Tag Archives: athletes

Girl Fight

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After coming across a Business Insider article about a new documentary featuring LGBT Athletes, I took a look at the trailer for the film called Game Face.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHkx9evsC-M[/youtube]

One of the individual’s being documented in the film is an MMA fighter, and a transgendered woman. She talks about her struggle with being accepted as a woman because of what her sport entails; she was born with the male sex chromosomes, but she is fighting women. Many people see this as a dangerous disadvantage for women who were born with female chromosomes because biologically men are built differently than women. The MMA fighter asserts that because of the hormones she takes, she is no different than the women she is fighting against.

I thought this was a very interesting issue, and I find myself on the fence about it. I’d have to do more research about how much hormones alter someone biologically before taking a stance on this controversial circumstance. I want her to have the freedom to feel that she can express herself as a woman, but I do not know enough yet to feel comfortable with the idea of fighting against her in a ring, even if I knew anything about MMA fighting. It’s hard because, while I love playing soccer against boys, MMA is a sport where the objective is to throw punches and actually fight, so the potential degree of injury is a lot greater than that of other sports. I’m interested to see how everyone else feels about this.

Outting Athletes & Promoting Equality?

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Here’s a thoughtful article written by one of my favorite columnists, LZ Granderson, who writes for ESPN and CNN.  Granderson is gay, so he’s writing from a personal and professional perspective.

He asks here if reporters are, in fact, contributing to the idea of being gay or lesbian as shameful by not reporting on gay or lesbian athlete’s love lives in the same way that heterosexual athlete’s romances are covered (e.g., the extensive coverage of Tiger Wood’s affairs). 

On the other hand, given the bigotry that still exists, Granderson acknowledges that these reporting decisions protect the lives of athletes who are gay or lesbian.  It’s a great question of respecting the rights of individuals or promoting the rights of a group as a whole, since increased coverage demonstrates the acceptance and normalcy of a variety of sexualities.

This article reflects how gender is created through how we culturally link gender to sexuality.