Sarah Prager Become a fan
Founder and Director of Quist
Posted:
Dearest Queer Person,
Chances are you don’t even know that you are holy, or royal or magic, but you are. You are part of an adoptive family going back through every generation of human existence.
Long before you were born, our people were inventing incredible things. Gifted minds like the inventor of the computer Alan Turing and aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont live on in you. The imprint that bold and brilliant individuals like Lynn Conway and Martine Rothblatt (both transgender women alive today) made on modern technology is impossible deny as present-day engineers carry their torch in the creation of robots and microprocessors. More recently speaking, one of the co-founders of Facebook publicly acknowledged his identity as a gay man, as did the current CEO of Apple.
We were so often gods and goddesses over the centuries, like Hermaphrodite (the child of Hermes and Aphrodite), and Athena and Zeus, both of whom had same-sex lovers. In Japan it was said that the male couple Shinu No Hafuri and Ama No Hafuri, “introduced” homosexuality to the world. The ability to change one’s gender or to claim an identity that encompasses two genders is common amongst Hindu deities. The being said to have created the Dahomey (a kingdom in the area now known as Benin) was reportedly formed when a twin brother and sister (the sun and the moon) combined into one being who might now identify as “intersex.” Likewise, the aboriginal Australian rainbow serpent-gods Ungud and Angamunggi possess many characteristics that mirror present-day definitions of transgender identity.
Our ability to transcend gender binaries and cross gender boundaries was seen as a special gift. We were honored with special cultural roles, often becoming shamans, healers and leaders in societies around the globe. The Native Americans of the Santa Barbara region called us “jewels.” Our records from the Europeans who wrote of their encounters with Two-Spirit people indicates that same-sex sexual activity or non-gender binary identities were part of the culture of eighty-eight different Native American tribes, including the Apache, Aztec, Cheyenne, Crow, Maya and Navajo. Without written records we can’t know the rest, but we know we were a part of most if not all peoples in the Americas.
Your ancestors were royalty like Queen Christina of Sweden, who not only refused to marry a man (thereby giving up her claim to the throne), but adopted a male name and set out on horseback to explore Europe alone. Her tutor once said the queen was “not at all like a female.” Your heritage also includes the ruler Nzinga of the Ndongo and Matamna Kingdoms (now known as Angola), who was perceived to be biologically female but dressed as male, kept a harem of young men dressed in traditionally-female attire and was addressed as “King.” Emperors like Elagalabus are part of your cultural lineage, too. He held marriage ceremonies to both male-identified and female-identified spouses, and was known to proposition men while he was heavily made-up with cosmetics. Caliphs of Cordoba including Hisham II, Abd-ar-Rahman III and Al-Hakam II kept male harems (sometimes in addition to female harems, sometimes in place of them). Emperor Ai of Han Dynasty China was the one whose life gives us the phrase “the passions of the cut sleeve,” because when he was asleep with his beloved, Dong Xian, and awoke to leave, he cut off the sleeve of his robe rather than wake his lover.
You are descended from individuals whose mark on the arts is impossible to ignore. These influential creators include composers like Tchaikovsky, painters like Leonardo da Vinci and actors like Greta Garbo. Your forebears painted the Sistine Chapel, recorded the first blues song and won countless Oscars. They were poets, and dancers and photographers. Queer people have contributed so much to the arts that there’s an entire guided tour dedicated just to these artists at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
You have the blood of great warriors, like the Amazons, those female-bodied people who took on roles of protection and had scarce time or interest between their brave acts to cater to the needs of men. And your heart beats as bravely as the men of the Sacred Band of Thebes, a group of 150 male-male couples who, in the 4th century B.C.E., were known to be especially powerful fighters because each man fought as though he was fighting for the life of his lover (which he was). But your heritage also includes peacemakers, like Bayard Rustin, a non-violent gay architect of the Black civil rights movement in the U.S.
We redefined words like bear, butch, otter, queen and femme, and created new terms like drag queen, twink and genderqueer. But just because the words like homosexual, bisexual, transgender, intersex and asexual, have been created in the relatively recent past doesn’t mean they are anything new. Before we started using today’s terms, we were Winkte to the Ogala, A-go-kwe to the Chippewa, Ko’thlama to the Zuni, Machi to the Mapuchi, Tsecats to the Manghabei, Omasenge to the Ambo and Achnutschik to the Konyaga across the continents. While none of these terms identically mirror their more modern counterparts, all refer to some aspect of, or identity related to, same-gender love, same-sex sex or crossing genders.
You are normal. You are not a creation of the modern age. Your identity is not a “trend” or a “fad.” Almost every country has a recorded history of people whose identities and behaviors bear close resemblance to what we’d today call bisexuality, homosexuality, transgender identity, intersexuality, asexuality and more. Remember: the way Western culture today has constructed gender and sexuality is not the way it’s always been. Many cultures from Papua New Guinea to Peru accepted male-male sex as a part of ritual or routine; some of these societies believed that the transmission of semen from one man to another would make the recipient stronger. In the past, we often didn’t need certain words for the same-sex attracted, those of non-binary gender and others who did not conform to cultural expectations of their biological sex or perceived gender because they were not as unusual as we might today assume they were.
Being so unique and powerful has sometimes made others afraid of us. They arrested and tortured and murdered us. We are still executed by governments and individuals today in societies where we were once accepted us as important and equal members of society. They now tell us “homosexuality is un-African” and “there are no homosexuals in Iran.” You, and we, know that these defensive comments are not true–but they still hurt. So, when others gave us names like queer and dyke, we reclaimed them. When they said we were recruiting children, we said “I’m here to recruit you!” When they put pink and black triangles on our uniforms in the concentration camps, we made them pride symbols.
Those who challenge our unapologetic presence in today’s cultures, who try to deprive us of our rights, who make us targets of violence, remain ignorant of the fact that they, not us, are the historical anomaly. For much of recorded history, persecuting individuals who transgressed their culture’s norms of gender and sexuality was frowned upon at worst and unheard of at best. Today, the people who continue to harass us attempt to justify their cruel campaigns by claiming that they are defending “traditional” values. But nothing could be further from the truth.
But now you know they are wrong. Just imagine the world without that first computer or the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, or a huge part of the music you’ve ever heard from classical Appalachian Spring to classic YMCA (I mean, we’ve held titles from the “Mother of Blues” to the “King of Latin Pop!”). How much less colorful would the world be without us? I’m grateful that you’re here to help carry on our traditions.
So, happy LGBT History Month! I hope to celebrate with you here at Quist. This list of LGBTQ history online resources is a good place to start in exploring more specifics about this heritage.
Lesbianamente*,
Sarah Prager
*Actually a term as a way someone signed a letter for a lesbian organization in Mexicodecades ago!
This piece was inspired in part by facts and sentiments from Another Mother Tongueby Judy Grahn (published 1984). Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia edited by Gilbert H. Herdt (published 1993) is also referenced. Many of the referenced facts are cited so many places it has become common knowledge. Christianne Gadd contributed significantly to this piece. This post originally appeared in The Advocate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-prager/every-lgbtq-person-should_b_8232316.html?ir=Gay%20Voices?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003
Archives for November 2015
Is there a homophobia problem in PE classes?
Homophobic remarks are flung around on a regular basis”
“Homophobic remarks are flung around on a regular basis”
A new article, part of a PE and school sports series by the Guardian, looks at ways to stop school pupils ‘climbing the school gates’ to avoid PE lessons. Among other reasons, such as unflattering uniforms and limited variety of activities, the article suggests that homophobia in changing rooms prevents some pupils from taking part in PE.
The anonymous writer begins: “The bell rings and once again I have to make the decision whether to climb the school gates or walk to my physical education (PE) lesson. I am not averse to sport – in fact I like keeping fit on the weekends and I’m pretty healthy. But the culture around PE in school means it has become my worst nightmare”
He goes on to explain why: “I am an openly gay teenager and getting changed in front of the other boys, with no privacy, makes me feel desperately uncomfortable.
“Homophobic remarks are flung around on a regular basis, with boys calling each other ‘faggot’ and saying ‘I bet certain boys love it in the changing rooms.’”
The writer suggests a simple remedy for this problem: “A zero-tolerance policy against homophobic slurs and body shaming – even if it’s so-called banter – would make the changing room a more comfortable environment for everyone.”
This insight into the changing rooms comes at a time when more sports stars than ever are publicly discussing their sexualities. Just in the last few months, Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy, and rugby players Keegan Hirst and Sam Stanley have all publicly come out as gay. There have also been rumours swirling that two high-profile football players are preparing to come out.
The Guardian’s PE and school sports series is funded by the Youth Sports Trust.
Why not write and let us know your experiences!
Gay man spat at, insulted and hit with stones in Faversham
“Are you gay?” “Yes.” “Then die.”
This is the latest episode of abuse a young homosexual man living in Faversham has had to endure.
The 24-year-old, who only wanted to be named as Rob, has spoken out about the persecution he has suffered since he was a child.
He says that the discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in small communities such as Faversham often goes unreported and unseen. The bullying started at primary school.
Rob, who has been the target of hate crime
Rob said: “I was a little bit different from the other boys. I hung around with groups of girls and I wasn’t into playing football.
“It was the first time I was branded ‘gay’ but I was so young and I wasn’t even sure what that was.
“Eventually, the bullying got worse and I was forced to move schools.
“For a while, everything was fine until I moved on to secondary school when it started up again and it was worse than before.
“There were a lot of crude remarks which at 11 I didn’t fully understand.
“The most heartbreaking thing for me in school was being in a classroom with the teachers completely ignoring the fact I was being targeted.
“The fact they chose to ignore what was going on meant that to me it reinforced what the bullies were saying. I started to think that I deserved the abuse, that I was the one in the wrong.
“They have a duty of care in the classroom and they failed me in that way.”
Groups of teenagers would insult him, throw stones at him and spit in his face.
Rob started having counselling sessions and began taking anti-depressants at just 14.
“It was a hard time. Being a teenager is hard for anyone but I think as a young gay person, it was very difficult,” Rob said.
“I felt something was wrong with me and for a time I really didn’t want to be gay.
“That was the worst thing that could happen to me. For a long time I thought if I was gay, I would be proving the bullies right.”
Rob was forced to move schools again but he soon started to come to terms with his sexuality, coming out to a small group of friends at 14 and telling his parents when he was 15.
Rob says the quiet town of Faversham can be homophobic
He began meeting more people from the LGBT community and after finishing school at 16, he started working with vulnerable and elderly people, a venture he says gave him a new sense of worth.
Rob is happier since his school days but the persecution hasn’t stopped.
Strangers yell names such as ‘batty boy’ and ‘faggot’ at him in the street and heartbreakingly, Rob, who has lived in Faversham his entire life, says he would never take a partner to a local pub or restaurant for a date or walk hand-in-hand with another man through the town.
He said: “There are people of every aspect of the LGBT community in Faversham but it is a very quiet community.
“Faversham comes across as a very tolerant place but that is simply just on the surface. I do think they could help out more.
“When I’m abused in the street and nobody calls it out, that takes me back to the classroom. I have to constantly remind myself I am not the problem.”
Rob has been following LGBT charity Stonewall’s campaign called No Bystanders, which is a pledge now signed by more than 16,000 people which says that the public should call it out if they hear or see any homophobic behaviour.
Rob added: “Britain is a very progressive country which is brilliant but it’s mostly in a political sense and not socially.
“When I’m abused in the street and nobody calls it out, that takes me back to the classroom. I have to constantly remind myself I am not the problem” – Rob
“The fact is that this bullying behaviour towards the LGBT community is still going on and everyone is responsible for making that happen.”
Suicide statistics among the LGBT community are harrowing – suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people aged 10-24 but LGBT youth are four times more likely as their straight peers.
Rob says he’s not surprised by the stats and says he feels lucky that this didn’t become his fate.
He added: “I think there must be a lot of people out there at school going through what I went through and I feel lucky that I had such a good support network around me, but there are others who won’t have that and you just don’t know what situation they will end up in. It’s scary.
“Youngsters need to be taught in the classroom that this type of bullying is unacceptable. If people don’t call it out, say it is unacceptable, then it’s never going to stop.”
To find out more about national Anti-Bullying Week, from Monday to Friday, visit anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk
Morocco’s tourism minister calls for decriminalisation of homosexuality
Tim Cook tells Ireland students: Being gay is one of the greatest gifts God gave me
13 November 2015
Visit to Ireland coincided with Apple announcing a major expansion of its operations in the country; new Cork campus will provide an additional 1,000 jobs
Tim Cook poses for a selfie with students at Trinity College in Dublin
To coincide with Apple announcing a major expansion of its operations in the Republic of Ireland, its Chief Executive, Tim Cook visited Trinity College Dublin on Wednesday and addressed students.
‘Apple is proud to call Ireland home,’ the Irish Independent reports Cook as saying at a packed event organised by the Philosophical Society. Cook was awarded the society’s Gold Medal, making him an honorary patron.
‘We don’t see ourselves as just a company that is in Ireland, we see ourselves rooted here.
‘This country has championed the cause of LGBT people around the world.
‘It has also been a leader in the fight for human rights and has stood up for freedom of expression on the internet. Ireland shares our values of tolerance, diversity and equal rights both inside and outside the workplace.’
Cook publicly came out as gay in November 2014, and he told students about his own experiences as standing up as an LGBT person.
‘I saw kids being bullied at school and people being fired at work because they were gay.
‘I came to the conclusion that I needed to do something. There would be no donation that could match standing up and saying that I am proud to be gay and that it is one of the greatest gifts that God gave me.
‘I think we need more people who will do that. It’s the single most important thing that they can do.’
He emphasized the importance of diversity and said that, ‘the best companies of the future will be diverse.’
Apple is the largest private employer in Cork, and its expansion there will create a further 1,000 jobs in the region by mid 2017.
This will bring the total number of Apple employees in Cork to approximately 6,000; around a quarter of its European staff.
Some commentators have suggested that Apple’s commitment to Ireland may not be purely down to its stance on diversity.
The company’s announcement that it was expanding its base in Cork comes while EU regulators investigate whether the Irish government’s tax deal with Apple side-stepped international tax rules.
Ireland has been accused of allowing Apple – the biggest company in the world – to keep tens of billions of pounds worth of profits in return for maintaining jobs in the country.
A ruling is expected after Christmas.
However, during his Ireland visit, Cook re-asserted his commitment to the country regardless of the EU ruling and expressed confidence that the investigation would find that no ‘special’ deals had been struck.
In an interview with national broadcaster RTÉ, he was asked if Apple might scale back its operations in the country if the EU decision led to the company having to pay more tax.
‘You can tell by our announcement today, we’re all in,’ he replied. ‘If there is an adverse ruling, we’re going to appeal, Ireland is going to appeal and we’re going to support them because there was no special deal, no special arrangement.
‘I can’t say for sure what they’ll come back with but what I do know for sure is if the evidence is viewed on a fair basis, I believe strongly that it will be found that there is nothing wrong done.’
Lithuania lawmakers refuse to vote for Russian-style anti-gay propaganda laws
USA – Impeding LGBT Parents Does Not Help Children Who Need Families
Posted: Adam Pertman
President, National Center on Adoption and Permanency and Myriad Strategic Partners
ONOKY – Eric Audras via Getty Images
Eventually, every candidate running for president will probably say it. Child-welfare professionals work mightily to practice it. U.S. laws and policies promote its essential truth: Every child deserves to grow up in a safe, permanent, loving family.
Yet tens of thousands of children in our country spend too much of their lives intemporary (i.e., foster) care, unable to return to their original families but without sufficient prospects for moving into new ones.
At the same time, the number of LGBT adults serving as guardians and foster parents — many of them wanting to adopt — grows daily. And this reality has raised hopes among children’s advocates from coast to coast who see a promising, expanding pool of prospective parents for children who need them.
Even though marriage equality is now the law of the land, however, policies and practices remain in place that impede (and sometimes prevent) members of the LGBT community from becoming parents to these waiting children. On the occasion ofNational Adoption Awareness Month — i.e., November — here are just a few examples:
• Virginia, North Dakota and Michigan have all passed “conscience clause” laws, which allow foster care and adoption providers to exclude LGBT parents based on religious or moral objections. Michigan’s was just signed into law this year.
• Arizona and Utah require that preference be given to a “married man and woman” in foster and adoptive placements.
• Utah also imposes a cohabitation ban, which bars individuals who live with unmarried partners (same or different-sex) from adopting.
Some proponents of such restrictions openly acknowledge that they believe gay people are “sinners” or are otherwise problematic simply because of who they are, but most maintain they are motivated primarily by a desire to do what’s best for the kids.
It is not homophobia, they insist, to establish policies that promote the benefits of parenting by both a mother and a father who are married to each other. They frequently add that preventing LGBT adults from adopting protects children from being negatively influenced or even physically harmed by the people who are supposed to protect them.
Such arguments are, at best, ill-informed and, in some cases, just plain disingenuous.
If politicians and others who make those assertions truly believe their own words, they should act quickly to remove the millions of supposedly at-risk children who are already in families in which one or both parents are gay. More urgently, they should act expeditiously to end the scourge of single parenthood — which denies far more kids of two straight, married parents than any other cultural phenomenon in history.
Both suggestions are preposterous, of course, and I’m confident most people eventually will look back at the current restrictions on LGBT parenting and think the same.
The National Center on Adoption and Permanency (NCAP), which I’m honored to lead, is not an LGBT advocacy group. It is a nonprofit organization dedicated not only to helping every child live in an enduring family, but also to promoting evidence-based policies and practices that enable those children and families to succeed. Andthe evidence in this regard is one-sided and crystal-clear; in a nutshell, it concludes that children grow up healthier in loving homes than in temporary government care, pointedly including when those homes are headed by lesbians or gay men.
That is why a broad range of mainstream organizations – including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association of Family Physicians, the National Association of Social Workers and the Child Welfare League of America — have come to the same conclusion as we have at NCAP. These are not groups that would put kids at risk; just the opposite. The common thread is that we work, based on the best available information, for the welfare of children. And we all agree that impeding LGBT adoption does nothing to further that goal.
Not incidentally, most practitioners in the U.S. have come to the same conclusion; that is, a growing majority of adoption agencies nationwide not only accept applications from gay and lesbian prospective parents, but also place children with them. Again, the social workers, therapists and other professionals at these agencies aren’t in business to hurt children but, rather, to improve their lives. And they’ve decided that happens when kids stop shuttling between foster homes and are safely ensconced in permanent ones.
The bottom line is poignantly simple: No state today can prevent LGBT adults from becoming parents, because those adults can do so in other ways (like surrogacy and insemination) or by moving to less-restrictive places. So all a state is doing when it imposes restrictions is shrinking its pool of prospective parents and, as a result, decreasing the odds that children in its custody will ever live in permanent, loving and successful families.
ILGA-Europe – Global LGBTI Inclusion Index
UNDP, together with OHCHR, are developing a Global LGBTI Inclusion Index that will show how well governments are delivering on the new Sustainable Development Goals to LGBTI populations. So, we need civil society voices to help guide how LGBTI inclusion will be measured when it comes to international development.
A Survey and full explanatory Context Note are supplied in six UN languages on the ILGA website: http://ilga.org/
The Survey is produced by UNDP/OHCHR and the Context Note is from ILGA and OutRight jointly. It takes around 15 minutes to fill (although there is space for considered comments).
Please note that the Survey will close on 23 November 2015. Also, here is some suggested text that you might like to use for social media posts:
English
This is the time to shape a Global LGBTI Inclusion Index! Follow the link below to read a context note and take this UNDP/OHCHR survey before Nov 23rd. Be counted!
http://ilga.org/measuring-
Chinese
《全球LGBTI融合指数报告》意见征集正在火热进行中！
http://ilga.org/measuring-
Arabic
هذا هو الوقت الأمثل لصياغة مؤشر عالمي لإندماج المثليين والمثليات و مزدوجي الميل الجنسي و مغايري الهوية الجنسية و ثنائيي الجنس!
قم بالضغط على الرابط الموجود بالأسفل ثم قم بقراءة المقدمة التعريفية حول المشروع ثم قم بإجراء الإستبيان الخاص ببرنامج الأمم المتحدة الإنمائي/ ومكتب المفوضيّة السامية للأمم المتحدة لحقوق الإنسان قبل 23 نوفمبر/تشرين الثاني. يتبع!
http://ilga.org/measuring-
French
C’est le moment de façonner un Indice Global d’Inclusion des LGBTI! Suivez le lien ci-dessous pour lire une notesur son contexte et prendre part à ce sondage du PNUD / HCDH avant le 23 novembre. Soyez compté! http://ilga.org/
Spanish
¡Es el momento de formar un Índice Global de Inclusion LGBTI! Haga clic en el enlace abajo para leer una nota de contexto y acceder la encuesta de PNUD/OACDR antes del 23 de noviembre. ¡Sea contado! http://ilga.org/
Russian
Настало время сформировать Глобальный Индекс Инклюзии ЛГБТИ! Перейдите по ссылке внизу, чтобы прочитать пояснительное письмо и принять участие в опросе ПРООН/УВКПЧ до 23 ноября. Участвуйте!http://ilga.org/measuring-
Best wishes from ILGA-Europe.
Emma Cassidy
Communications and Media Officer
ILGA-Europe
Direct line: + 32 2 609 54 16
Letter From Syria – Subhi Nahas
Life for gay men in Syria, like Subhi Nahas, has become unendurable with the rise of ISIS, but things were bad long before the militants took power
In August, Subhi Nahas made history, testifying before the United Nations Security Council’s first summit on violence against LGBT people by the so-called Islamic State.
Speaking to a packed room that included an extraordinary number of U.N. member states, Nahas and an Iraqi gay man, who appeared by phone to protect his identity, shared their experiences as LGBT people in their home countries. Participants sat in attentive silence as they heard the shocking details of the men’s experiences being beaten, imprisoned, and threatened with death, as well as their terror when they learned about the fate of gay men they knew, or saw the widely publicized videos of ISIS executingallegedly gay men.
Nahas tells his story to James McDonald.
Before the revolution, the regime forces of President Bashar al-Assad were doing a routine sweep at a checkpoint while I was on my way to university, and they took all the young people to a detention place, a house in the woods. Immediately I could see that there had been people there before. I could see their blood, their stains. They noticed that I’m a little bit different in the way that I walk and talk, and they started to call me names. They asked questions about my family. They released the others, but they kept me, and I really thought that they would rape and kill me. But then they just released me. I don’t know why.
I couldn’t risk going back to university, so I stayed home. A few months later, Islamists came and things really deteriorated. My father was at home a lot too, which meant he was seeing me more. He didn’t like what he saw, and things got violent.
An Islamist group, an al-Qaeda branch, took over my city of Idlib, in northern Syria, and enforced Sharia law. One day, they arrested someone I knew and accused him of being homosexual, because of something on his phone. They announced in the mosques that they would cleanse the city of sodomites. If you looked a little bit different, wore jeans that were a little bit tight, they would target you and interrogate you for five or six hours.
Within two or three months I planned to leave Syria. Some friends in Lebanon said they’d welcome me to their houses. I arranged a taxi and told the driver that he had to take care of all the procedures at the borders and checkpoints, because if I spoke, they might have noticed how I am and not let me leave.
In Lebanon, there were not a lot of job opportunities. After six months, I moved to Turkey, secured a senior position at a nonprofit, Save the Children, and stayed there for two years. I was living near the Syrian border. As ISIS took more land, things became more dangerous. For a time, I was moving from safehouse to safehouse, until I finally ended up in Istanbul and registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The killing of gays in Syria was not as brutal before ISIS, but it was happening. ISIS says they are protecting the community from “perverts,” people who will destroy society’s morality. They can’t offer water or services, but they can offer that.
UNHCR interviewed me and accepted me. The United States accepted my case, and I was referred to Homeland Security. It all took about 12 months, and then I moved to San Francisco a few months ago — I had a job set up already.
I’m a systems administrator with the Organization for Refuge, Asylum, and Migration. The U.N. was looking for people willing to speak about their experiences at a meeting on LGBT abuses around the world. It was going to be the first time that a voice from Asia or the Middle East was heard like that, and I wanted to be a part of it.
There were a lot of countries and organizations there, even two representatives from Syria. And the countries that spoke were very positive — I was expecting hostility. Russia and China were there but refused to speak. But of those that did speak, everyone wanted to do something; everyone wanted change.
My story is typical, but many others have had to endure far worse horrors. I’m very lucky that I had all this help, and that’s what I’m trying to establish with my work: a system that allows people to get help faster, that will protect them where they are now — and help them when they finally arrive in places like America.
The irony of Missouri football’s bold actions will be quietly on display against anti-gay BYU
By Cyd Zeigler
on Nov 11, 2015
BYU’s anti-gay policies are a powerful reminder of the power of homophobia in sports. – Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
Missouri football players were ready to boycott their game against BYU because of racial injustice on their own campus. They will take the field Saturday against BYU despite persecution of LGBT people on BYU’s campus. The NCAA remains silent.
The irony of the University of Missouri football team’s game this weekend against BYU will be lost on most.
While the focus on racial issues in Columbia has taken center stage in the sports world over the last few days, the decades-long anti-gay policies in Provo continue to be ignored on a daily basis by the NCAA and every one of its members.
This Saturday, when the two schools’ football teams clash, that dichotomy will be on display… and ignored.
It’s understandable at some level. The men of the Tigers football team, who boldly went on “strike” until university president Tim Wolfe was removed from his position, demonstrated something incredibly rare in sports: Athletes making social justice more important than their own participation in sport. The move harkened back to the raised fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos in Mexico City and was in stark contrast to the silence from athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics when they avoided LGBT issues.
Sure we’ve seen recent forays by athletes into social issues, as St. Louis Rams players last year raised their arms to say “hands up, don’t shoot,” and Pittsburgh Steelers running back DeAngelo Williams was fined for raising awareness for cancer on his eye black.
The Missouri Tigers were ready to sit out games in their battle against the systematic ignoring of racial issues on campus. That was powerful. No fine hurts athletes like losing playing time; That these players were ready to make that sacrifice was a moving statement.
Now the football players have cleared themselves to play in their next game. Yet when they take the field in front of what I’m sure will be a raucous crowd on Saturday, they’ll be doing so against BYU. That school has not just failed to address incidents on campus, it has codified specific bans on homosexuality and actively uses the school’s code to diminish the lives of every LGBT person and their children.
The anti-LGBT policies at BYU are so strong they have prompted a change.org petition asking the NCAA to cancel BYU’s competitions against other NCAA schools over its harmful policies.
“We need someone to be there for LGBT people and families in Utah, to have a counter voice,” petition supporter Lawson Miller told me, “to let closeted Mormons know that you’ll be okay. It tears people apart inside thinking that they can’t coexist with their faith and their sexuality.”
That’s an understatement. Gay youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide. Not coincidentally, Utah has the fifth highest state suicide rate in the nation.
Decades ago there was a similar campaign against the very same BYU this Missouri football team will play against on Saturday. Back then San Jose State football players began a boycott against BYU because the Mormon Church banned black people from the priesthood. Other schools like Stanford followed suit: They simply refused to play the school because of racist Mormon Church policy. After a decade of these boycotts by some teams, and mounting pressure across the country, the Mormon Church changed its policy and allowed the ordaining of black priests.
Yet there is no “strike” by players of other schools to boycott BYU’s anti-gay policies today. No NCAA athletes are making the ultimate sacrifice to change the actions of a school whose code of conduct is stuck in 1952.
The Missouri Tigers will play the BYU Cougars Saturday at 4:30pm, and no anti-gay policy will change that.
The irony of these men lifting their “strike” so they can play against BYU gives us powerful insight into the state of collegiate athletics and the minds of so many college administrators, coaches and athletes, the likes of whom these men reflect.
Despite Michael Sam playing for that very Tigers team just two seasons ago, I doubt there’s been any thought given to what taking the field against the Cougars from Mormon country means. It’s hard to place blame on these young men. We don’t teach LGBT history in high schools. The NCAA allows members to ban homosexuality and marginalize an entire class of students and athletes. The college football playoffs made the Chick-fil-A Bowl part of the national championship picture even as the company’s president fought against marriage equality for loving same-sex couples.
The NCAA has a gay problem I doubt any of the players on the Missouri football team even realize.
Consider some of the official policies of the Mormon Church, which owns and operates BYU and writes the school’s policies. From the words of the church’s own handbook, “a natural or adopted child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship, whether the couple is married or cohabiting, may not receive a name and a blessing.” The handbook also specifically calls the cohabitation of two gay people the same as “attempted murder, forcible rape, sexual abuse, spouse abuse” and other actual crimes.
My guess is there’s very little awareness among collegiate athletes in or outside of Columbia about the amount of suffering BYU and the Mormon Church inflict on students and prospective students at the school.
There was so much talk about elite athletes boycotting the Winter Olympics in Russia last year, yet BYU’s policies go unchallenged in the sports world. Russia banned what it called gay propaganda aimed at children. BYU and the Mormon Church ban homosexuality itself and banish the children, adopted or otherwise, of gay people.
Yet on Saturday the University of Missouri and its football team will welcome the school and its football team to Arrowhead Stadium.
It underscores something I’ve been saying more and more loudly over the last year: If you want something done, you have to do it yourself.
While straight people are important components to our LGBT sports movement, they will not act boldly like the Missouri football team, because they are not LGBT. The athletes of color on the Missouri football team raised their fists this week because they were the affected class. While I’m sure there was support among some of the white players (and, of course, some did not support it), it was by all accounts the players of color who drove this. They got it in a way that many of the white players did not.
These same athletes would never consider going this far for the gay and lesbian people struggling with suicidal thoughts under the thumb of the LDS Church and BYU. No chance the Missouri football team would refuse to play Saturday against BYU: Given where we have placed equality for gay people in our culture, it probably wouldn’t even cross their minds.
Because gay men are such a minority on college football teams, it would take a special group of straight men to fight for us the way the Missouri football team fought for themselves. With the presence of Michael Sam back at Missouri and around the team, you might think the Tigers would be the perfect team to take up that fight.
Yet they will, instead, share the field with a school owned and operated by a church that would ban Sam and any of his children from membership.
And virtually no one will realize it.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- …
- 7
- Next Page »