Women, Gays, and Basketball

T he announcement by WNBA superstar Sheryl Swoopes that she’s gay was greeted by the nation’s sports commentators mostly with an accepting shrug. Swoopes can be who she is and be open about it seems to be the consensus. 

That’s mostly good. In a society where homophobia is deeply ingrained, millions of mainstream Americans have also come to believe it’s wrong to discriminate on the basis of sexual preference. 

Yet the mostly accepting response accorded Swoopes announcement also highlights some of the ambiguity that still surrounds popular attitudes toward women’s sports; it’s the attitude that says Swoopes’s gay status doesn’t matter because who really cares about professional women’s basketball anyway? Besides, the WNBA is obviously a gay-dominated sport, so what’s the newsflash? 

In comments from October 30 in the New Jersey-based newspaper, the Trentonian , columnist Jeff Edelstein, for example, ridicules the “SuperBigImportant news” that a leading WNBA player is gay as about “as culturally important as the guy who played Nat on ‘Beverly Hills 90210’.” These remarks are worth mentioning because they indicate how easy it is for commentators to express their public lack of interest in a sport played by women. 

As for gays and lesbians, no minority in sports is subject to the open bigotry that still greets this community. You can find evidence of the latter in some of the racket heard by callers and hosts on the sports talk radio circuit. A few NBA players also responded to Swoopes’s coming out with thickheaded comments about how they wouldn’t play in a game with a gay player (as if they haven’t already). 

Ironically, it was ESPN: The Magazine that ran the interview in which Swoopes announced she was a lesbian. Yet the sports network also features sometime-ESPN commentator (and full-time bigot) Debbie Schlussel, who last summer blasted WNBA players as “bad role models for young girls.” Why? Apparently, WNBA players as a rule are not attractive enough (compared to, let’s say, racecar driver Danica Patrick) for this Ann Coulter of sports commentary. “Take a look at the raven-haired, petite Patrick, with her long tresses,” writes the right-wing Schlussel. “Then, look at 7’2” Margo Dydek of Connecticut’s WNBA team—if you dare. Which one would guys rather date? Which one would most young girls rather be like when they grow up?” 

Schlussel does not bother to reveal what she knows about Dydek as a human being beyond her height and job. No matter. That’s more than enough for her to pass judgment on Dydek, assuming, as she does, that the Polish hoop star must be a lesbian. 

WNBA President Donna Orender has said that Swoopes’s sexuality is a “non-issue” for the league. The WNBA website did post links to the first news stories about her coming out. But one report from an online women’s hoops discussion board claims that Swoopes’s profile on the league website came down within a day of her announcement. 

No doubt WNBA management is sensitive about being labeled the “lesbian league.” No doubt also that in an enlightened world homosexuality in general would be a non-issue, or I should say, the strictly personal issue it should be. But the WNBA’s lesbian label is unfair not because the league doesn’t have a large lesbian fan base or number of players. It’s unfair because it’s evidence of the way women’s sports are subject to a kind of cultural grand jury not applied to men’s sports. Unfortunately, the image of strong, competitive female athletes still pushes against traditions that view women as the “second sex.” That’s the historic backdrop every advance in women’s athletics implicitly challenges. The result is that, despite significant advances in opportunities (and attitudes), women’s sports seems to wage a continual struggle for equal status with men’s sports. 

That struggle for equality has sometimes taken form as a challenge for the basic right to play. The birth of basketball in the 1890s was originally a coed sports phenomenon. The first decade of Illinois basketball, for example, saw some 300 girls high school teams spring up throughout the state. The teams often played by the same rules as boys and interscholastic meets were regularly attended by large and enthusiastic crowds. But the young female athletes of the day also evoked the consternation of proper school administrators who feared dire consequences in the alleged “masculinization” of female sports. By 1907 the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) took the extraordinary step of banning all interscholastic sports for females. The next year the IHSA sponsored its first state basketball tournament for boys.