Sports: There's hope in the last bastion of closeted players and homophobia. How many gay professional sports players do you know?

***crickets***

Yeah, they're pretty quiet. Or, of course, we could fool ourselves and pretend there aren't any. But a few recent news items point to some changes.

First of all, I'd like to welcome Sheryl Swoopes, the kick ass WNBA basketball player. Actually, she's the WNBA's most valuable player, and she's hot. From the cover story over at The Advocate...

Widely considered the greatest female basketball player in the history of the sport, Swoopes has augmented her great natural gifts with a drive that has led her Women's National Basketball Association team, the Houston Comets, to the never-equaled feat of a "four-peat"-four national championships in a row. Now Houston's number 22 is taking the ball into new territory: Swoopes came out as a lesbian on Good Morning America in late October. She's also joining Martina Navratilova and Rosie Jones as spokeswomen for America's most prominent lesbian-centered business, Olivia Cruises and Resorts. What persuaded her to come aboard? It's best expressed in Olivia's slogan, she says: "Feel free."

Sheryl, here's your toaster. Welcome to living your life openly and honestly. As KD Lang said to Dave Koz upon his coming out, "Come on in, the water's fine."

Second: Kudos to the Brits for dealing with homophobic slurs and culture in football. Now if only US leagues could step up to the plate... (wrong sport, I know)... From 365gay.com...

(London) The Football Association is taking his campaign to stamp out homophobia to the stands. The association has already banning gay slurs on the field. Now it is warning fans that gay baiting will not be allowed at games.

For decades cries of "queer" or "poof" have been hurled at players and referees by fans in the stands unhappy with plays or calls.

The association announced on the weekend that any fan who taunts, insults or otherwise uses homophobic epithets will be thrown out of the ball park and charged under Britain's hate speech law.

"There is a problem with homophobic abuse in the game directed at not just players but also referees and also opposing fans," Lucy Faulkner, the FA's Ethics and Sports Equity Manager told the Observer newspaper.

"Such behavior is offensive and runs totally counter to both the game's family image and efforts to make football more acceptable to all sectors of society."

The association last year began clamping down on racist epithets by players and fans.

Faulkner said that the FA hotline for reporting racist incidents at matches is being expanded to include homophobic outbursts. The association is also launching an education program for team managers to help them recognize and punish such incidents in both professional and amateur games.

Ex-Norwich City, Nottingham Forest and Hearts striker Justin Fashanu, Britain's only openly gay player to date, received constant homophobic abuse during matches in his career in the 1980s and 90s. He later committed suicide.

Third and perhaps most importantly, did you know the Blazers are having a Gay Fans night this year? Rumor is it's Friday, February 24th though I can't find any info about it on their site. I say props to the Blazers. Heck, I'm not a fan, but I'll go just to give a shout out to their recognition of our community.

Written by LeAnn Locher

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 12, 2005 at 11:10 AM. Want to discuss? Leave a comment below.