Sexuality and Athleticism

After learning more about homophobia in sport and watching Training Rules, I stumbled upon an article, which I posted on twitter awhile back, that I wish Rene Portland and many other people out there could read. I know it's not about lesbians in sports, but I feel that it goes along the same idea of what Rene Portland and others wouldn't want on their team. The article is about a transgender Samoan soccer player named Jonny Saelua. In the Samoan culture, Jonny is a fa'afafine, which states in the article that "you have to be Samoan, born a man, feel you are a woman, be sexually attracted to males and, importantly, proud to be called and labeled fa'afafine." She became the first transgender player to compete on a World Cup stage and helped achieve American Samoa's first victory in international soccer. Everyone on her team accepts her and makes her feel part of the family. They don't treat her differently and really just focus on playing the sport they love.

I feel that the same thing applies to most teams out there, where the coaches and teammates are comfortable with gay, lesbian, bi or transgender players on the team but that unfortunately wasn't the case for former coach Rene Portland. In Training Rules, it didn't matter how great of an athlete a player was on her team. If Portland felt, thought, or knew a player was lesbian, she would do anything to not only remove that player from the team, but from not being able to play college basketball again anywhere. That was one of the issues that caught most of our attentions in class. No matter how great your athleticism, your sexuality will determine whether you can play or not. If only Rene was more accepting like many people out there along with the Samoan culture. She threw away and discouraged many amazing female athletes that could have taken the women's Penn State basketball team far, as well as their own personal careers in basketball. Definitely not the kind of coach I would want.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/sports/soccer/jonny-saelua-transgender-player-helps-american-samoa-to-first-international-soccer-win.html?_r=2&ref=soccer


Jan Redondo!
KIN 338i Section 1