Gay and Lesbian Athletes

I really wanted to write about something that I'm not really knowledgable in, but I went online to read some articles about. I personally do not have anything against gay or lesbians, in fact I praise those who want to let people know that they are comfortable being who they are. I love sports and I believe that everyone should be given a fair chance to be part of a team or become an athlete. I was researching articles on gay and lesbian athletes and came across an article that caught my attention. It discussed the issues and stress that gay and lesbian athletes deal with. The pressure that the athletes, who are gay and lesbians, deal with is ridiculous. An athlete must deal with the thought of discrimination, playing time loss, loss on the roster of the team, coaches criticism, team thoughts, etc. If a player feels this way how are they supposed to function as an athlete without being bothered by a single disturbance. Performance would decline, self-esteem would plunge, social connections lost. Just the thought of it sucks. This case of an athlete feeling like this would mean that the coaches and team mates of the athlete are stereotypical, prejudice, uneducated in how to deal with gay and lesbian players, and disrespectful. If coaches and players are really part of the team, then they would respect and accept their fellow mate on their sexual orientation. Educating players and coaches that there are people of different race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation would be beneficial to providing team cohesion. How would teammates and coaches react in finding out that their point guard and best player on the basketball team was either gay or a lesbian? Definitely educating athletes and coaches and even people on this topic would benefit. What harm would it do?



I just wanted to end this entry with a quote from the article that describes a little on how to respect a person.

"What is required is respect for difference and a belief that everyone on the team should be safe and treated with dignity and fairness. This standard should be the bottom line for addressing all issues of diversity on an athletic team, not only differences of sexual orientation."


"Ja-Ja-Roni"
Ronnie Pierpoint
339i Mondays 7pm