In some ways, contemporary society is marked by a newfound culture of tolerance for all sexual identities. Pride parades line our streets in June, anti-discrimination statements adorn many institution’s web pages, and employees throughout the country are given sensitivity training (with California teachers serving pupils grades seven to 12 being required to complete at least one hour of LGBTQ+ cultural competency training annually).

Despite this progress, comprehensive research has shown  inclusivity on male sports teams lags significantly behind the rest of our society. One of the most influential and impactful contributions to this research was a paper published in 2015 entitled “Out on the Fields” which found that 54% of gay men in youth sports (under 22 years of age) said that they are “not at all accepted” or “only accepted a little” within their sports teams. Another major study published in 2019 by the organization Outsport also found that 82% of LGBTQ+ people sport homo/transphobic language in the past 12 months.

Sam* explained that in the sports teams he has played on, his teammates saw the LGBTQ+ community as something to be made fun of – something far removed from their own community.

“For them, being gay was kind of far away,” Sam said. “They assumed that there’s not really any gay people around them, especially not in the locker room. They just assumed they’re all straight. And so they thought that it’s okay to make jokes about that sort of thing, because [they didn’t] think anyone’s going to get offended.”

According to Dr. Beth Cavalier, a researcher and sociology professor at Georgia Gwinnett College who studies sports culture with a focus on gender and sexuality, the anti-gay rhetoric is used as a tool to enforce hegemonic masculinity compliance.

“Masculinity and homophobia go together,” Dr. Cavalier said. “Homophobic insults [are used] to prop up gender norms. We call young boys who are emotional ‘gay’ as a way to get them to be more masculine, and girls who are too masculine, we also call them ‘gay’ in order to get them to wear makeup.”

Dr. Cavalier explained that this enforcement of gender compliance in athletics begins when, in youth sports, the genders are split up. 

At this time, she explained, peer influence and social standing become increasingly important to kids. At this point, boys begin to rib each other with jokes that seek to impose the rigid ideas of traditional masculinity through things like homophobic jokes.

“Boys still grow up in a much more rigid set of social expectations [compared to girls], and homophobia is the way in which a lot of that stuff gets reinforced,” Dr. Cavalier said. “It’s baked into masculine institutions in some kind of way where anybody who’s challenging the status quo is gonna have a hard time in anything that is kind of a traditionally male space.”

*Greg found this concept to be true on his sports team, he said he felt that gay people are often thought of in a negative biased way.

“Male sports have this [negative]  way they train you to think about [gay] people,” Greg said.

Dr. Cavalier said that this problem is much more severe on team sports, especially on those that require highly-aggressive contact where coalescence into a single traditionally masculine archetype is especially important. Dr. Cavalier explained that this disincentive to be unique is multiplied when  equipment covering the face or other body parts makes it hard to make out individuals’ identities.

“Team building goes so closely with compliance and not being different and not standing out,” Dr. Cavalier said.  “Athletes won’t come out so they don’t upset the team dynamic.”

Kai Korporaal (’23) participated in water polo and swim in his time at Westview. He ended up leaving both sports in part because after coming out in his junior year, he felt both indirectly alienated and directly called out for not fitting into this  homogenous archetype.

“It was always the little things,” Korporaal said. “It was always the little comments, the little jokes that you can kind of tell when somebody’s talking about you behind your back. I sort of felt like all of the people in the team were really close with one another and because they were making these jokes about me. I didn’t feel super accepted in that environment because I was constantly reminded of [being openly gay which] was still super new to me.”

Sam experienced something similar. After coming out, he said he felt like there was an invisible wall between him and the rest of the team.

“You feel different, like you’re not a part of that [team] collective,” Sam said. “You’re not fully accepted, you’re just tolerated.”

Korporaal said he rarely said anything when he heard homophobic comments because he thought the potential benefits would outweigh the costs of speaking up. This was until one day when Korporaal, who has a self-described shy disposition, felt he needed to step in.

“One time we were in the locker room on the pool deck and we were all changing,” Korporaal said. “This was a while after I came out and everybody knew. One of the guys said, ‘Kai must be having a really really good time in this locker room right now.’ I remember it just pissed me off. I was like, why do you think you could say that? And I remember turning to him and saying ‘Trust me I’m not having a lot of fun here,’ and then I left [the locker room].”

Dr. Cavalier said that the locker room is often the place where homophobic comments are made because players are away from the watchful gaze of coaches.

“The locker room is sort of seen as a  space in which anything goes,” Dr. Cavalier said. “You can say whatever you want in the locker room.”

Despite the hurtful comments that they have to put up with on the field and in the locker rooms, both Greg and Korporaal said that they don’t blame the more general derogatory statements on the individuals, but instead, the sports culture at large.

“My team was pretty accepting,” Greg said. “I mean they joked around and stuff but it was never ill-mannered.”

Korporaal shared this sediment.

“I don’t think anybody on the water polo team genuinely hated me,” Korporaal said. “I don’t think any of them are actual homophobes or terrible people. I just think they’re a little ill-informed, maybe insensitive.”

Dr. Cavalier found that for the most part in her research, the problem in teenagers was one of being unaware of the power of one’s language.

“It’s done more out of ignorance rather than maliciousness,” Dr. Cavalier said. “In studies where they’ve talked to teenagers who do [use derogatory language describing gay people or culture], they say they don’t care about sexuality. They just mean it to mean stupid. They’re just sort of not being kind of critical about the importance of language.”

To better fit into the hypermasculine culture that ruled the sports teams they were on, all three athletes explained that they needed to work to consciously segment their identities, downplaying their sexual orientation while around their teammates.

“When groups of guys are doing physical activity, it draws out more of that overly masculine energy,” Korporaal said. “I witnessed that during water polo I was sort of acting super masculine. I’m not the kind of guy to be super-masculine. Whenever I was there [at the pool], it was just sort of like that part of me was gone.”

Sam also said he felt the need to censor displays of his sexual identity.

“Sexuality is a very important part of life and your identity,” Sam said. “Some people may not see it that way, but it pretty much is when you lock away that core part of [your] identity. It’s kind of like you’re shoving yourself into a box that you’re too big for.”

Dr. Cavalier said that this segmentation of a person’s identity can be harmful to their mental health.

“I do think there’s some really negative consequences to a culture that doesn’t really affirm people’s identities,” Dr. Cavalier said. “There is some data around substance abuse, which would suggest that there are negative consequences to trying to keep [those] secrets.”

In addition to the numerous negative effects that homophobic remarks can have on LGBTQ+ athletes, these remarks can impact the general dynamic and well-being of the entire team.

According to a study tracking the impact of hearing anti-LGBTQ+ language on high school athletes’ self-esteem, there is a negative correlation between self-esteem of boys and incidences of witnessed homophobic language. This effect was greatest on young males whom the study found were the group that was most exposed to these comments.

Football coach Mitch Donnelly said that a strong and successful football team is one that supports all of its players no matter their sexual orientation.

“What’s special about football is you have a large number of people that typically come from very diverse backgrounds,” Donnelly said. “And one of the special things is you’re taking all these people from diverse backgrounds and you’re pursuing a common goal. And so you can’t pick and choose who you include and who you don’t include. I’m a big believer that everybody needs to be treated with respect. I want people to be themselves, and if you have a culture that doesn’t allow for that, I think it hurts the team.”

Greg wished that he had coaches around him who would have done more to step in when they heard homophobic comments.

“I feel like coaches, because they’re also raised in that [athletic male] culture, they hear it and they don’t do much about it,” Greg said. “There’s not ever consequences in sports. I’ve never really heard a coach say ‘don’t say that.’”

Greg said he believes that a solution to the toxic culture of male athletics should start with education of coaches.

“The best solution would be to sort of better educate coaches who are supposed to be sort of overseers, because obviously it’s much too much of a burden on [players] alone to stop these sorts of comments,” Greg said. “[We should] take coaches and show them the sort of effects that these comments can have on a person. I feel like coaches are role models and if they’re taught [about this] then the players would not say that stuff anymore.”

Donnelly said he believes that in order to create a culture of mutual respect, you must set expectations on day one.

“As coaches, we set the expectation to allow a space for the players to navigate those challenging situations,” Donnelly said. “[We are in charge of] making sure that it’s communicative, that there’s consequences and things happen [when we hear homophobic language]. I think it’s important that we educate that you never know who you might be offending.”

Additionally, Athletic Director Steve McLaughlin said that Westview’s athletic department tries to uphold strict standards when hiring coaches in order to make sure the coaches understand how harmful homophobic comments can be.

“Three expectations are reviewed and discussed with each hire,” McLaughlin said. “One to be the right example, two to be positive, and three to be committed. [These] are overarching values and expectations that would discourage anything inappropriate.”

Korporaal said he thinks that the solution lies both in the coaches and in players who need to reach out to newly outed players on their team.

“I feel like if I had more of a friendship with those people and I felt less distant, I would have had a far nicer time,” Korporaal said. “The little interactions, the little comments [are what really help], like to ‘come sit with us,’ or including somebody in a conversation. The coach can also make reminders to the team that we shouldn’t be making rude comments or inappropriate jokes.”

Dr. Cavalier said she is very hopeful because of recent progress made in LGBTQ+ acceptance, the recent work that is being done by high profile professional sports teams and players to raise awareness of the issue, and the capability of young people to change.

“It’s hard to remember that there has been so much progress in a short period of time,” Cavalier said. “There’s very few other social issues that I have seen so much progress so fast. There are things like when the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, they brought the Cup to the Chicago Pride parade. I think we need to give young people credit that they’re capable of absorbing messaging and not just say well, we can never change, because people are capable of progress.”

*Name changed to preserve anonymity. Student-athletes with names changed are gay athletes whose sexual orientation was generally known by their team and are either current students or alumni.