Exploring Two Generations of Athletes on Their Attitudes Towards Homosexuality and Bisexuality
Sport has historically been utilised as a tool to promote masculinity and heterosexuality in effeminate boys. During the industrial revolution boys' primary socialisation was through their mother as men had to worth long hours in the factory to support the family. There was little understanding of homosexuality and it was thought to occur in individuals that were gender a-typical. Sport tackled this issue by teaching young men and boys to express socially accepted masculine characteristics such as aggression, bravery, stoicism, misogyny, and homophobia.
After the industrial revolution, sport was still used to masculinise boys and men in society. Certain sports (invasion and contact sports) were also seen as masculine terrains and the athletes were therefore perceived as heterosexual. Female athletes participating in these ‘masculine sports’ had their sexuality questioned and were often labelled as a lesbian.
During the 1980s society became aware of the true number of gay men. The AIDs epidemic outed gay men that contracted the disease and society became aware that gay men were no longer just gender a-typical men. This caused men to no longer be presumed to be heterosexual and instead, men had to (re)prove their heterosexuality. Sport became the last bastion of masculinity in society, as sport highlighted the clear differences between genders and was, therefore, the primary method used to prove their heterosexuality. Another method to prove their heterosexuality was to express homophobia, highlighting that their negative attitudes towards homosexuality decreased the likelihood of them being perceived as gay.
The mid to late 20th century saw a surge in protests for equality for sexually diverse individuals in order to tackle discrimination and political injustices. Along with this activity, general societal surveys in the West saw a decline in negative attitudes towards same-sex relationships that continued to decline in the 1990s onwards.
This shift in attitudes has predominately been caused by the younger generation abandoning previous tropes of masculinity and homophobia. The abandonment of previously accepted gender stereotypes has freed the younger generation and has allowed them to express a wide variety of behaviours without being labelled as homosexual or bisexual. However, looking at the older generations there are still high levels of disapproval towards homosexuality and bisexuality. The lack of improved attitudes towards LGB individuals in older individuals has been argued to be due to people being unlikely to change their views in later life. Therefore, the older generations still value the previous tropes of masculinity and heterosexuality.
Research has also highlighted this shift in attitudes within both female and male sport, however, academics have typically researched the attitudes of young athletes or athletes within an education setting. Research on older athletes only occurred in the late 80s and 90s when they were younger. The research reported that sport was a hostile environment for non-heterosexual athletes (Grifin, 1987; Hekma, 1998; Price & Parker, 2003). However, there is a lack of research that explores the attitudes towards homosexuality and bisexuality of older athletes and to see whether or not these athletes still hold negative attitudes towards LGB athletes.
For my MRes dissertation, I investigated two generations of men’s attitudes towards homosexuality within rugby. I found that older male athletes (aged 45-50) held less tolerable attitudes towards homosexual athletes compared to the younger male athletes (aged 18-24). The use of homophobia was commonplace in the older cohort’s team, whilst this was nonapparent in the younger cohort’s team. The younger athletes demonstrated high levels of inclusivity towards a hypothetical gay teammate and felt that the hypothetical gay teammate would feel welcome in their team. The older athletes demonstrated disapproval to a hypothetical gay teammate joining their team and discussed how their team is a hostile environment for a gay athlete to join.
My research, therefore, aims to address this gap by interviewing older male and female athletes (aged between 44-52) on their attitudes towards homosexuality and bisexuality. The participants will be participating in both hockey and rugby. The results will then be compared through exploring a variety of variables, age (participants in age groups 18-24 and 44-52), gender (male and female), and type of sport (rugby, hockey, and no sport). The comparison of these variables will explore any differences in acceptance of LGB individuals. The specific age for the older participants was selected because they would have had their adolescence in the 1980s where the level of intolerance towards sexual diversity was at its highest. The hypothesis for this research is that age of the individual will influence the acceptance of LGB individuals and specifically, the older participants will hold less inclusive attitudes towards LGB individuals than the younger participants.
The application of this research is to potentially highlight
hostile environments for LGB athletes and provide specific areas of British
sport for governing bodies to tackle based on the variables tested in the
project.
- Hekma, G. (1998). "As long as they don't make an issue of it..." Gay men and lesbians in organized sports int he Netherlands. Journal of Homosexuality, 35 (1), 1-23.
- Griffin, P., (1987). Homophobia, Lesbians, and Women's Sports: An Exploratory Analysis.
- Price, M., & Parker, A. (2003). Sport, sexuality, and the gender order: Amateur rugby union, gay men, and social exclusion. Sociology of sport journal, 20(2), 108-126.
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