Black Gay Athletes: Homosexuality and Homoeroticism in Black Sports
By Keith Boykin, in sports
Monday, February 3 2003, 12:01AM
When Derrick Peterson appeared in the pages of a gay magazine last summer, it seemed a breakthrough for black gay and bisexual athletes. Peterson, an American champion 800 meter runner, was hailed as the first active black professional athlete to come out of the locker room closet.
Genre magazine, the gay publication that interviewed Peterson, said that his willingness to announce his sexuality would "make an enormous impact on the issue of gays in sports." Outsports.com, a gay website, called Peterson a "rare" and "courageous" individual. The Daily Pennsylvanian newspaper described Peterson's "revolutionary" actions as a "lesson in heroism."
When the Peterson story broke, only a handful of black college or professional athletes had come out to the public, and almost all of them suffered through tragedy or controversy. Glenn Burke, the first black professional athlete to come out, was eventually run out of the Los Angeles Dodgers team in 1979. A dozen years later, he was reported to be living on the streets and drug addicted until he died of AIDS in 1995.
British soccer star Justin Fashanu was described as "erratic" after he came out. He claimed and then retracted a statement that he had had sex with two British cabinet ministers. Accused of sexually assaulting a teenager in Maryland, Fashanu took his own life in 1998. Former New York Giants guard Roy Simmons came out on the Phil Donahue Show in 1992 but then disappeared from the public, and has not been heard from since. Stanford football player Dwight Slater came out to his coach and teammates after hearing homophobic conversations that left him feeling depressed. Slater soon quit the team altogether.
Until Peterson's announcement, Chris Dickerson and Kisha Snow provided the only positive examples of coming out experiences for black athletes. But Dickerson, the first black bodybuilder to win the title "Mr. America," came out years after his career had ended, and Snow, the top-ranked female heavyweight boxing contender, announced recently that she is engaged to be married to a man.
The negative experiences of black gay and bisexual athletes who did come out made Peterson's disclosure all the more significant. But the story was not the breakthrough it appeared to be. Even in the Genre interview, Peterson was very careful about what he said. "One thing I will say for sure [is that] I'm definitely not heterosexual," the magazine quoted him. But Peterson never said he was homosexual or bisexual either.
When interviewed for this article, Peterson denied that he was gay or bisexual and declined to define his sexual orientation. "I don't want to be called something or labeled something that I am not," he said. His comments echoed earlier remarks reported in Genre, in which he said, "I hate labels. I don't really care what people think of my sexual orientation. I like men and women."
Irritated by the press, Peterson reserved much of his outrage for the media coverage of his sexuality. Although a friend of Peterson's wrote the Genre article, Peterson said he was "very very appalled and upset at being labeled as a gay person in the article." When asked if he was upset at the writer, he acknowledged, "I wasn't so much upset with him, with what he did, I think I was more upset with what people were saying or doing on websites." But Peterson also seemed a bit naive about the media. "I honestly thought it was just going to be another story….that had nothing to do with my sexuality," he said, adding that he expected the story to focus on his "athletic prowess." But why announce your sexual orientation in a story about athletics? "I like to see everyone represented equally," he replied, describing himself as an activist concerned about the underrepresentation of African Americans in the gay media. The comments about his sexuality, he said, were "fabricated by myself."
The Role of Sports Among Blacks
Derrick Peterson's coming out reversal is complicated and unusual, but in some ways it mirrors the larger problem for black gay and bisexual athletes. Many of these athletes are "following the script that was given to them," according to author Randy Boyd, a black gay columnist at Outsports.com. "You're black, you're an athlete, you're a Man with a capital M, and this is what you do," he said, describing the script.
Athletics have always played a unique role in the black community. They provide a social ladder, which explains why thousands of young black men, undaunted by the slim odds of professional sports success, still pick up basketballs and footballs with dreams of future glory. Sports serve as a counterweight to racism and white supremacy, which perhaps explains the way many African Americans viewed Jesse Owens's four gold medal wins at the 1936 Olympics in Hitler's Germany, or Jackie Robinson's passage through baseball's color barrier in 1947, or the "black power" salute given by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Athletics also enable black men to establish masculinity, as demonstrated by the all-black men's 4x100 meter relay team stripping their shirts and posing with flexed muscles after winning at the 2000 Olympics, and by Wilt Chamberlain's boast that he had slept with 20,000 women. Finally, sports create a device to express black creativity and individuality, as seen in the colorful pranks of the Harlem Globetrotters, boxer Muhammad Ali or football player "Neon" Deion Sanders.
While a number of white athletes have come out to the public, very few black athletes have taken the same step, leaving many to speculate that it's more difficult for black athletes to come out than it is for whites. If so, black hypermasculinity and homophobia may be to blame. Openly gay track coach Eric Anderson cites the "cool pose," adopted by African American men as an indication of a "hypermasculine" image that may be "partially based on homophobia" or "hyperheterosexuality."
Despite social changes in recent decades, coming out of the closet is difficult for athletes of all colors. If the problem only affected black athletes, then there would be more white athletes out of the closet. But only a handful of major white athletes have come out, and their stories are not all positive. Greg Louganis only came out after winning the Olympic gold medal in diving. Openly gay football player Dave Kopay and baseball player Billy Bean both emphasize how difficult it is for any gay or bisexual athlete to come out in their footsteps. Tennis players Billy Jean King and Martina Navratilova both lost some support and endorsements after they came out.
Homoeroticism in Sports
Black athletes have long brought a flamboyant presence to their game with a name, a style or a flare that teased audiences and took the athlete to the edge of acceptable sexual expression. In the 1960s, pro wrestler Sweet Daddy Siki dyed his hair blonde, wore sunglasses, and carried a mirror with him into the ring. Georgia Tech offensive guard Roy "Sugar Bear" Simmons won his nickname a dozen years before he came out of the closet. Although he has repeatedly denied that he is gay, Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis teased fans by wearing a pair of red high stiletto shoes for photographer Annie Leibovitz in a famous Pirelli tire print ad in 1994. "Power is nothing without control," the ad said.
Athletes can get away with some things that other black men, perhaps, cannot do. Los Angeles Lakers player Magic Johnson and Detroit Pistons player Isiah Thomas made history in 1988 when they began kissing each other before their basketball games. When Mark Aguirre was traded from the Dallas Mavericks to the Pistons, he too joined in the kissing game, but virtually no one suggested that any of the three black athletes might be same-gender-loving. On the other hand, Chicago Bulls player Dennis Rodman acknowledged "many homosexual aspects of sports" in his 1996 memoir, Bad As I Wanna Be. "Watch any football game. What's the first thing guys do when they win a big game? They hug each other. What does a baseball manager do when he takes his pitcher out? He takes the ball and pats him on the ass…Man hugs man. Man pats man on ass. Man whispers in man's ear and kisses him on the cheek. This is classic homosexual or bisexual behavior," Rodman says.
Rodman became the first active black professional athlete to acknowledge a same-sex attraction in a 1995 Sports Illustrated article, where he said he "fantasized" about being with another man. Although he parties at gay clubs, paints his fingernails, colors his hair, and sometimes wears women's clothes, Rodman says he is not homosexual. "I'm not gay," he said in his book. "I would tell you if I was. If I go to a gay bar, that doesn't mean that I want another man to put his tongue down my throat -- no. It means I want to be a whole individual." Rodman added, "mentally, I probably am bisexual."
Rodman is easily dismissed. "Dennis Rodman was a clown," said Cyd Zeigler, president of Outsports.com. "He was a caricature. . . . He became so much more than his race or his sexuality or his sex." According to Zeigler, the public would react to Rodman's words and antics as publicity stunts. "That's just Dennis Rodman," they would say. "Him being gay or bisexual is completely safe for people," Zeigler added.
Even when athletes do engage in homosexual behavior, it doesn't mean they're homosexual. Homosexuality and homoeroticism have played a role in sports for decades, but seldom is it labeled gay. Phil Petrie, a college athlete at Tennessee State in the 1950's, recalls that "it was common for athletes to, in effect, sell themselves... to have sex for men." Petrie, now married with children, remembers football players who talked about "packing shit" or receiving oral sex, but the athletes did not consider their actions to be homosexual. Instead, it was a business transaction between cash-strapped athletes and men who wanted to have them. "If you have a group of people who are considered desirable, and you live in a capitalistic society, can you get them with money?" Petrie asked. "And the answer is you can get some." Still, "many of the athletes do not see someone paying them to have oral sex with them . . .as a homosexual act," Petrie said.
In some ways, the pro sports world has been more receptive toward out black athletes than what society expects. Blacks are actually well represented among the relatively few out gay athletes in the top sports. Half of the pro football players (1 out of 2), half of the pro baseball players (1 out of 2), and the only pro basketball player to acknowledge a same-sex attraction (Dennis Rodman) are all black. But for every out black athlete, there are two or three examples of athletes who have denied that they are homosexual or bisexual. When boxer Hasim Rahman accused Lennox Lewis of "gay moves," Lewis, who was 36 and single, responded firmly to London's Daily Telegraph: "I am definitely, definitely not gay and never have been." He said, "I love women."
When rumors spread about Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Kordell Stewart in 1999, Stewart confronted the rumors in a private locker room session with his team. Using graphic descriptions of heterosexual acts he enjoys, Stewart told his teammates, `You'd better not leave your girlfriends around me, because I'm out to prove a point.'' Three years later, asked to comment on the rumors about Mets player Mike Piazza's sexuality, Stewart replied: "I'm a man," Then he said it again and called himself "110 percent man." Stewart also said, "My daddy did a wonderful job of raising a man, period, hands down, no more, no less."
Following the 1991 disclosure of his HIV status, Magic Johnson appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show and told Hall and the audience, "I'm far from being homosexual. You know that, everybody else who's close to me understands that." Some, like Randy Boyd, were disappointed by Johnson's tone and the audience response. "Magic Johnson had to keep saying that he is 100 percent heterosexual . . . and he would get applause," Boyd said. The message Boyd heard was that "it's okay that you have AIDS, it's okay that you've slept with thousands of women," just as long as you're not homosexual.
Few Out Black Women
Although fans may want their male athletic heroes to be stereotypically masculine and heterosexual, many automatically assume that female athletes are lesbian. In an editorial on the website blackathlete.com, sports writer Demetria Richardson admits that she was "guilty of negatively stereotyping women who play in specific sports." Richardson says she "thought all women who played basketball were gay -- and that that was somehow dangerous for me." Although she said she loved basketball, she avoided the sport because "I didn't want people to think I was 'one of those gay people.'" Today, Richardson believes that stereotypes about lesbians in sports cause female athletes to change their behavior. "When a female athlete is called 'dyke' or 'lesbian' in a derogatory manner, she may alter her actions and dress to be 'more feminine,' downplay her athletic talents, or avoid sports all together," she said.
Because professional sports is a business, Richardson feels that homosexuality is particularly difficult for women. "The sports media and advertisers are likely to distance themselves from women athletes who are believed to be -- or who self-identify -- as lesbian," she said. Those who do come out risk losing their public reputations or their sponsorships, she explained. To date, only one black woman athlete -- boxer Kisha Snow -- has come out, but boxing, like basketball, is still considered a stereotypically masculine sport. Last summer's film, Juwanna Mann, even parodies the lesbian presence in women's basketball. Only one WNBA player, Sue Wicks, has publicly disclosed her homosexuality. Despite the dominance of several black women players, none has ever come out. Meanwhile, the WNBA struggles with the sexuality issue, not wanting to offend its lesbian fans but also not wanting to reinforce the perception that women's basketball is just for lesbians.
Athletes in Glass Closets
If a black male or female athlete were gay or lesbian, the world might never know it, according to some observers who see a conspiracy of silence among reporters, athletes, and teammates. The public may not know about the athletes' sexual orientations, but those close to them often do. As with the military, the policy seems to be "don't ask, don't tell." At the 2002 NBA draft, when basketball player Charles Barkley was asked by a television crew if there are any gay players in the NBA, he replied: "I don't kiss and tell."
Many high-level athletes live in a glass closet visible to those around them. Sports columnist Wallace Matthews wrote in Newsweek that "it is a common practice among ballplayers who suspect a teammate is gay to confide to friendly reporters, 'He's a little funny,' with a roll of the eyes." Some black professional athletes even take their boyfriends to sporting events, according to Randy Boyd. "There are reporters who know this and they don't report about it," he said, in part because they "don't want to breach trust and be thrown out of the inner circle." Boyd likens the situation to the media's relationship with the Kennedy White House, where some reporters knew of the president's alleged extramarital affairs.
Dan Woog, author of Jocks: True Stories of America's Gay Male Athletes, described what he called a "sad story" told in his book about a black Division 1 college basketball player whose boyfriend would sit and watch the games in the stands but could never be recognized. "Everybody knew who the girlfriends were, but nobody knew about the boyfriend," Woog said. When the games were over, the player would perform the perfunctory task of partying with his teammates and their women while the boyfriend would be left to himself.
The media want to "hide behind the fact that [what goes on off the court] doesn't matter," said Cyd Zeigler, "but when Allen Iverson gets arrested falsely for weapons charges," the media report that, he said, calling it a "total double standard." Dennis Rodman observed a similar double standard among athletes. "Teams can deal when a guy has a drug problem or an alcohol problem, but not when they find out someone's doing something they don't like in the privacy of their own bedroom. It doesn't make sense."
Is Black America Ready?
Pointing to examples of homophobia in the black community, many may feel that blacks are not ready for an openly gay athlete. In a 1998 speech to the Wisconsin legislature, Green Bay Packers defensive end Reggie White said gay men and lesbians were "malicious and backstabbing," equated them with "liars" and "cheaters," and blamed homosexuality for the decline of Western civilization. But anti-gay attitudes exists among all races. After all, baseball player John Rocker seems to apologize every year for new anti-gay remarks and the sports media worked itself into a frenzy in the spring of 2001 over rumors that New York Mets outfielder Mike Piazza might be gay.
Randy Boyd questions the belief that society is not ready for gay athletes. "In 1947," he said, "was there anyone going around saying professional baseball is now ready to have a Negro in it?" Boyd said America wasn't ready for Jackie Robinson but "society is never ready for change…we have to make change happen."
Author Eric Anderson believes the seeds of change have already been planted in today's youth. In his new research of openly gay high school and collegiate athletes, he found that athletes who came out of the closet were particularly good, a finding which he says "parallels the first black athletes in professional sports." Most of the gay athletes in Anderson's study were either team captains or the best athletes on their team, he said, concluding that they "needed to be good in order to come out of the closet."
While runner Derrick Peterson may not be the icon that black gay, lesbian and bisexual athletes were looking for, they are still hopeful that someone will help break the barrier. "It's gonna take a Jackie Robinson with a couple of angels on his side who will say, yeah we're with you," said Boyd. "It's gonna take men with courage."
Copyright 2003 by Keith Boykin.