ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Sport and Sexuality: Athletic Participation by Sexual Minority and Sexual Majority Adolescents in the U.S.

John F. Zipp

Published online: 24 August 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010

Abstract There are contradictory expectations regarding the relationship between sport and sexuality, one suggesting less sports participation for sexual minority males and more for sexual minority females, with the other hypothesizes no participation differences by sexuality for either males or females. I used the nationally representative Add Health Survey of middle and high school students in the U.S. to assess the degree to which sexual minority and sexual majority boys and girls play sports and the differences in the types of sports that they play. Findings from logistic regression analyses indicated there were very few differ- ences in the degree and type of sports participation by sexuality, but somewhat larger differences as the adoles- cents move from middle to high school.

Keywords Sport . Gender. Sexuality

Introduction

In the U.S. and other Western advanced democracies, feminist scholars have detailed the close connection between sport and gender. On the one hand, sport has been theorized as a key way for boys/men to demonstrate heterosexual masculinity (e.g., Kimmel 1996), while sporting successes have often caused girls/women to have their femininity/heterosexuality questioned (e.g., Cahn 1994). Despite these historical associations, there is very little quantitative data that have tested to see if there is an association between sport and sexuality, and if this

association differs by gender. Drawing on feminist sport theorists, I use the first wave (1994–95) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) data (see Harris et al. 2003) to analyze the relationship between sexuality and sports participation for adolescent boys and girls in the U.S.

Athletic Participation and Sexuality: A Brief Review

A considerable amount of gender scholarship has centered on the relationship between sport and sexuality. On the one hand, sport has been dominated by men and by behaviors and values—aggression, physical strength, competition, winning, risk-taking, etc.—that are strongly associated with contemporary, Western conceptions of hegemonic mascu- linity (e.g., Kimmel 1996). In the modern era alone, the growth and expansion of organized sport in the West was a response to fears of a “social feminization” of boys (Kimmel 1996; Messner 1988); as a result, sport is a key arena in which boys/men can earn and display their heteromasculinity. Indeed, as numerous studies over the years have shown (e.g., Elling et al. 2001; Fine 1987; Kimmel 2008; Messner 1992, 2002; Pascoe 2007; Plummer 2006; Thorne 1993), homophobic epithets (e.g., “fag”, “gay”, “pussy”) are common ways for boys/men to put down both other males and women and to establish their own hetero-masculine superiority.

The historical connection between sport and masculinity has not only impacted men but has also caused women who have played masculinized sports to have their femininity questioned (Cahn 1994; Hicks 1979; Kauer and Krane 2006; Lenskyj 1986; Ravel and Rail 2007; Shakib 2003). Across the years, successful women athletes who moved beyond the “socially accepted” female sports (e.g., tennis, swimming; Griffin 1998) repeatedly have been portrayed as

J. F. Zipp (*) Department of Sociology, University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325-1905, USA e-mail: [email protected]

Sex Roles (2011) 64:19–31 DOI 10.1007/s11199-010-9865-4

not being “real” women, with the most egregious effect of this making women athletes submit to various forms of sex tests (e.g., the International Olympic Committee required these from 1967 through 1999). More generally, as Wright and Clarke (1999) wrote, the threat of being labeled a lesbian “keeps heterosexual women in their place and lesbian women closeted” (p. 239). Straight women have been labeled lesbian, and have often used what Felshin (1974) called a “feminine apologetic”—playing up their heterosex- uality, emphasizing traditional notions of femininity, and downplaying the aggressive and competitive aspects of sports. Athletes, coaches, and athletic administrators who did not conform to normative gender expectations have faced a range of sanctions, from stigmatization through being dismissed from teams to the loss of jobs (Blinde and Taub 1992; Cahn 1994; Hicks 1979; Griffin 1998; Iannotta and Kane 2002; Kauer and Krane 2006; King 2008; Knight and Giuliano 2003; Krane 1996; Plymire and Forman 2000). Indeed, recognizing that this apologetic is rooted in fear of being labeled a lesbian, a number of scholars (e.g., Broad 2001; Griffin 1998) have suggested that it is more properly seen as a “lesbian apologetic.”

At the risk of some oversimplification, these historical associations detail two separate processes that have operat- ed for men and for women: Sport heterosexualizes men— success in sport, especially in contact sports, is closely linked to heterosexuality—but sport homosexualizes wom- en—sports, especially the more aggressive ones (e.g. basketball, softball, soccer, ice hockey, wrestling), often have been seen as particularly attractive to lesbians (Ravel and Rail 2008). Following this line of thought, we should expect fewer homosexual males to play sports, especially contact ones, while lesbians should be overrepresented in sports, especially those for which success requires the adoption of a deportment that is more closely aligned with hegemonic masculinity.

However compelling this argument may be, there are countervailing cultural trends that may undermine these expectations. To begin with, sports participation has become so widespread in the U.S., especially for youth, that it is almost a required rite of passage to play a sport at some point in one’s life. Although long true for boys (Anderson 2005), Title IX and changing gender dynamics have increased female participation as well. High school sports participation has increased in each of the last 19 years for both boys and girls; during the 2007–08 academic year, 4,372,115 boys and 3,057,266 girls played a sport in high school (National Federation of State High School Associ- ations 2008). A recently released national survey of 2185 3rd–12th graders indicated that only 18% of girls and 15% of boys had never played a sport, with 69% of girls and 75% of boys currently participating in at least one sport (Women’s Sports Foundation 2008).

A related trend is an increased acceptance of homosex- uality. Data from the General Social Survey indicates that the percentage of Americans believing that homosexual relations are “not wrong at all” almost tripled from 1973 to 2006, increasing from 11.2% to 32.3%. This wider cultural shift has also affected athletes, as there is evidence that homophobia is declining somewhat among members of team sports (Southall et al. 2006—as cited in Anderson 2008). In addition, Sartore and Cunningham (2009) found that college students who were former or current athletes were more, rather than less willing, to play for either a gay or lesbian. Thus, perhaps facing less homophobia, taken together these sorts of data support the idea, also advanced by others (e.g., Anderson 2005; Elling et al. 2001; Hall and Richardson 1982), that sexual minorities, especially at younger ages, may play sports at the same rate as heterosexuals.

We are thus faced with what appears to be a set of contradictory expectations, both of which derive at whole or in part from feminist sport-gender scholars: one suggests less sports participation for sexual minority males and more for sexual minority females, especially in contact sports, with the other hypothesizes no differences based on sexuality. Despite a series of well-done qualitative, histor- ical, and theoretical studies (e.g., Anderson 2002, 2005; Cahn 1994; Griffin 1998; Hekma 1998; Kauer and Krane 2006; Lenskyj 1986; Price and Parker 2003; Pronger 1990, 2000; Ravel and Rail 2007), some autobiographies of gay or lesbian athletes who have self-disclosed their sexuality (e.g., Amaechi and Bull 2007; Anderson 2000; Kopay and Young 1977; Nelson 1994) and various websites devoted to “out” sports/games (e.g., www.outsports.com; GaySports. com), there is relatively little quantitative data that allow us to reconcile these competing expectations regarding the participation of sexual minorities in sport.

At the broadest level, this lack of data stems at least in part from the controversies surrounding collecting informa- tion on sexual behavior and, even more to the point, the cultural stigmatization of homosexuality in particular. The most-widely cited and accepted data on sexuality (including homosexuality) come from the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLF; Laumann et al. 1994), a survey that (not surprisingly, given its purpose and sample) did not include anything on respondents’ athletic pursuits.

A related weakness is the link between how the relationship between sport and sexuality has been theoretically constructed and our empirical assessments of this connection. Again, there are different processes at work for boys/men and girls/women. For males, the pivotal theoretical focus has been on sport as a vehicle for achieving mainstream, heterosexual masculinity. Lenskyj (1994) summarized this connection between sport and hetero-masculinity succinctly: “sport is [emphasis added] what makes a boy into a man” (p. 360). Given this,

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what is missing in the literature appears to be a crucial shortcoming: evidence on sport and sexuality during adolescence, the very developmental stage during which boys are presumably being turned into men. This is rendered even more important given the role that sports play in the adolescent status system. Whereas adult men have relatively more options for demonstrating behavior consistent with current notions of hegemonic masculinity (e.g., occupational, financial success), research since the 1950s has consistently affirmed that athletic success is the key to popularity for adolescent boys (e.g., Coleman 1961; Goldberg and Chan- dler 1989; Suitor et al. 2001).

In contrast to boys/men, as Lenskyj (1994), this time referring to hetero-femininity, noted, “sport is not [empha- sis added] what makes girls into women” (p. 361). Indeed, much the opposite has been emphasized, as the central theoretical focus for the relationship between sport and sexuality for girls/women has been on the cultural contra- dictions of hetero-femininity and athletic participation. As noted earlier, the roots of this can be traced back to a time when sporting opportunities were much more restricted for girls/women than they are today, making it easier for women athletes to be cast as deviant. The situation has changed dramatically, especially for girls. Although phys- ical attractiveness, sociability, and intelligence continue to be important sources of prestige for teenage girls, much as they were for their mothers, participation in sports has also become virtually equivalent as a source of prestige in girls’ own ratings (Suitor et al. 2001). Does this increased prominence of sports implicitly mean that adolescent girls are less likely to have to “apologize” (Felshin 1974) for their athletic success? Given the relatively low rates of homosexuality in the population on the one hand and the high rates of sports participation for adolescent girls on the one hand, can sport still be seen as the province of lesbians? If not, will this mean that adolescent girls are freer to play sports without necessarily being labeled a lesbian? Will it be true for all sports, or primarily/only for those (e.g., tennis, swimming, gymnastics) that are more consistent with hetero-femininity? More generally, because approxi- mately half of both men and women see sports as a way for high school girls to increase their prestige, this suggests a possible loosening of the association between sport and a lack of femininity for girls.

Therefore, an important complement to the accounts of adult men and women about sexuality and sport is a study of the degree to which sport and sexuality converge in adolescence. This fills a key gap in the literature, at several levels. On a theoretical level, the relationship between sexuality and sport has implications for our conceptions of gender. If playing and succeeding in sport is an important way to earn/display masculinity, the presence/success of gay males by definition undercuts, or at least threatens, the

“fallacy upon which heterosexual masculinity is built” (Anderson 2005, p. 43). Similarly, after posing the sports- lesbianism question—does playing sport make women more “manly?” Cahn (1994) writes, “If athleticism was not essentially [emphasis added] masculine, did this mean that all gender differences were mutable?” (p. 3). More generally, as Cahn wondered, what really are “manly” and “womanly” qualities, and do they each have to be attached only to men and women, respectively? In a related vein, understanding this relationship also has policy implications, for as Griffin (1992) notes, increased gay/lesbian visibility is one of the most effective methods for countering homophobia. Because sport consumes more of our attention than almost any other cultural activity in the U.S. (Eitzen 2006), it is especially important to examine this.

Sexual Minorities and Sport: The Evidence

An appropriate point of departure for discussing sexuality and sport is to review our current understandings regarding the range of sexualities in the population at large. In a culture rife with “compulsory heterosexuality” (Rich 1980, p. 632), in practice this issue has centered on trying to ascertain the extent of sexual minorities—those who deviate from exclusivity heterosexuality—in the popula- tion. As noted above, the most authoritative evidence on this point comes from the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLF; Laumann et al. 1994), and as they pointed out, “Perhaps no other single number in this study will attract greater public interest than our estimate of the prevalence of homosexuality” (p. 282).

Laumann et al. (1994) both argue and show empirically that homosexuality has three primary dimensions: behavior; desire (including attraction and appeal), and identity. As might be expected, no one single number captures all three dimensions. For instance, Laumann et al. (1994, pp. 296– 99) found that 9.1% of men and 4.3% of women have had at least one same-sex partner; 2.8% of men and 1.4% of women identified as homosexual or bisexual (less than 1% answered “something else”); and 7.7% of men and 7.5% of women reported some degree of homosexual desires. One indication of the distinctiveness of each of these dimensions is that only 2.4% of men and 1.3% of women are sexual minorities on all three aspects of homosexuality.

As mentioned earlier, we know very little about the extent of homosexuality in sports, especially for men. At this writing, no man has ever admitted his homosexuality while actively playing one of the four major sports (basketball, baseball, football, or hockey) in the US. However, a number of former players—Dave Kopay, Roy Simmons, and Esera Tuoalo (football); Billy Bean and Glenn Burke (baseball); and John Amaechi (basketball)— have come out after their playing careers had ended. This is

Sex Roles (2011) 64:19–31 21

not surprising, as athletes tend to over conform to the norms of their sport in order to matriculate throughout the decreasing opportunity structure (Anderson 2009).

Although at first glance one may be tempted to interpret this rarity as an indication that there are almost no homosexual men in major team sports, three other sources of evidence dispute this conclusion. The most complete scholarly treat- ment is Anderson’s (2005) study of 60 gay male athletes (ranging from high school to professional), 40 of whom were out of the closet. Two of the closeted athletes were current professionals, in football and hockey respectively.

The other evidence comes from two different surveys of players. A 1998 anonymous survey of 175 first year NFL players by sports agent, Ralph Cindrich (as cited in Anderson 2005, p. 15, 180, 181) found that 43.4% of the rookies suspected that there were some gay players on their team, with 8.3% either aware of or reasonably sure of it and five (of the 175) friends with a player whom they knew to be gay. Similarly, almost half (49.4%) of 85 college football players queried in 2009 by ESPN: The Magazine thought that they had at least one gay teammate (Feldman and Hockensmith 2009).

Although there is considerably more writing on lesbians in sport (see King 2008, for a recent summary), there is a similar lack of data on their prevalence. On the one hand, the specter of lesbian dominance has long had a chilling effect of women’s sports. As early as the 1880s, the medical community cast female same-sex desire as an effect of an “inverted” gender identity, opining that these “inverts” were attracted to playing masculine sports (Cahn 1994, p. 166). The stereotype of the “mannish lesbian” athlete became more widespread starting in the 1930s, taking hold after WWII, leading Cahn (1994) to contend that by “the 1950s, all female athletes and physical educators operated under a cloud of sexual suspicion” (p. 181).

On the other hand, although there are no data linking women’s sexuality to athletic prowess (Cahn 1994; Griffin 1998; President’s Council on Physical Fitness 1997), some historical and anecdotal evidence suggests that lesbians were, if not over-represented, at least more visible, among athletes than they were in other spheres. Part of the association between sport and lesbianism may stem from the relatively limited options, in place until late in the 20th Century, for women to socialize with other women. Sex- segregated sports provided a more publicly-accepted venue for women to interact with other women (Cahn 1994; Ravel and Rail 2008). In addition, compared to gay men, there are relatively more lesbians who have revealed their sexuality during their playing careers. However, the only major team sport athlete to come out while still playing is Sheryl Swoopes, the two-time WNBA Most Valuable Player.

Despite the research cited above, it should be clear that there is very little solid evidence that allows us to draw any

generalizable conclusions regarding the degree to which sexual minorities participate in sport. Therefore, an impor- tant complement to the accounts of adult men and women about sexuality and sport is a study of the degree to which sport and sexuality converge in adolescence. More specif- ically, using logistic regression, I address three research questions in this paper. Are there significant differences in sports participation by sexuality (RQ1)? Are these differ- ences primarily or only the case in the more stereotypical, “masculine” contact sports such as football, basketball, wrestling, etc. (RQ2)? Finally, because homophobia is likely to be more restrictive and sexuality more publicly expressed among older adolescents, are there differences in sports participation by sexuality across grade levels (RQ3)?

Method

As noted previously, the data used in this paper come from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Add Health is a nationally representative sample of 7–12th graders in 80 high schools and 52 middle schools from throughout the U.S. The Add Health study design ensured that the survey was representative of U.S. schools with respect to region of country, urbanicity, school size, school type, and ethnicity. Currently four waves of data are available—Wave I (1994–1995), Wave II (1996), Wave 3 (2001), and Wave IV (2008). Wave I began with in-school questionnaires administered to a 90,118 students in grades 7 through 12 and 164 administrators at these schools (September 1994– April 1995); 20,745 of the students completed a follow-up at home interview, as did 17,670 of their parents (April 1995– December 1995). Because my key variables—sports partici- pation (in-school) and romantic attractions (at-home)—were ascertained in Wave I, I will rely on both the in-school questionnaires and the at-home interviews from Wave I data.

Before turning to a description of the variables, it is important to comment briefly on the time period in which these data were collected. Although the first half of the 1990s witnessed several major, widely discussed issues involving sexuality, especially gays in the military and gay marriage, the most notable sport and sexuality story was former Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis’ coming out in 1994 and the subsequent success of his New York Times Bestselling 1995 book, Breaking the Surface (Button, Rienzo, & Wald, 2000; D’Emilio 2000; McKinley 1994; Rich 1995). However, these discussions didn’t appear to have a strong impact at the local level; by 1996 only 160 communities had passed anti-gay discrimination laws (Button et al. 2000), and perhaps reflecting this, Button et al. (2000, p. 278) noted that “most U.S. schools do little or nothing to address the issue of sexual orientation (emphasis in original).

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Dependent Variables

There are 11 dependent variables in this paper, each assessing whether the student played one of the following sports: basketball, baseball, football, ice hockey, soccer, swimming, tennis, track/field, volleyball, wrestling, or any other sport. Not only do these cover the major organized youth sports, but they also represent different types of sports: team contact sports (basketball, football, ice hockey, soccer, and wrestling); team non-contact sports (baseball and volleyball); and individual sports (swimming, tennis, and track). All the dependent variables are coded 1=if the student participated, 0=if not.

Independent Variables

Taken together, my three research questions require several key explanatory variables—gender, grade in school, and sexuality—and I include measures of each. First, because sport and gender scholars have detailed significantly different processes for boys/men and girls/women (see King 2008, for a recent summary), all my analyses will be conducted separately for boys and girls. Second, it is well- documented that youth begin dropping out of sport as they go through adolescence (e.g., Ewing et al. 2002; Kirshnit et al. 1989; Women’s Sports Foundation 2008); to control for this I included the grade in school (range: 7–12). Two minor clarifications are in order: there were 20 sixth graders who answered all the relevant questions and could have been included in the analysis. Given their small numbers, I excluded them. In addition, I could have used age instead of grade level, but chose grade level because sporting opportunities may be more linked to grade—e.g., high schools are likely to have more choices than middle schools, thus it may matter less that the adolescent is 13 or 14 and more whether s/he is in 8th or 9th grade. Because the correlation between grade and age is .91, in practice the choice matters little.

My final key explanatory variable is sexuality, and it requires a more detailed description. Diamond (2003) drew a useful distinction between “sexual orientation”—usually seen as a stable pattern of sexual desire—and what she termed “other” or “same-sex sexuality,” a construct that includes desire, affection, behavior and fantasy, regardless of an individual’s orientation or identity. The Add Health survey has a number of measures that can be used to assess other or same-sex sexuality, and various scholars (e.g., Pearson et al. 2007; Ueno 2005) have relied on them for doing so. In this paper, I adopt the approach of Ueno (2005) who used two sets of questions (and graciously shared his coding scheme). In the first set of questions, respondents were asked if they were ever attracted to a male and to a female (two separate questions); due to the sensitive nature

of these items, Add Health used audio computer aided self- interview (Audio-CASI) in which the adolescents listened through earphones to pre-recorded questions and responded directly on a computer, thus minimizing issues of disclo- sure. From answers to these two questions, I formed four groups of 7–12th grade adolescents: those who (a) were not attracted to either sex, (b) were only attracted to the other sex, (c) were only attracted to the same-sex, and (d) were attracted to both sexes.

Add Health also included three sets of questions that focused on various aspects of interpersonal relationships: (a) whether or not the respondents had any “romantic relationships” in the last 18 months; (b) for those who reported no romantic relationships, Add Health asked about what the survey termed as “liked relationships”: whether the adolescent has held hands, kissed, or told anyone that they liked or loved them in the last 18 months; and (c) whether or not respondents had any other sexual relation- ships (Add Health termed these “nonromantic sexual relationships”). Adolescents were asked for the sex of their partners (up to three for each) for each of these three types of relationships. Combining this latter information with the three different interpersonal relationships allowed me to group adolescents into one of four groups: no relationships, exclusively other-sex relationships, exclusively same-sex relationships, and both sex relationships.

Continuing to follow Ueno, I cross-classified respond- ents into one of 16 types based on the “attraction” and “relationship” variables, and then collapsed them into three categories: adolescents who (a) were exclusively attracted to and had relationships with the other sex (83.7%), (b) had either both same- and other-sex, or exclusively same-sex, attractions and relationships (7.8%), and (c) were not attracted to anyone and who had no relationship experience (8.6%). Because my main focus was on the impact of sexuality and sports participation, I omitted those with no attractions/relationships from the analysis. This left me with two groups of boys and girls: those with “other-sex” sexuality (90.7% of males and 92.3% of females) and those holding “same-sex” sexuality (9.3% of males and 7.7% of females).

Control Variables

Because sports participation also varies along other dimen- sions, it was important to control for these to reduce extraneous sources of variation. There are significant differences in the amount and type of sports participation by social status (Coakley 2007); to capture these I included both the adolescent’s race/ethnicity (White, African-American, Latino, Asian, Other) and parent’s occupation (professional, technical, or managerial; clerical or blue collar; other jobs; not in the labor force). Finally, I used two measures that bear on

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physical fitness of the youth: body mass index (BMI) and whether the respondent reported any physical limitations that might have kept them from participating in sports (disability; the exact question is: “Do you have difficulty using your hands, arms, legs, or feet because of a physical condition that has lasted for the past 12 months or more?”).

Sample Size

My effective sample size was reduced for several reasons. First, only 15,356 of the in-school respondents also had at- home data. In addition, because of the complex sampling design of the study, grand sample weights are needed to ensure that the results are nationally representative, but these were available for only approximately 91% of the sample. Finally, missing data on various items reduced the sample size to 5,856 girls and 5,128 boys. Thus, in the effective sample, 92.8% of girls (n=5434) and 91.8% of boys (n=4708) had an other-sex sexuality, and a corresponding 7.2% of girls (n=422) and 8.2% of boys (n=420) had a same-sex sexuality.

As might be expected by the sample design, adolescents were distributed approximately equally across the different grade levels, ranging from a low of 15% in the 11th and the 12th grade to a high of almost 19% in 7th grade. Slightly more than half the sample –51.9%—are males, while there is considerable diversity by race: 66.8% are non-Hispanic Whites, 16.2% are African-American, 11.7 % are Latino, and 3.6 % are Asian.

Results

My first research question (RQ1) concerns whether adoles- cents with other- or same-sex sexuality have significantly different levels of participation in sports. To address this, I ran a series of logistic regression models of sports participation on sexuality, grade level, and my control variables (race, disability, physical fitness, and social status). The results of these tests are reported in Table 1. (I used the “svy” procedure in STATA to take into account Add Health’s design effects; see Chantala and Tabor 1999). Because there are 11 dependent variables for males and for females, to save space in Table 1 I have reported only the logistic coefficients and associated odds-ratios for sexuality (the most consistent patterns for the control variables are that participation declines with grade level and that it is typically higher for more privileged socioeconomic and racial groups; these and all other results are available upon request).

There are two significant sexuality effects in Table 1, and both are for boys: sexual minority boys are 144% more likely to wrestle and 90% more likely to play volleyball.

Without minimizing these relationships, there are only two significant effects in 22 comparisons (11 sports for boys and 11 for girls). Given this, it seems fair to conclude that the answer to my first research question is reasonably clear: Net of grade level, race, social class, BMI, and disability, for the most part, sexual minority and majority boys and girls participate to roughly the same degree and in similar athletic pursuits.

My second research question (RQ2) focused on whether any differences in participation between sexual minority and sexual majority adolescents were more evident in the more masculine, contact sports. This question can also be addressed with the logistic regression results in Table 1. Because there were only two significant differences in sports participation by sexuality, it would be unlikely that such a clear pattern emerged. And, indeed, this is the case. One of the two is somewhat supportive of this notion— same-sex sexuality boys are more likely to play volleyball (a non-contact sport)—while the other one—same-sex sexuality boys more likely to wrestle (a contact sport)—is in the opposite direction. Thus, the answer to RQ2 is also clear: There is no real evidence that same-sex sexuality boys are less given, and that same-sex sexuality girls are more given, to playing contact sports.

My third research question (RQ3) asked if differences in sports participation by sexuality are greater as boys and girls get closer to adulthood. Although the data on sport and sexuality are cross-sectional, it is possible to use the differences across grades to clarify matters a bit. Sexuality is likely to be more apparent and more clarified at the end of high school than it is at the beginning of middle school, making it also likely to be more socially impeding. This

Table 1 Logistical regressions of sport on sexuality

Dependent variables Males (N=5128) Females (N=5856)

b Odds ratio b Odds ratio

Baseball −.02 .98 −.03 .97 Basketball −.24 .78 −.28 .76 Football .17 1.18 .18 1.19

Ice Hockey .06 1.06 −.69 .50 Soccer −.10 .91 .02 1.02 Swimming .38 1.47 .54 1.72

Tennis .10 1.11 −.38 .68 Track −.09 .92 −.36 .70 Volleyball .89 2.44* −.54 .58 Wrestling .64 1.90* .95 2.58

Other Sports −.26 .77 −.39 .68

Cell entries are: b (logistic regression coefficient) and Odds Ratio for sexuality, net. of race, disability, grade level, and parent's occupation. Sexuality is coded: 0=other-sex sexuality, 1=same-sex sexuality

*p<.05

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sets up different expectations for boys and girls. For boys, to the degree that sport retains its role in producing a version of masculinity that emphasizes heterosexuality and severely penalizes homophobia, one should expect less sports participation among older, sexual minority boys than among younger boys. On the other hand, if sport is a particularly welcoming environment for same-sex sexuality girls, one should see greater participation gaps for them at older ages. In each case, this leads us to expect statistical interactions between sexuality and grade level on sports participation, with negative coefficients associated with the interaction terms for boys but positive effects for girls.

The results of these tests are contained in Table 2; once again, to conserve space I am only reporting the coefficients of interest—here, the main effects of sexuality and grade in school, and their interaction on sports participation. As can be seen in Table 2, the sexuality x grade level interactions are significant in two cases for boys and in three for girls, and in each instance—soccer and wrestling for boys, football, swimming, an volleyball for girls, the coefficients

are in the expected direction: negative for boys and positive for girls. Same-sex sexuality boys are 29% less likely to play soccer and 27% less likely to wrestle. Similarly, the odds of sexual minority girls playing football, swimming, or playing volleyball are 53%, 29%, and 36% greater respectively than other-sex sexuality girls.

To assist in interpreting these results, I have graphed the predicted probabilities for each of the significant activities by grade level and sexuality for boys and for girls. The results for boys are located in Fig. 1, while those for girls are in Fig. 2. For boys, the results are quite clear: For both sports, as expected, there is a striking decline across grade levels in sports participation. More interesting, however, is that this decline is considerably sharper for sexual minority boys than for sexual majority ones. In soccer, the slightly greater participation by same-sex sexuality boys at the beginning of middle school flips during high school such that same-sex sexuality boys are less likely to be involved in the sport. A similar, though more dramatic effect occurs in wrestling, as there is a precipitous decrease in participa-

Table 2 Interactions of sexuality, grade level and sports participation

Dependent Variable Males (N=5128) Females (N=5856)

Sexuality b/(OR)

Grade b/(OR)

Sexuality X Grade b/(OR) Sexuality b/(OR)

Grade b/(OR)

Sexuality X Grade b/(OR)

Baseball 1.05 −.15* −.12 .36 −.06 −.04 2.87 .86 .89 1.44 .94 .96

Basketball .43 −.28* −.07 −2.06 −.31* .19 1.53 .76 .93 .13 .73 1.21

Football .10 −.29* .01 −3.76* −.39* .42* 1.11 .75 1.01 .02 .68 1.53

Ice Hockey 3.11 −.13 −.35 .12 −.26 −.09 22.40 .88 .71 1.12 .77 .91

Soccer 3.01 −.02 −.34* −.72 −.09 .08 20.32 .98 .71 .49 .92 1.08

Swimming .69 −.20* −.03 −1.82 −.31* .25 2.00 .82 .97 .16 .73 1.29

Tennis 1.03 .16* −.09 −.53 −.11* .02 2.80 1.18 .91 .59 .89 1.02

Track −.09 −.02 .00 −.11 −.09* −.03 .92 .98 1.00 .90 .91 .97

Volleyball 3.48 −.03 −.28 −3.48* −.24* .31* 32.33 .97 .76 .03 .78 1.36

Wrestling 3.52* −.05 −.31* −.32 −.16 .13 33.82 .95 .73 .73 .85 1.14

Other Sports 2.50 .03 −.29 −1.52 −.06 .12 12.14 1.03 .75 .22 .94 1.12

Cell entries are: b (logistic regression coefficient; top row) and Odds Ratio (bottom row) for sexuality; control variables are race, disability, and parent's occupation. Sexuality is coded: 0=other-sex sexuality, 1=same-sex sexuality

*p<.05

Sex Roles (2011) 64:19–31 25

tion among sexual minority boys while involvement by sexual majority boys remains more or less constant.

The results for girls, contained in Fig. 2, are equally telling. In contrast to boys where sports involvement declines across grade levels for both same- and other-sex sexuality adolescents, it is only sexual majority girls who show substantially decreased sports participation in high school. In contrast, same-sex sexuality girls generally maintain their level of involvement in football, volleyball, and swimming as they transition through adolescence. (It is important to keep in mind that very few girls—overall, just about 1%—play football. This is far less than the 14% of girls who play volleyball and the 7% who swim.) The juxtaposition of these two trends means that, while other- sex sexuality girls were more likely to be on the swim

team and substantially more likely to play football or volleyball in middle school, by the end of high school these patterns were completely reversed for football and swimming, with no real difference in volleyball. Com- bining the results for boys and girls suggests that the answer to RQ3 is a qualified “yes:” At least in a reasonable subset of sports, sexuality appears to have a greater impact on sports participation as adolescents proceed through high school.

Discussion

I had three research questions in this paper: Are there significant differences in sports participation by sexuality (RQ1)? Are these differences primarily or only the case in the more stereotypical, “masculine” contact sports (RQ2)? And, are there differences in sports participation by sexuality across grade levels (RQ3)?

As reported above, I have two, at least partially contradic- tory, answers to these questions. First, overall there are very few differences in the degree and type of sports participation for other-sex and same-sex sexuality boys and girls. Other than sexuality minority boys being more likely to wrestle and to play volleyball, there were no statistically significant differences in sports involvement for either boys or girls. In many ways, this finding supports Savin-Williams’ (2005: 216) claim about the “ordinariness” [emphasis in the original] of sexual minority adolescents.

My second key finding, however, qualifies this in an important way, as I discovered larger differences in sports involvement by sexuality across grade level. Even though in most instances there were no changes by grade level, the pattern of significant effects by gender was quite telling. In 2 of 11 sports (soccer and wrestling) for boys, sexual minorities were less likely to participate at higher grade levels, while in three of 11 sports (football, swimming, and volleyball) for girls, sexual minorities were more likely to play sports in later adolescence. Thus, when sexuality is more salient (e.g. in high school vs. in middle school), it has a greater impact on sports participation for both boys and girls. And, it does so in ways that reinforce stereotyp- ical notions on the relationship between sport and sexuality.

Taken together, my results provide some support for both the continuing hold of traditional heterosexism in sport (my second finding), while also illustrating that this grip may not be as all-encompassing as previously thought (my first finding). In the remainder of this paper, I will try to trace the implications of each of these interpretations, with different suggestions for girls/women and boys/men.

At the theoretical level, as noted earlier, sport has been conceptualized as a way to heterosexualize boys/men, while homosexualizing girls/women. Indeed, in her recent review

Predicted Probability of Playing Soccer by Sexuality -

Males

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

7 8 9 10 11 12

Grade in School

Predicted Probability of Wrestling by Sexuality -

Males

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

7 8 9 10 11 12

Grade in School

Other Sex Same Sex

Other Sex Same Sex

Fig. 1 Predicted probabilities of playing various sports by sexuality and grade level: males

26 Sex Roles (2011) 64:19–31

essay King (2008) noted how research on sport and sexuality has been bifurcated by gender, with scholarship on women and men proceeding largely independently of each other and stemming from different theoretical orienta- tions. For instance, the central theoretical issues for sport and sexuality for women have revolved around the negative impacts of homophobia and heterosexism. Thus, a great deal of research has focused on the strategies girls/women use to manage the lesbian stigma, ranging from the female apologetic through remaining in the closet to actively resisting such stereotypes.

In contrast, research on men in sports is heavily rooted in the role that sport plays in hegemonic masculinity. For men, then, the major question regarding the sports participation of sexual minorities is how the presence/success of gay male athletes, especially in the more aggressive, contact sports, affects our conceptions of hegemonic masculinity.

Given these differences, it is not surprising that my results raise diverse concerns for girls/women vs. boys/ men. For the former, despite the time-worn claim that women’s sport attracts lesbians, the combination of the recent very high sports participation among girls and even higher levels of heterosexuality should mean that, just by sheer numbers alone, it is very unlikely that lesbians are now able to dominate sports. Indeed, finding few differ- ences in sports participation by sexuality for girls confirms this math, and perhaps helps to partially undercut the ability of the threat of being labeled a lesbian to be used as a weapon against all girls/women. However, the greater participation of same-sex oriented girls in three sports— volleyball, swimming, and football—in later adolescence may indicate that the lesbian stigma still retains some power, albeit in a different manner than previously thought. As I noted earlier, although it has been presumed that the more aggressive, contact sports would be the ones most concordant with lesbianism, two of the three sports with greater participation of same-sex oriented girls among older adolescents—swimming and volleyball—are typically seen as consistent with traditional hetero-femininity (e.g., Kauer and Krane 2006). It may be that this latter association is what allows these sports to serve as a safe haven for same- sex sexuality girls. More research is obviously needed to confirm these findings, but at a minimum they suggest that, although the lesbian stigma may still hold considerable sway, the linking of lesbianism with “masculine” sports may need revisiting.

My results also have implications for the theories on sport and masculinity. As Kimmel (1994, p.122) noted, masculinity must be “proved” and “proved again,” and sporting prowess has long been a key route for boys to

Predicted Probability of Playing Football

by Sexuality- Females

0

0.005

0.01

0.015

0.02

0.025

7 8 9 10 11 12

Grade in School

Predicted Probability of Playing Volleyball by Sexuality

- Fem ales

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

7 8 9 10 11 12

Grade in School

Predicted Probability of Being on the Sw im Team by

Sexuality - Fem ales

0

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

0.12

0.14

7 8 9 10 11 12

Grade in School

Other Sex Same Sex

Other Sex Same Sex

Other Sex Same Sex

�Fig. 2 Predicted probabilities of playing various sports by sexuality and grade level: females

Sex Roles (2011) 64:19–31 27

establish their masculine bona fides. One the one hand, finding few overall differences in sports participation between other- and same-sex sexuality boys suggests that the presence of sexual minority boys/young men, playing side-by-side with their sexual majority peers has the potential for causing us to de-couple one aspect of masculinity—heterosexuality—from sport participation. On the other hand, the disproportionate declines in participation in certain sports among same-sex sexuality adolescent boys call attention to trying to understand if these boys are dropping out of sport due to the fear of harassment for their sexuality or if their sexuality appears incongruent with the ethos of these sports. Again, more research is needed to address this, but this does suggest that any potential de-coupling between sport and masculinity may indeed be a long and uncertain process.

My results also have implications at the policy level, and once again the effects are far from certain, and may proceed in opposite directions. On the one hand, my second set of findings of sport welcoming same-sex sexuality girls while being unreceptive to same-sex sexuality boys is generally consistent with traditional notions of sport and sexuality. From this, it appears that the more general cultural acceptance of homosexuality has had only limited impact on the sporting choices of adolescent girls and boys. Instead, what may be occurring is more similar to the backlash along the lines suggested by Nelson (1994). In her book, The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Love Football, Nelson argued that women’s sporting achieve- ments have led men to focus more on sports that rely on upper body strength as a way to continue to devalue women’s accomplishments. Because homophobia has prov- en over the years to be an especially powerful tool in policing gender (Anderson 2005), helping to subordinate women and non-heterosexual men, it may be that a greater cultural awareness and acceptance of homosexuality will result in greater demands for the enforcement of traditional forms of sexuality in sport. This may mean that there will be more pressure for boys to play contact sports and more pressure for girls not to do so. In a similar vein, it may cause boys who play non-contact sports and girls who play contact sports to provide even more evidence of their heterosexuality. The nature of the sports themselves might also change a bit—ratcheting up the contact for boys and lowering it girls.

On the other hand, there were no differences in participa- tion by sexuality for most sports for boys and in all sports for girls (my first set of findings). These results, in contrast, may help to reduce the cultural sway of homophobia in sport. Two different strands of recent work, the first in social psychology on inter-group relations and the second on cheerleading, suggest several possible ways that this might occur. Ever since Allport’s (1954) seminal work on prejudice, social scientists

have studied the conditions under which contact can reduce out-group prejudice. The most promising recent evidence has shown that cross-group friendships have a much greater impact than more casual relationships in this regard. Termed the “extended contact effect” (Wright et al. 1997), even shortly established friendships have reduced prejudice in a variety of settings—across racial, religious, and native- foreign groups (for a recent summary, see Turner et al. 2008). Being closely involved with a member of an out- group helps in-group members to feel the injustice experi- enced by their friends, thereby reducing prejudice. In a similar vein, Anderson (2008) found that former high school football players who became college cheerleaders experi- enced significant improvement in their views of women, a change Anderson attributed to the benefits of being on a gender-integrated squad.

Although this has not been tested with same and other- sex sexuality groups, there is no good theoretical argument why it should not apply in this situation. Sport might afford an especially good possibility, as teammates often need to establish close friendships with one another—indeed, a recent qualitative study (Schrack-Walters et al. 2009) of 11 heterosexual male college basketball and soccer players found that one of the key reasons these men participated in sport was for the close, emotional relationships with their teammates—and more of these will likely involve those of varying sexualities. These friendships may create the space for greater conversations on gender, sexuality, and differ- ence, conversations that have considerable potential for increasing tolerance and reducing inequality.

Before concluding, as with any study, it is important to keep in mind its limitations, and this is especially true with respect to my measure of sexuality. First, even though I was only able to analyze data for two groups—those with other- sex sexuality and those with a same-sex sexuality, I do not mean to lend credence to a static gay-straight binary, as sexuality is much more diverse and flexible than this implies. For instance, sexuality can be quite fluid during the middle and high school years and, given the cultural dominance of heterosexuality, many young men and (especially) women who will eventually identify as homo- sexual may first have had heterosexual relationships/sex before having homosexual relationships/sex.

Second, as noted earlier, there are three major dimen- sions to homosexuality: behavior, desire, and identity. The measures that I use capture the first two of these, but not the third. Even though Add Health asks about sexual identity in Wave III (when the adolescents were adults), given that 7– 12th graders are in the process of developing their sexuality, sexual identity is likely not to be a developmen- tally appropriate measure (Pearson et al. 2007). In fact, it is important to note that, not only have the Add Health data frequently been used to measure same- and other-sex

28 Sex Roles (2011) 64:19–31

sexuality (e.g., Diamond 2003; Ueno 2005; Pearson et al. 2007; Russell et al. 2001), but also that one of the top scholars in the field of adolescent sexuality argued that testing “hypotheses about youths with same-sex attractions rather than lesbian/gay/bisexual identified youth ... is invaluable ... for investigating how same-sex and other- sex sexuality influence the sexual and social development of all adolescents” (Diamond 2003, p. 492).

Third, research in adolescent sexuality has clearly indicated that there are different developmental pathways and trajectories for boys and girls (see Diamond and Savin- Williams 2009, for a recent review), as models originally based on studies of males do not fit females well. A complete summary is beyond the confines of this paper, but several key findings are that boys become sexually aware a few years earlier than girls, emotional/romantic ties are more important for girls, and women have a greater degree of sexual “plasticity” across the life course. Despite this, research also has found that, for both hetero- and homo- sexuals, sexual attraction becomes memorable around the age of 10 (Herdt and McClintock 2000). Thus, data assessing same- and other-sex sexual attraction and rela- tionships among middle and high schoolers may indeed be focused on important periods in the development of sexuality for both girls and boys.

Finally and in conclusion, my results suggest several additional lines of inquiry. One is to continue to follow these adolescents through future waves of the Add Health survey, paying particular attention to the degree to which the experiences chronicled here shape future sport and sexuality. A second area of research may be qualitative work that focuses on sports involvement of adolescents of varying sexualities. Particularly helpful here would be to follow these individuals from early adolescence through early adulthood, as this may be able to help to demystify the complex interplay of sport, gender and sexuality. Given high level of gender segregation in sport—it trails only the military and prisons (Anderson 2005)—it is not surprising that sport has historically helped to produce and reproduce particular versions of masculinity and femininity that are heavily imbued with heterosexuality for males and homosexuality for women. Perhaps the results of this and future studies can begin to question these linkages, and in doing so, broaden our conceptions of both femininity and masculinity.

Acknowledgement This research uses data from Add Health, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and funded by a grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Persons interested in obtaining data files from Add Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524 ([email protected]). No direct support

was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis. Thanks to Mary Laske for her help with the data analysis and to Jan Yoder, Michael Kimmel, Mike Messner, Eric Anderson, Jessica Headley and Sandra Spickard Prettyman for their thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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Coming out: still a hurdle too high for many gay sports stars?

Sonia Elks 4 M I N R E A D

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - U.S. Olympian Adam Rippon is known for his gravity-defying moves on ice, but he also took a chance when he chose to come out publicly as gay.

The figure skater said he understood why many sports stars will stay in the closet on National Coming Out Day on Thursday.

“I thought it could be a risk,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as he discussed his own decision to come out in 2015.

“It can be scary because you think maybe I could be judged differently for being an out athlete, but I also know that as an out athlete I was my best.

“I wanted to show every single part of me and I wanted to be honest with who I was.”

A growing number of high-profile athletes have come out in recent years, including Rippon, U.S. swimmer Abrahm DeVine and the British Olympic gold-winning boxer Nicola Adams.

But even as public acceptance of LGBT people grows in much of the world, especially the West, sport is commonly seen as one area where homophobia and gender stereotypes persist.

John Amaechi, a psychologist and former basketball player who came out in 2007 after retiring from sport said many players feared being known as a “caricature” based on their sexuality.

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“They’re afraid that their lifetime of effort and work and their legacy [will just be] ‘That’s that gay guy’,” he said.

“Plus, they know there will be consequences.”

It is not just an issue for elite players. More than three-quarters of gay, lesbian and bisexual people in a major study of more than 9,000 people in 10 countries said they had remained at least partially in the closet while playing youth sport.

Almost 80 percent of those surveyed said an openly gay, lesbian or bisexual person would “not be very safe” as a spectator at a sporting event in the 2015 study, the largest of its kind.

Sporting culture often reinforces gender stereotypes, said Guylaine Demers, an expert in homophobia at Laval University in Canada.

Gay and bisexual men often avoid coming out due to fear of losing their bond with team-mates, while women face pressure to hide their sexuality in public due to stigma of being seen as a “lesbian team”, she said.

“Athletes will confess that some will just quit the sport because they feel it’s too much pressure to pretend to be someone you are not,” she said.

ROLE MODELS

Some experts think sport is no longer a hostile environment for lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

“It used to be in the 1980s if you were an adolescent that homophobia was accepted and homosexuality was stigmatized,” said professor and former U.S. high school coach Eric Anderson. “In the late 1990s things started to change.”

Anderson said by late 2000s the culture in the United States and Britain had turned around, with young sports players overwhelmingly supporting gay rights.

However, most say that while attitudes are improving, more must be done.

Representation varies hugely between sports, said Sarah Townsend, general secretary of the European Gay & Lesbian Sport Federation, with football standing out as one in which it remains “taboo” for male players to come

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out.

A few high-profile footballers have publicly said they are gay, among them British player Justin Fashanu, who later took his own life aged 37, and German midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger.

But many players are thought to remain in the closet.

“The big thing is to get role models,” said Townsend. “If I can see it I can be it: for youngsters, football is so important, and it is such a popular sport.

“If there are not any role models then you can’t see yourself; you’re not included in it.”

For Rippon, who felt the lack of other out LGBT+ athletes in figure skating, coming out meant offering a lifeline to younger sports fans.

“I knew it was necessary because I didn’t have anyone to look up to growing up,” he said.

“That’s why I felt like I needed to be that person.”

Reporting by Sonia Elks, Additional reporting by Hugo Greenhalgh, Editing by Claire Cozens. Please

credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers

humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights, resilience and climate change. Visit

news.trust.org to see more stories.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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