Back in November, my office administrator told me that there was a gay pride
event happening along the beachfront in Port Elizabeth. I expressed a level of interest in attending,
and even if it was a simple nod, in my head, I was jumping for joy. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting; I’ve been
to a bunch of pride parades, including the one in my hometown of New York,
probably one of the largest in the world.
Still, there was something exciting about hearing that a pride event was
even happening in South Africa, let alone in the small city of PE.
I ended up passing by the event, a small area right off the
beach where people congregated before the parade, equipped with a stage and a
rainbow balloon canopy. A modest crowd
was in attendance: mostly groups of queer men and women with their friends and
significant others, and one or two cross-dressing folks strewn about. Once the parade began, anyone could join the
procession. It was more of a group of people
walking down the street with a pick-up truck leading the way. The main road on which they marched was not
closed off in any way. Just one lane of
the street was being taken up by the group as they walked along the street,
traffic still moving normally on either side of them. There was a good amount of pomp and
circumstance, but after a minute or two, the entire group walked past, and
bystanders were free to go on their merry (gay) way.
The quaint gathering was no New York, Rio de Janiero, or
even Rochester, which boasts a decently sized parade every summer. Regardless, it was still a big deal. It was a joyous occasion for the LGBT
community in Port Elizabeth. It’s called
Pride, after all. No, it didn’t shut
down a large portion of the city, with floats and rainbow flags taking over the
streets or mostly naked go-go dancers and drag queens on stilts (or whatever
else they can think of nowadays), but it meant a lot to the people involved,
especially since it was in South Africa.
On the African continent, South Africa, by far, provides the
safest haven for gay people. (For the remainder of the article, I will to use
the term “gay” to refer to cis-gender gay, lesbian, and bisexual men and women
and exclude transgender and other members of the queer spectrum because I do
not know their exact status in this country.)
For instance, South Africa was one of the first countries in the entire
world to legalize gay marriage back in 2006.
This is a major feat compared to other African nations like Nigeria and
Uganda that just further criminalized homosexual acts. Even other countries around the world are
having seemingly basic gay right struggles: India’s upholding the
constitutionality of Section 377, and in the USA where states are continuing to
debate issues of marriage equality.
Still, regardless of the liberal nature of the South African
constitution’s stance on homosexuality, laws do not always transcend into the
reality of everyday life. Policy and
culture do not always reflect one another, and this is one case in which that
rings true.
Danny Turken’s documentary The Beautiful Game follows the lives of female soccer players who
are part of the Port Elizabeth team City Lads.
The team, whose captain I sit next to at work every day, is a nationally
renowned club that almost always gets to compete in the national women’s soccer
league championships. More than a dozen
of the team members have worked in Grassroot Soccer in some capacity. The documentary wonderfully depicts the
struggles of the team, primarily being women making a name for themselves in a
male dominated sport, and the repercussions of playing the sport they love.
In South Africa, as expressed by many women in the
documentary, female soccer players are often stereotyped as lesbians. Women playing soccer become social pariahs:
do what you love, but risk the consequences of being labeled an outcast. The most tangible and evident risk of being a
lesbian in poor, Black South African society is the possibility of corrective
rape, or the rape of supposed lesbians by men in order to “turn them straight
again.” This is a shocking but true
reality that these women face every day: becoming a target of rape, not
necessarily because of their sexual orientation, but because of their life
choices that may hint at their somehow inherent masculinity, which links them
to lesbianism. It is a difficult
concept to grapple with, but it is not a unique one.
This is not an isolated issue, as it happens throughout the
country. Members of RV United, a team of
female soccer players in Khayelitsha, created by Grassroot Soccer staff and
nearly all of whose members have worked or participated in Grassroot Soccer,
were highlighted in a short documentary also addressing many of the same problems.
News stories pop up every so often of another case of a young woman
being correctively raped, yet there does not seem to be any interest in
challenging these stereotypes on a grand scale.
The culture of athleticism in general is incredibly tied to
ideas of masculinity and male dominance.
Male athletes are supposed to be excessively macho and straight. Female athletes are supposed to mimic
masculinity and are subsequently thought of as lesbians. This begs us to ask the vital question: what
is innately masculine about sport? This
leads us to two more follow-up questions: what is inherently not masculine
about being a gay man, and what about being a lesbian is?
The truth is that there is no concrete correlation between
masculinity, sport, and homosexuality; rather, it is a social construct of what
masculinity entails. Society has deemed
athleticism and competition with maleness, and sport has become a male-oriented
activity. In that sense, it became a
space where gay men, often seen as more feminine, cannot thrive and a place
where gay women, seen as more masculine, can.
In recent years, there have been an increasing number of out
gay athletes, especially out gay men, and this is something incredible. There are high-profile coming outs throughout
the gay spectrum in a wide variety of sport, and this is especially meaningful
in light of Russia’s anti-gay propaganda policies and the upcoming Sochi
Olympics in less than two weeks. From
basketball’s groundbreaking Jason Collins, to my man crush Tom Daley openly dating
another man, to my new man crush, soccer player Robbie Rogers, being a
up-and-coming advocate. There’s Chris
Kluwe, the outspoken ally in the NFL and Blake Skjellerup, the Kiwi speed
skating star. And so many more, from the
small town high school courts to the world’s biggest stadiums, who are
continuing to inspire young gay people that homophobia has no place in this
world, and especially not in the locker room.
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