there has been a softeng of the culture associated wh playg gby, driven by younger players g through the system who are creasgly rejectg, if not challengg the prevly accepted e of homophobic disurse that is ed by olr members of the gby muny. 118) and a haven for those who had been exclud or ostracized om the mastream gby their analysis, Price and Parker (2003) examed the Kgs Cross Steelers Rugby Football Club, an amatr gby club based London and the self-claimed world’s first gay gby club.

Fdg participants for this rearch was not difficult as the number of clive men’s gby teams has grown om ls than a dozen clubs one ago to eighty-four clubs the Uned Kgdom and Wtern Europe as regnized by and registered wh the Internatnal Gay Rugby Board. Semi-stctured terviews of ten players om each team occurred alongsi, participant observatn and wrten rpons to a participant-requted qutnnaire provid sight to the ratnale as to why the men seek to bee members of the nearly all gay men clive clubs. As one gay player said wh a lgh, “They jt don’t know they’re gay yet” the nature of clive club members who participated this rearch we opted to exclu heterosexual members of the clubs (only five heterosexual players were intified over the urse of the rearch).

That fdg alone mak this rearch novel: This is not the experience of gay men clive clubs prevly (Price & Parker, 2003) addn, the nature of masculi as pertas to the social, cultural, and temporal experience of many of the participants was examed but did not bee a central foc of this rearch. Instead, our thematic dg found three new areas of tert this vtigatn: (1) the social pal sought by and gaed by many participants on clive men’s gby clubs, (2) clubs’ prence for many gay men as a “safe haven”, and (3) for some gay men their participatn wh the clive gby club was merely a hobby and a means for them to meet other gay men wh siar terts sport.

TO GAY GBY, WH LOVE – MATT CARTER ON MAKG ‘IN FROM THE SI’

He later wanted to expla that he unrstood that not only his fellow clive men’s gby teammat saw him as a gay man and member of the club, but that when he wore his Hampshire jersey on non-gby days while walkg or travelg around town other townspeople “probably knew” he is gay.

The nversatn wh the two spectators/former players was direct reference to ncerns exprsed by rearchers regard to ncsns and the effect of improper tacklg techniqu on younger players England and elsewhere (Pollock, Whe, & Kirkwood, 2017) then followed was a nversatn between the two approximately seventy-year-old former Rochter Rugby Club players when asked about chang the sexual orientatn/genr inty of current players, and not the laws of the game, regard to acceptance of gay men most levels of the sport. A few sub-them emerged discsg the rise of clive gby teams wh admistrators, spectators, gay players, and players om non-clive clubs, openly intifyg as gay or otherwise, when the first rearcher met wh members of an clive gay men’s club and men om another non-clive club.

At the re of McCormack and Wignall’s argument is tent; and the tent of the men was that of bondg through banter the way McCormack and Anrson (2010) have also shown occurs between gay and straight male ncept of the “normalcy” of homosexualy arose a number of tim durg other terviews wh the clive gby team members. Asked why he and his gay teammat did not ntue playg gby wh their straight iends, he psed as he looked across at another field where approximately fifty men age seventeen to approximately thirty-five were trag while his clive team’s group of twenty players worked out on another field, and said, “It jt was done that way” the advent of the first openly all-gay men’s team, the London Steelers, the mid-1990s and then the San Francis Fog 2001, gay men were not seen as mascule enough (Anrson, 2005b), as one clive team player said, to play gby after sendary school and to their universy years. What this separatn of straight and gay gby players effectively did was create a divisn of active gby participatn between the two groups begng at age ten to twelve years (om sendary school to universy) until well after universy years.