Gay athletes at Yale University

Via Outsports, a great article in the Yale Daily News:

His teammates on the men’s varsity swimming team threw kickboards at him. Laughing, they taunted him throughout afternoon practice, punning on his name and cracking nasty comments.

But it wasn’t because he was gay — he’s not. And they didn’t think he was.

His teammates berated him that afternoon because he had made a homophobic comment in an e-mail thread about an openly gay member of the team.

He was immediately shot down: “Are you f--king serious?” another teammate responded in the thread.

That’s right: the team was sticking up for the gay guy.

The offending commenter immediately got defensive in another e-mail blast: “You should know I have nothing against gays,” he wrote. “I’m very liberal on the issue.”

For the record, the gay athlete in question, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not out to his family, said he did not think the comment was “really that bad.” Which is why, he said, he was surprised to walk into the locker room the next day to find his teammates yelling at the commenter for his insensitivity.

There seems to be a strange dichotomy in the world of Yale athletics — episodes where teams band together to support their LGTBQ members are numerous, but so too are ignorant comments on the part of teammates. While this dynamic varies from sport to sport, all athletes interviewed agree that their teams are generally supportive of diverse sexualities, a reflection of the University’s outspoken support of the gay community.

Still, gay athletes often hesitate before coming out to their teams. Even at Yale, there’s something hetero-normative about the culture of athletics.

Keep reading HERE.