Brody's Scribbles... Desmond Rutherford: Changing Attitudes

By Desmond Rutherford (Adelaide, South Australia) June 11 | Jason Akermanis, the Australian footballer whose article stating that gays should stay in the closet that had stirred considerable controversy is in the news again. The June issue of the local Adelaide LGBT magazine ‘Blaze’ has no less than 4 items referring to Jason Akermanis.

Scott McGuiness (Editor for Blaze) said:

“…Jason Akermanis’ declaring gay footballers should stay in the closet,” as outrageous.  He also notes Channel Seven’s ‘news’ story which outed NSW politician David Campbell.

Rodney Groome in his column, ‘Groome With A View’ comments that:

“...in these two episodes is a society in transition.” What we are seeing from both Akermanis and Channel Seven is a backlash to change, an attempt to highlight and reverse our emergence from the closet labelled “easily stereotyped other.”  

Todd Harper, CEO of VicHealth (Victorian Health Promotion Foundation) in his letter to the editor states:

“Jason Akermanis’ recent contentious column warning gay footballers to keep their sexuality under wraps was a timely reminder of the health issues at stake.” Harper reveals that the Akermanis article was printed on “the same day that VicHealth released an Australian-first report into the experiences of GLBT people in sports.”  He concludes his letter with a plea for the need for more research about “…how homophobia in sports affects young people, “ 

In her column “The G Spot” Dr. Gertrude Glossip questions Jason’s advice to players to forget about “telling the world,” which she counters with her question, 

“How then will attitudes ever change, Jason?” 

How indeed? But there are many who side with the Akermanis assertion that it is best to not come out as a gay sportsman. Why? 

This is an important question and the answer is not easily discerned without jumping to equally crass assumptions. Indeed the whole nature of the reactions to the Akermanis article and video is revealing of more than just an attitude from someone struggling to make a point. And the emphasis is on the word ‘struggling.’ 

For whatever reason he doesn’t see a problem, in women's sport - tennis, golf, cricket, hockey and soccer - being gay carries no stigma. But men's sport is well behind in acceptance.

In a recent Herald Sun interview, the interviewer is rightfully challenging Jason, even if perhaps toying with him, but Jason mixes, some might say, jumps over, his own terms of reference when he talks about homosexuality and homo-eroticism: 

“Some of the homoeroticism around football clubs -that would be an interesting thing.  …and all the time when you are slapping blokes on the bum…” 

But as surprising as this statement is, and as he obviously is aware of the locker room homoeroticism, it is really the following comment which exposes his objective.

“Trying to get people to come out, and I’m not sure if that is safe and healthy for the competition…”

This statement patently reveals that his priority is safeguarding his sport’s image.

Jason, in his interview, claims he is a man who is, as he says, “all right with it,” where the ‘it’ is ‘homosexuality,’ and, “away from football;

"I’m all for any initiative that helps lessen public bias against homosexuality.”

Apart from the use of the word ‘it’ to refer to a human attribute, Jason could be regarded as one of those people who has come to accept homosexuality (at least in his own mind,) even though his acceptance appears to be diminished to a convenient tolerance when he advises the exception of coming out in sport, and in particular, in football.  

He is not alone in his attitude, supported by many people, who see sport as a ritual to worship heterosexual masculinity; and if you think that is stereotyping then, I agree, it is. What's important to realise is that this stereotype has become endemic in the sporting world and its supporting culture. 

It hasn't been imposed on them. They have wanted it to be seen as raw, even savage muscular energy in a team environment that serves the competitive nature of what was once just an enjoyable ‘game’ for individuals to play on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

‘The Competition’ is now a metaphor for the corporate business of running a sporting enterprise, with highly lucrative jobs for physically elite team members, surrounded by the secretive infamy and seductive power of homoeroticism, which is covertly commandeered to further enhance and popularise the sporting image of heterosexual masculinity for commercial gain.  

In the minds of those who worship such masculinity, a gay player coming out, would challenge that sporting image, that stereotype, even endanger it, or as Jason puts it;

“I’m not sure if that is safe and healthy for the competition…”

In other words, we might conclude that the openly gay player is believed to endanger the public perception of the savage heterosexual masculinity upon which the sport has been encouraged to develop, albeit shrouded in a mask of fair play.

Subsequently, it might be thought that psychologically, the openly gay player destroys the ability of the straight spectator to relate to a team as being his champions in conflict against the other teams, because that player’s sexuality does not represent the sport’s masculine heterosexual (and homoerotic) stereotype. This analysis is the one that escapes Jason’s defenders, often despite their own sexuality because of their overriding allegiance to the competition.

Therefore, that openly gay players should be invisible is seen as a necessity to protect the competition, and the ingenuous rationalisation that Jason Akermanis arrives at, is that secrecy is needed to protect the gay player.  Because he has, in his own words, said he is okay with homosexuality away from the sporting arena, it is this advice to keep the player’s sexuality secret that renders Jason’s statement as prejudiced against homosexual people.

It is this secrecy that threatens young people’s ability to accept themselves. And it is this prejudice which must be countered by encouraging gay players to come out, so that gay and straight players and spectators, know it is okay to be whom they are. Otherwise sport is aiding and abetting the denial of a human right, and it is doing so with harm for everyone. 

What seems patently obvious to me is that sport in general and football in particular is placed on a pedestal where winning the ‘game’ is somehow more sacred than the fairness that sportsmanship is so often touted as promoting. It shouldn’t be like that, and it needn’t be so either.

"If we are going to convince the 90% to give a shit about us 10%, we have to let them know who we are. Everybody has to come out. We have to let all those people out there that they know one of us-Try telling the truth. 
It’s more than issues. This is not just jobs or issues; this is our lives we are fighting for.
Come out and once and for all let’s breakdown the myths and destroy the lies and distortions for your sake, for all the youngsters who have been scared.  
All men are created equal."

-From the Academy Award Winning screenplay, 'Milk' written by Dustin Lance Black

And no I am not saying those who are in immediate danger of losing their life, or being incarcerated, or being thrown out on the street should come out. Unlike competition sports, the individual comes first; the teams place is to support those who need the help to come out safely. This is the example sporting people must set for those who are deprived of their ability to come out for whatever reason. 

Whether in sport or not, all of us, who have come out, who have reached a time of life when we should be out, who dare to reap the benefits achieved by those who sacrificed everything for even the freedoms we have won, should  be out there supporting those who need our help to come out, to be free, to be themselves, and we should be in that vanguard right now, until we die. That’s a team worth joining.  That is what gay love is all about, or should be. 

Human rights demand that we give ourselves and others a sporting chance to live and play, without hiding whom we love. 

On changing attitudes. 

I would make it clear that the above analysis, such as it is, narrowly confined, and brief though it may be, is not directed at all sporting and athletic activities, players, athletes or spectators. However it must be stated that wherever prejudice occurs, whether it be racial, sexual or gender based, then some effort at the least, to point out the prejudice needs to be made. 

We will know when such attitudes have been replaced with acceptance when our athletes perform naked as they once did in Ancient games.  

Furthermore, when wrestlers, during a match, become aroused and the spectators accept this as natural we will have advanced to a very sophisticated state of acceptance. 

When we accept without guilt, the natural response for our own arousal at such sights, we will know that religious superstition and bigotry have been defeated. 

The acceptance of the diversity of human experience will indeed be cause for celebration of life in every land, in the hearts and minds of everyone on Earth, but it won’t happen unless we work for it at every moment of our lives. Sport can be a part of that celebration or a casualty of its own prejudice.