Eric Anderson - Out in Sport: The experiences of openly gay and lesbian athletes in competitive sport

Out in Sport: The experiences of openly gay and lesbian athletes in competitive sport — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Out in Sport: The experiences of openly gay and lesbian athletes in competitive sport" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...64

OUT IN SPORT

Research has shown that since the turn of the millennium, matters have rapidly improved for gays and lesbians in sport. Where gay and lesbian athletes were merely tolerated a decade ago, today they are celebrated.

This book represents the most comprehensive examination of the experiences of gays and lesbians in sport ever produced. Drawing on interviews with openly gay and lesbian athletes in the US and the UK, as well as media accounts, the book examines the experiences of out men and women, at recreational, high school, university and professional levels, in addition to those competing in gay sports leagues.

Offering a new approach to understanding this important topic, Out in Sport is essential reading for students and scholars of sport studies, LGBT studies and sociology, as well as sports practitioners and trainers.

Eric Anderson is Professor of Sport, Masculinities and Sexualities at the University of Winchester, UK.

Rory Magrath is Lecturer in the School of Sport, Health and Social Sciences at Southampton Solent University, UK.

Rachael Bullingham is Lecturer in Physical Education at the University of Worcester, UK.

OUT IN SPORT

The experiences of openly
gay and lesbian athletes
in competitive sport

Eric Anderson, Rory Magrath and
Rachael Bullingham

First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2016 Eric Anderson, Rory Magrath and Rachael Bullingham

The right of Eric Anderson, Rory Magrath and Rachael Bullingham to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Anderson, Eric, 1968
Title: Out in sport : the experiences of openly gay and lesbian athletes in competitive sport / Eric Anderson, Rory Magrath and Rachael Bullingham.
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015036386| ISBN 9781138182219 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138182240 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315646572 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Gay athletes. | Gay athletesUnited States. | Gay athletesGreat Britain. | SportsSocial aspects. | Homophobia in sports.
Classification: LCC GV708.8 .A63 2016 | DDC 306.4/83dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015036386

ISBN: 978-1-138-18221-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-18224-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-64657-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

We dedicate this book to two of the most influential leaders of the movement to make sport more inclusive to sexual minorities, Cyd Ziegler and Jim Buzinski.

Jim Buzinski came out of the closet as Americas first openly gay sports editor in 1987; although he received much hostility, he featured articles on the topic of gays in sports long before it was fashionable. Years later, he met Cyd, an openly gay sprinter and sports journalist with an aptitude for public speaking and advocacy. Together, they decided to do something to reduce homophobia in sport, which at the time was rampant.

They began by first giving interviews to the gay press, and helping closeted gay athletes out of the closet. Over the next few years Jim and Cyd began to lobby sport organizations and connect gay athletes to support networks. Most significantly, however, in 1999 they launched Outsports.com .

Buzinski and Zeigler have written hundreds of profile and other pieces about gay athletes for the website, and Jim and Cyd have expanded the site to cover virtually every aspect of the topic for international presses. Over the next decade, Jim and Cyd became two of the few key movers and shakers in the world. They are regular commentators for all four major US television and the leading Canadian television networks, have appeared on the BBC and provided radio and print interviews for hundreds of other outlets around the world.

Whenever a major athlete comes out of the closetfrom Esera Tuaolo in the NFL in 2003 to Jason Collins in the NBA in 2013, or more recently Michael Sam in the NFLOutsports is the go-to source for journalists worldwide. Cyd and Jim have been active in dealing with policy makers on the issue as well: consulting for professional teams and sporting bodies.

Outsports.com has also become the vessel for academics wanting to research the topic. Cyd and Jim have helped connect at least a dozen researchers with gay and lesbian athletes for their work, and they freely disseminate the results of that research on their website.

Together with a growing chorus of advocates and athletes who look to Cyd and Jim for guidance, they have helped turn the tide from what Buzinski once described as the last closet to what we find in our research: despite what the media sometimes says about sport, it is actually a place where gay and lesbian athletes most often find inclusion and celebration. While the public perception is that a gay male athlete would be silenced or harassed on a team, in reality teammates are more likely to go to a gay club with them. This is the message that Outsports spreads; this is a message that the research in this book supports.

Today, Cyd and Jims Outsports has gone so mainstream that it has been bought by the largest sports website network in the US, reinforcing Outsports and its founders position within the movement for years to come.

It is for their decades of service toward making sport, and its ancillary institutions, more inclusive that we dedicate this book to them.

This book represents the most comprehensive examination of the experiences of gays and lesbians in sport ever produced. Unlike previous works that have focused on only men (i.e. Anderson 2005a) or women (i.e. Griffin 1998), and unlike research that has only examined recreational athletes (i.e. Hekma 1998) or closeted athletes (i.e. Pronger 1990; Denison and Kitchen 2015), this research examines both men and women, at the recreational, high school, university and professional levels of play who are out of the closet, as well as those competing in gay sports leagues. It is a scientific endeavor based in empirical research conducted in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Throughout this book, we highlight that social matters for lesbian athletes, and particularly for gay male athletes, have dramatically changed for the better over recent decades (Anderson 2015a). This is not to suggest that gay and lesbian athletes play without any difficulties, nor is it to suggest that homophobia has decreased to a level that permits inclusivity within all geographical sporting spaces within these two countriesdeclining homophobia is an uneven social processbut it is to suggest that the older research on the topic of gay men and lesbians in sport is now not only dated, but irrelevant. Accordingly, while the cultural change we examine in this book is steady, if at times gradual, we argue that research on the topic should be divided between that which occurred prior to and after the turn of the twenty-first century.

Next page

1234567...64

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Out in Sport: The experiences of openly gay and lesbian athletes in competitive sport»

Look at similar books to Out in Sport: The experiences of openly gay and lesbian athletes in competitive sport. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

George H. Sage

Globalizing Sport: How Organizations, Corporations, Media, and Politics are Changing Sport

Natalie Koch

Critical Geographies of Sport: Space, Power and Sport in Global Perspective

Kitrina Douglas

Life Story Research in Sport: Understanding the Experiences of Elite and Professional Athletes through Narrative

Joseph Baker

Health and Elite Sport: Is High Performance Sport a Healthy Pursuit?

Ian Wellard

Researching Embodied Sport: Exploring movement cultures

Frank L. Smoll

Parenting Young Athletes: Developing Champions in Sports and Life

Stafford Murray

Science of Sport: Squash

Lincoln Allison

Understanding International Sport Organisations: Principles, Power and Possibilities

George B. Cunningham

Diversity and Inclusion in Sport Organizations

Regina Belski

Nutrition for Sport, Exercise and Performance: A practical guide for students, sports enthusiasts and professionals

Amy Baltzell

The Power of Mindfulness: Mindfulness Meditation Training in Sport

Tim Kyndt

Achieving Excellence in High Performance Sport. Experiences and Skills Behind the Medals

Discussion, reviews of the book Out in Sport: The experiences of openly gay and lesbian athletes in competitive sport and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.