Editor’s note: After a dialogue with Our Group treasurer Jenelle DeVits, I invited her to express her concerns about the gay-sports community on our blog. Her entries will appear from time to time.
Coming across Outsports early in my collegiate career opened my eyes to gay media. Dominated by white masculinity I was bothered by the lack of personal representation. Understanding of the underground culture of gay athletes, I was surprised to see Outsports not only highlight gay athletes, but initiate networking and connection of these athletes. Although bothered by the lack of diversity, I was impressed by the amount of research and information Outsports presented. After realizing female athlete stories were rare and with the amount of gay male nudity, I decided to take a hiatus from visiting Outsports.
During this hiatus, I helped initiate a non-profit organization for student-athletes. Our Group was formed by multiple collegiate athletes who felt neglected, rejected, or underrepresented in the athletic arena. Currently, we have over 200 members and are taking progressive strides to create a secure networking and support system across the United States. If you are interested in becoming involved in Our Group, please do not hesitate to email me.
With my work in Our Group and activism at my own university, I have found a common trend: the LGBT athletic community lacks support for people of color, and male domination is not leaving. When looking at the LGBT athletic community, especially Outsports (which is known as one of the best LGBT athletic websites), there is an obvious illustration of this trend. The nudity (yes, sex does sell) of the white male athletes is, to many people, questionable. I understand the population Outsports currently entertains is exactly that: white men. However, I challenge Outsports to broaden its audience and try to attract new members of the LGBT community to its website.
I would love to see more women volunteer to tell their story and do lengthy feature stories. I would also like to see Outsports acknowledge its hegemonic trends and seek involvement from athletes of color. If there is a lack of either, I hope Outsports can at least present to its audience the energy it used in trying. It is important to give female athletes and athletes of color the support and advocacy that Outsports proclaims on their website. I hope people step up, come out, and speak their mind. The world can use more thoughts, ideas, and opinions.
Jenelle DeVits
University of New Hampshire ’09
Treasurer- Our Group
Editor’s note: We have always searched for out athletes of every gender and color to tell their stories. Still, we can do better, and we accept Jenelle’s challenge. We’re working with Janelle to bring a regular feature: profiles of the wonderful members of Our Group. We have other plans to reach more athletes in response to our recent poll. And we also implore all gay athletes reading this to email us at mail@outsports.com to tell their story. We want to hear from you!
on Jan 11th, 2010 at 5:22 PM
Kudos to her for the deserved constructive criticism. I would add that Outsports isn’t the only LGBT media that focuses on white gay males, so it’s a problem for the community at large.
on Jan 11th, 2010 at 6:03 PM
About the only thing I agree with her on is the nudity. If they ain’t out there, how is this place supposed to report on them? Here we go with the PC on yet another blog *sigh*
on Jan 11th, 2010 at 6:05 PM
Jenelle is right on with her comments. I mean I enjoy this site but I know I’m not going to find many diverse pieces on here. For that I go to black themed websites. I’m not even so sure that the founders are doing a bad job in representing minority pieces, but it may be moreso the fact that there aren’t many out there willing to go public with their stories
on Jan 11th, 2010 at 6:11 PM
Jenelle’s enthusiasm is great. And she’s right – this site does cater to men. I would, however, put forth that the reason for the mostly white “feel” is that the athletes who have come out are mostly white. Also, straight athletes who express gratitude for the support of their gay fans (such as the Australians, who totally rock) seem to be mostly white. Despite this, I believe there have been some clearly obvious efforts to include diversity here.
on Jan 11th, 2010 at 6:13 PM
That’s what I was trying to get at with my post.
How many people approach Outsports from the minority communities, I have to wonder? I see a link to John Amaechi’s blog, and there have been a few other men and women of color come out, but it’s not like we have a dearth of openly gay athletes to report on to begin with.
A suggestion instead of just a complaint, then. Has Outsports considered blogging about more local stuff? You might get more representation from out athletes across all spectrum if you ran more stuff on smaller, local events instead of just trying to stick with pro, semi-pro, and Olympic athletes.
How about it, Outsports? It would work without feeling forced.
on Jan 11th, 2010 at 6:56 PM
well as a minority voice let me say that i think the reason outsports trends white is well, cuz Cyd and Jim like their ice cream vanilla, if you know what i mean. not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the beefcake stuff is obviously their tastes, which i also share so it doesn’t bother me. would i like to see more hot latino and black players featured, sure there’s plenty out there but an outside contributor will be the best way to “darken” Outsports rather than impose some sort of “Rooney Rule” on Jim & Cyd.
as far as featuring lesbians, eh, i say no thanks. is it any shock that women in sports are gay? that’d be like finding a gay male in the world of design or modeling, no big whoop. besides as the recent poll showed it isn’t anything we are clamoring for here.
on Jan 11th, 2010 at 9:24 PM
That poll isn’t exactly scientific. It may not even be restricted to one vote per person, or one per computer. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have some variety in subject matter, as long as it’s sports-related (and not about “reality” TV “stars”).
on Jan 11th, 2010 at 9:31 PM
The diversity issue has been brought up since I started coming here in 2002.
I commend Cyd and Jim for doing what they can, but in the end it boils down to the bloggers that come on here.
on Jan 12th, 2010 at 12:49 AM
Only a gay site would allow its own pages to criticize itself for being “[d]ominated by white masculinity,” the latter of which, at the very least, is a fate worse than death for a “community” that thinks lesbians of colour are its most evolved members and everybody else is some kind of phallocratic racist until proven otherwise. (Bonus points for unironic use of “hegemonic.”)
The Web’s a big place. Start an alternative site and prove Outsports wrong.
on Jan 12th, 2010 at 9:36 AM
I know for Myself its hard to get funding in the Olympic sports but maybe when they get near the top they can come out and sometimes its the fact they arent perfect and it In many communities people are subject to mass out poors of hate. I will say reading this does make me get closer to wanting to come out.
on Jan 12th, 2010 at 10:33 AM
Lesbian-themed sites and spaces/communities rarely strive to include gay male; and when they do, it’s often parenthetical, second to the leading lesbian imagery. The women get purposely showcased first, and they gay male part is a side-show.
So why can’t there exist gay male counterparts? Lacking representation of different races and ethnicities? Refer Outsports to someone willing to contribute. It still remains that communities of color complain about outreach but rarely offer the resources/suggestions themselves. If you have no out athletes of colors taking inititative to broaden the picture and add to the tapestry of this online community, there’s only so much the editors can do.
The only criticism that does strike me as resonant is the need for more feature pieces. Local gay sports scenes, teams, interviews, coverage of gay games. There are many sites to cover pro/college sports; there are nearly no satisfactory sites to cover gay leagues and the lives of gay athletes.
I try to include athletics in my life, but I still feel I could take it to a different level. I would like to see in Outsports resources and vignettes about being in gay leagues, how to approach athletics as a rookie (some of us do often feel as outsiders).
Oh, and speaking of lack of voices, Patricial Nell Warren is a contributor to this site, and her contributions are one of the most thorough and prominently featured in this site.
P.S. Referring to male nudity with puritan disaproval is not a way to endear yourself to gay male readers. If you don’t understand male sexuality, fine, skip over the pictures. But to pretend we have to sanitize the place of well-natured eye candy in order to not offend your lesbian eyes reeks of the rhetoric used by straight people to justify their dislike for gay PDA and media representation.
on Jan 13th, 2010 at 3:03 AM
Gay leagues to me are much like the Negro leagues of the 20th cent. They were needed only so that the athletes could compete. I feel that today we don’t need those leagues because as an athlete you want to compete with the best. Many people play sports not for the money but for the Glory of the sport.
We want Equal rights not a separate state where one superior athlete can beat up on lesser ones in what some would call a “Recreational league”! We play sports for a challenge and we reporting on these issues the NCAA and male dominated sports seem to be far behind the Female sports. It’s a clear point Lesbians are many times more likely in the sports based only on my relationships to be excepted by the School that they compete for. It is the idea that Masculinity in females is sometimes admired by the Male teams although I did see many of the lesbians have issues with other females but that’s most women in general that express a hard time relating to other females all together for what ever reason.
Male athletes can see lesbians as “one of them” Free to make remarks about women and other issues that do not concern sports. I found that even with the football friends and wrestling friends that do know about me they would say what ever came to mind and many found it just easier to stay clear friendships all together. I remember a teammate making calls to my cell all the time about wanting to tick my ass, although I knew on the field I was better than him and even found myself beating him down many time, but it was the idea that coaches and other players even when told would do nothing.
Minorities in sports are not represented in a fair manor, but how can they be when many are as scared as I am about the rejection that would come from teammates, coaches, and staff. The individual could be loved and even respected for the athletic part; when it comes down to it the schools and the universities must make it a non issue and prove that zero tolerance will be in effect when athletes are harassed about any issues outside of the actual athletics. I for one feel that if you mess up on the court fine so be it you had control over that but if you so happen to do something outside the sports field and the universities or teams then try to target your sexuality then it should be addressed in any other manor not just the idea that “ you’re a fag you got what’s coming to you” mindset
on Jan 13th, 2010 at 12:46 PM
I think the points brought out above are very valid—yes there should be a place where gay men can indulge their “straight sports” fetish unapologetically, yes there should be a greater representation of gay sports and it’s participants on this website, yes the outsports staff could do a better job of including local sports (and thus increasing their diversity quotent), but the main point DeVits makes is important– Outsports should be inclusive and should actively and rigorously search out diverse POV’s. Anyonomous blogs are rampant on this site (see gay baseball player site or gay hockey boys site) so the argument that they are afraid of being found out is dubious. The fact is there are gay minority athletes out there-whether out and proud or closeted— and that is what Outsports should be diligently looking for, while at the same time still posting wonderful photos and stories of our white out and proud or closeted fellow athletes.
on Jan 13th, 2010 at 2:52 PM
“The fact is there are gay minority athletes out there-whether out and proud or closeted— and that is what Outsports should be diligently looking for.”
We have never ignored any out athlete, but with two of us running the site, we miss things and depend on reader tips. If you know of any out athlete we have not written about, please let us know.
on Jan 19th, 2010 at 12:47 PM
I don’t see either of the proprietors of this site standing up to outside demands to curtail their editorial freedom. It’s your site and a white lesbian outsider’s editorial opinions aren’t more valuable than your own. I expect that religious fundamentalists (including militant Islamists) would have a few opinions about your site, too. Are you going to listen to them, too?
You are under no obligation to suit anyone but yourselves. Instead, you appease.
If the white lesbian outsider wants a different editorial focus, she can start her own site. Actually, she already did that, so what’s her problem?
Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with whites or masculinity in sport. Anybody who’s got a problem with that needs to be told the Web is a very big place.