[ Introduction] [ 1] [ 2] [ 3] [ 4] [Appendices] [Bibliography ]
Introduction
As a gay athlete myself, the term tongzhi yundong (同志運動) has always perplexed me because it is rarely used to refer to gay/lesbian athletics.[1] Instead, its predominant meaning is associated with the gay movement.[2] This lack of language to express my own identity as a gay athlete stimulates me to engage in this project of narrating the emergence of gay/lesbian sports groups and the lives of gay/lesbian athletes. During this quest for self-identity, I learn that in fact gay athletics and the gay movement are not as incompatible as one might think it is. This discovery inspires me to look into the Chinese etymology of tongzhi yundong and reason why the combination of the two homonymous words 「tongzhi」 and 」yundong」 mostly denotes 「the gay movement」 but not 「comrade movement,」 「comrade sports,」 or 「gay/lesbian sports.」 What is the evidence to justify my claim that gay/lesbian athletics and the gay movement are relevant? Furthermore, what is it that makes me as a gay athlete think that tongzhi is the most suitable term to identify myself, but not tongxinglian (同性戀) or kuer (酷兒). Is there a generational divide among these three identities? Last but not least, are the tongzhi athletes class-marked?
To begin with, tongxinglian,
tongzhi, and kuer are all
common Chinese terms referring to homosexuals but these three identities can be
further distinguished. Tongxinglian
has often been used in medical diagnosis of homosexuality. According to Jens Damm』s research, the term tongxinglian was first
invented by sexologists in
In China in the 1920s and 1930s, sexologists such as Zhang Jingsheng (張兢生), known as Doctor Sex (xing boshi 性博士), or Pan Guangdan (潘光但), the translator of the works of the British sexologist Havelock Ellis, were the first to use the loan word 「tongxinglian」 in their publications…(Damm, 1998)
In
comparison with the medical-based term tongxinglian, the phrase tongzhi
originally was not used to refer to homosexuals. In mainland
Speaking of the gay movement, the
Chinese term for 「social movement」 is a homonym of 「sports/athletics」—「yundong.」 Nevertheless, when the two terms 「tongzhi」 and 「yundong」 are
combined together, it』s generally associated with gay activism but not
gay/lesbian sports. There are several reasons to this. First, the social
movement is considered at large more important than sports. Second, gay
activism is more visible and valued than gay/lesbian sports in
One thing to notice here is that the tongzhi yundong (gay athletics) I refer to are mostly competitive team sports and 「western」 sports. There are several reasons to this. First, the current data of gay/lesbian sports groups I collected are mostly team sports. It does not mean that non-competitive or individual gay/lesbian sports groups do not exist. As far as I know, there is a gay mountain climbing club. Some of my lesbian informants also told me in the near future a lesbian bicycling club and a rock-climbing club will be founded. These non-competitive and individual gay/lesbian sports are beyond my research capabilities and await other scholars to do further research. Second, most of the sports groups I analyze in this project are in some degree related with the gay movement or activism. This could be the empowerment and identification sports groups render to gay/lesbian athletes. In general team sports provide more social network and interactions than individual sports. They also form better consolidation. Third, the reason that the sports I analyze are competitive and western is relevant to the historical development of modern sport in most post-colonial countries. Competitive sports is a way for the colonizer to discipline the body and mind of the colonized through which the colonizer instills the ideology of obedience. Yet later this ideology of obedience is introverted into a source of self-consciousness and self-empowerment. Modern 「western」 sports since 1940』s have become a foundation for the local Taiwanese to build its nationalistic identity. The team sports baseball is one good example. The sport discourse in Taiwan as well as in many post-colonial countries follows the western trajectories and definition of sport. Any local activity that is not considered as a sport in the west will not be considered as a sport per se, such as yoga, chikung (氣功) and other traditional activities. I haven』t found any gay/lesbian sports groups related to these traditional sports. This accounts for the reason I only analyze 「western」 「competitive」 sports which are most prevalent in Taiwan. However, if in the future there are gay/lesbian groups of traditional sports, it will be interesting to look at the postcolonial and nationalistic aspect of such sports groups in addition to the body politics and gender politics which this project lay much emphasis on.
Back to my thesis title, one might
question why I complicate the term tongzhi yundong but not 「tongxinglian」
yundong or 「kuer」 yundong. This is related with the
politics of gay/lesbian athletics. The stigmatized image and unhealthy
association of 「tongxinglian」 is in conflict with the healthy discourse
of gay/lesbian athletics. In addition, in the old tongxinglian
discourse, tongxinglian identity is very specific (referring to gay
and lesbian only) and restrained (without legitimacy) in the social movements.
This is very different from the tongzhi identity which is more inclusive
in terms of encompassing LGBT issues and more liberating in terms of deploying
optimistic rhetoric and attitudes to engage in the gay movement. Kuer
identity is also inclusive of LGBT issues but it is more concerned with
challenging the social structure and values. In terms of gay/lesbian athletics,
its strategy and function is prone to display the normalcy and health of
homosexuals rather than the 「queerness」 that kuer deploys to defy and
challenge the power that be. It is because of the strategic differences among tongxinglian,
tongzhi and kuer politics that I situate gay/lesbian athletics
under tongzhi yundong not 「tongxinglian」 or 「kuer」 yundong.
Based on the successive historical development of the three identities of tongxinglian, tongzhi, and kuer, I observe that there is a rough generational divide among these three identities. Tongxinglian is identified by a comparatively elder group of homosexuals in a time when homosexuals didn』t have positive rhetoric to name themselves.[6] Tongzhi is used the most frequently among elitist homosexuals and younger generation. Kuer identity is usually adopted by the most marginal and radical group of sexual minorities without clear age difference. Since gay/lesbian athletics have only emerged since the late 1990』s, most of the members are familiarized with the tongzhi discourse and tend to identify themselves as tongzhi. According to the interviews and questionnaires conducted, the statistics show that the average age of my informants is 25 years old.[7] In addition, in a total of 98 informants, 50% are students, 43.8% are working professionals. Only 2.02% are unemployed. The statistics show how in general the gay/lesbian athletes are young and well-off . The statistics also show that the gay/lesbian sports groups comprise of no laborers, working class, or proletariat. By looking at the education, wealth, and social network of the informants, it is clear that they more or less belong to the middle-class. This explains the time and expenses they have to involve in the leisure activities such as gay/lesbian sports groups. These tongzhi athletes are class-marked.
Even though the gay/lesbian athletes are class-marked and belong to a specific generation, it doesn』t undermine the fact that they are engaging a new kind of tongzhi yundong (gay movement) through local and international gay games and marches. In this project, I also want to look at the body politics and gender politics of these gay/lesbian athletes and see how they challenge and provide new thoughts about gender expressions, sexuality, and agency.
Below I am going to review the current literature related with gay/lesbian sports in Taiwan.
Review of Literature
The rhetorical unfamiliarity of 「gay sports」 in Chinese also reflects in the academic research and other literature in Taiwan. In fact, despite the integration of sport and cultural studies around the world, in Taiwan the study of sport is predominately confined to the fields of physical education, kinesiology, management science, psychology, and medical science.[8] Up to now, there are only two theses relevant to gay/lesbian sports issues and one related thesis is still in progress. One of which was written by Zhong Zhaojia (鍾兆佳), a student in the Graduate School for Social Transformation Studies in Shih Hsin University. Her MA thesis is titled 「Movement through Sport: An Analysis of the 『Les-Cup』 and Lesbian Identity.」[9] In her thesis, she places the lesbian sports groups and Lesbian Championship within the gay movement by emphasizing the empowerment of gathering, pleasure/leisure theory, and identity politics.[10] Her basic theory is that through the sports activities and gatherings like the Lesbian Championship, the Gay Games, and in ordinary life, lesbians consolidate their homosexual identity. Moreover, the networking and division of labor in holding the Lesbian Championship is crucial and beneficial for engaging in the gay movement. However, she mentions in the end of her thesis that the emergence of male gay sports groups is distinct from the lesbian experience due to differences based on gender and social status, thus this area is as yet unexplored.
Li Zhenghong』s (李振弘) and Ye Jiande』s (葉建德) thesis, on the other hand, focuses on the gay counterpart.[11] Coincidentally, both Li and Ye take Bai Ling Basketball Team as their research subject.[12] Li』s thesis is not exclusively on sports. It is a complicated psychological depiction of Li』s personal formation of gay identity in his experimental fictional writing. The thesis is composed of several fictional life biographies. The last two stories 「My Youth Goes On and On」 and 「Under the Silent Sun」 (my translation) deal with the empowerment and self-affirmation gained in Bai Ling Basketball Team.[13] As for Ye』s thesis in progress, he intends to analyze the specific development of masculinity in the Bai Ling Basketball Team. To a certain extent he affirms the empowering part of the gay sports groups, but on the other hand he is anxious about the fixed gender expression in playing basketball. According to his observation, the diversity of gender expressions is diminished as the team grows bigger. Because of peer pressure, now there are orthodox gender expressions, such as being aggressive and manly.
In terms of non-academic publications, the book When the Rainbow Raises and Nu Pengyou (女朋友) magazine volume 35 both document gay/lesbian sports.[14] Before When the Rainbow Raises was written, there were few discussions or records of gay/lesbian sports in print. When the Rainbow Raises is a chronicle of gay activism and gay movement. The inclusion of Chu Xuan』s (楚軒) narration of forming Lalainfo (拉拉資推工作室) and the sports meet held by the group demonstrates the gradual visibility of gay/lesbian sports and the recognition of gay/lesbian sports as one form of embodiment of the gay movement.[15] Nu Pengyou magazine volume 35 documents the first-ever participation of Gay Games by a group of lesbian basketball athletes in Taiwan.
I intend to write my thesis to unveil the existence of gay sports groups in Taiwan to both the general public and the gay community. Another hope of mine is to extend Zhong Zhaojia』s project by piecing together the broader picture of gay and lesbian sports groups while not effacing the subtleties of the anti-boundary project gay and lesbian sports groups respectively deploy. The performativity, gender politics, and identity politics in gay/lesbian sports empower lesbian and gay athletes respectively to 「play」 with inscribed sexualities and gender expressions. With my thesis, I also look forward to encouraging a dialogue between the gay and the lesbian sports groups and to promoting integration and cooperation between them against the boundary project.
Methodology and Data Collection
In terms of the methodology, I am greatly inspired by the author of Female Masculinity, Judith Halberstam, who adopts an interdisciplinary approach while writing her book. Like Halberstam, I would like to find a balance between cultural studies and theory; between text-based analysis and action-based observation. The cultural texts I want to analyze not only include media representation of gay/lesbian sports groups but also films depicting gay sports groups while the action-based observation embodies the sporting practice itself, athletes』 self-representation, and athletes』 involvement in the gay movement.
As for the data collection, I have undertaken various methods. First of all, I have made use of the online news database to dig out the past news reports about gay/lesbian sports groups and the participation of Taiwanese lesbians in 2002 Gay Games. Besides I have spent a couple of years observing the formation of gay/lesbian sports groups via the cyber space, such as the bulletin boards of different gay/lesbian sports groups on kkcity or websites on the Internet. Also in order to bolster the credibility and validity of this kind of qualitative research, participant observation and interviews have both been undertaken. Participation observation includes attending activities of different sports groups, gay and lesbian, such as the 2002 Sydney Gay Games Achievement Report Meeting (雪梨成果發表會) and three Lesbian Championships.[16] Interviews have been conducted after gaining the trust from the informants. I have also followed the interview ethics by using pseudonyms to secure the privacy of the interviewees.[17] Since it is harder for the researcher to conduct an equal amount of interviews between gay and lesbian athletes due to my gender and access, I have conducted a questionnaire and administered to participants in the recent Lesbian Championship on January 31, 2004 in order to obtain more information on the athletic experiences of lesbians. Later in order to collect a wider sample from more sports groups, I eventually put the questionnaire on the Internet on April 6, 2004. In the end, I collected 98 effective questionnaire.
The questions asked in the interviews and the questionnaire are meant to explore various aspects of gay/lesbian sports groups, including body politics, identity politics, temporality, experience, and function etc. I have first listed all the issues and aspects that I want to analyze and then design questions to solicit applicable and legitimate answers from my informants. Except the background information requires specific numbers and choices, such as age or what group the informant participates in etc., in order to avoid leading questions and remain as impartial as possible, closed format and open format are both adopted in designing the questionnaire. Closed format takes the form of multiple choice questions which avoids suggesting a certain type of answer and provides statistics and percentages for the researcher to analyze. Open format, such as leaving blank lines, help solicit unprompted answers if the informants find the choices given do not apply to their cases and wish to write down their own answers in the blanks.
The results of the survey corroborate some of my hypotheses concerning gay/lesbian sports. For instance, before I conducted the questionnaire, I was confident that most of the gay/lesbian athletes learned of gay/lesbian sports groups from the bbs based on my personal experience. And the survey confirmed to my assumption. 38.6% of the 98 informants learned about gay/lesbian sports groups via kkcity the bulletin board system. The percentage is the highest among other factors such as learning from friends (34.3%) or learning from the Internet (10.9%). Nevertheless, not all suppositions are correct. For instance, before conducting the survey, I assumed that most of the gay/lesbian athletes were aware of the participation of the Taiwanese lesbian basketball players in the 2002 Gay Games but the survey proves me wrong. 40.8% of the informants are completely unaware of this incident. The questionnaire helps prove and disprove my hypotheses concerning gay/lesbian sports and enables me to be more reflexive when making interpretations and evaluations of the data. Below I will sum up the rest of the data in the questionnaire and my interpretation of the information.
First of all, among 98 informants, 41 of them are female and 57 are male. In terms of sexual identity, 75.6% of my female informants claim themselves to be lesbians. 7.3% of them are bisexuals. 9.7% of them have not decided what category to identify themselves with. 4.9% claim to be bufen (不分), which means gender neutral in English. 2.5% is transgender identified. As for the male informants, 92.9% are gay-identified. 3.7% are bisexuals. 1.7% of them have not decided a specific sexual identity. 1.7% identify with lesbian identity. From the statistics, one can observe that the members constituting the gay/lesbian sports groups are not all gay or lesbian identified. There is still a comparatively smaller group of bisexuals and transgender people. This reflects the proportional ratio of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in the society. Second, the bufen category is a new and emerging concept in the lesbian community to resist the traditional po (婆) and T binary identities. From interviewing some of the bufen-identified lesbians, I learn that some of them are anxious that they do not fit in in either category of po or T. Still some explain to me bufen can be a way for bisexuals to avoid unnecessary scrutiny. This phenomenon will be further analyzed in the gender politics of lesbian athletes in chapter three. Third, as one can see from the results, one male informant chooses the lesbian identity that is not a typical sexual identity for male homosexuals. There are some possibilities for this. One is that the male informant answers less than truthfully. Second, he does identify as a lesbian and likes more feminine type of male homosexuals. Third, it is part of the campy language game that male homosexuals are distinguished for. I include this humor rhetoric in the body politics of gay athletes and will examine this language use in chapter 3.
Regarding the numbers of sports groups the informants participate in, 85 people only participate in one specific gay/lesbian sports group. 9 people (5 females 4 males) participate in two sports groups simultaneously while 4 people (2 females 2 males) participate in three sports groups. As I interviewed some of the lesbian athletes, they told me as biological females and lesbians, it is difficult to find a non-sexist and gay-friendly sports group. Therefore when they learn of the varieties of lesbian sports groups, they tend to show great support by attending more than one sports group. Statistically lesbians are more involved in various sports groups than their gay counterparts with 17% of them participating in more than one sports group. It is only 10% for gay men. This can account for the better consolidation and networking among individual lesbian sports groups than the gay sports groups. Lesbian Championship is one good illustration of this cooperation. There is no such collaboration across individual gay sports groups yet. In chapter 2, I will account this phenomenon about how the emergence of lesbian sports groups has been more political and more feminist conscious than the gay ones.
As for the age range of my informants, it is between 34 and 17 years old. The average age is 25 years old. When asked about the age they started participating in the gay/lesbian sports groups, the maximum age is 32 with the minimum age 15. The average age is 23 years old. This indicates that gay/lesbian sports groups are in general comprised of younger generation and the history of the emergence of gay/lesbian sports groups has only begun since late 1990』s.
In terms of the motivation, interest is ranked the number one reason (34.1%) followed by making friends (28.6%), fitness (16%), killing time (9.7%), and making girlfriends/boyfriends (6.75%) etc. Other reasons include 「seeking tongzhi identity,」 「finding the feeling of belonging,」 and 「people watching.」 To my surprise, only a couple of informants acknowledge that 「tongzhi identity」 is relevant to their decision in joining the gay/lesbian sports groups. Nonetheless, 71.4% agree that participating in gay/lesbian sports groups reinforces tongzhi identity. People who hold the opposite opinion tend to resist the association among sports, identities, and social movement. To them, sports is just sports. However, when I asked these specific informants why not joining the heterosexual sports groups but gay/lesbian ones. They contradict themselves by making statements that are associated with 「tongzhi identity」 and 「the feeling of belonging.」 The statements include 「being in the gay/lesbian sports groups makes me feel good」 or 「I feel like being home.」 The ambiguous feelings about whether to specify tongzhi identity when doing sports are related with the discussion of two opposing strategies of the gay movement—i.e. whether to become accepted into the mainstream (sameness) or to build a separate gay identity (difference/ diversity). For those supporting the former strategy, tongzhi identity is played down in the gay/lesbian sports groups. Gay/lesbian athletes can sanitize their sexualities by highlighting their status as 「athletes」 instead of 「gay/lesbian」 athletes. On the other hand, for those seeking attention from the society and claiming subjectivities, 「tongzhi identity」 is an indispensable foundation to emphasize. They tend to stress the uniqueness of their gender politics and body politics. In the thesis I want to cover both strategies when discussing the relationship between gay/lesbian sports and the gay movement. By contextualizing these two contested strategies, maybe one can find the malleability and flexibility of the gay movement and the complexities of the politics of gay/lesbian sports groups.
Following the two contested strategies about sameness and difference between straight and homosexual athletes, the questionnaire requires the informants to list the differences, if any, in their participated sports groups. The results show that the most different characteristic of the gay/lesbian sports groups is the language use (29.4%). The second one is the interaction during doing sports (22.9%), followed by entertaining degree (22.4%) and body language (13.9%). Still 5.8% insist there is no difference between straight and gay/lesbian sports groups. One informant who belongs in the Gay Volleyball Team (often called GVB) pointed out a unique poker culture. When GVB members take turns playing volleyball, those who are waiting usually sit around the volleyball courts and play poker cards. It doesn』t mean straight athletes don』t play poker cards, but they rarely do so when doing sports. The play mood of the gay athletes, at least for GVB members, obviously exceeds the straight counterparts. A similar play mood can be found in Shuinanhai (水男孩) Swimming Group such as making jokes about who wear the outdated swimsuits, which is something not relevant to the sport itself and not a typical discussion among straight athletes. These examples will be further discussed in the body politics section in chapter 3.
In regard to the intention of participating in the domestic or international sports meets for homosexuals, such as Lesbian Championship and the Gay Games, the informants show a higher interest in attending the local ones (68.3%) than the international ones (45.9%). Originally I have anticipated such results because I assumed there would be more financial pressure in attending international sports events. But the statistics indicate otherwise. For the informants who do not want to attend international sports meets for homosexuals, coming out issue is the main reason that stop them from going (32.1%), followed by other reasons such as insufficient skills (29.8%) and pressure of representing Taiwan (17.2%). The financial concern only constitutes 14.9% of the informants. As for people who do not want to go to local gay/lesbian sports meet, the top one reason is still the coming out issue (50%), followed by insufficient skills (38.8%), and financial concern (2.77%). Combining both statistics, one can observe that despite the positive image of athletics, most gay and lesbian athletes are hesitant revealing their sexuality in the public arena. This accounts for the no-camera policy in the local gay or lesbian sports events, such as the twice-yearly 「Lesbian Championship」 and the 2001 「Rainbow Games and Lesbian Championship.」 It also explains the practice of 「masking strategy」 of lesbian athletes in the 2002 Gay Games and Shuinanhai in the 2003 Gay March. In addition, the statistics demonstrate a general misunderstanding of gay/lesbian athletics and gay/lesbian sports meets. After all, skills are not the most essential requirement in these gay/lesbian sports meets. As far as I know, either the local gay/lesbian sports events or the international ones hardly exclude athletes who do not excel at sports. On the contrary, the gay/lesbian athletics and sports meets are known to promote inclusion and boundary-breaking. The inclusion is illustrated by welcoming transgendered people and transsexuals to participate while the boundary-breaking can be seen in the inclusion of same-sex figure skating in the competition which does not conform to the accepted form of sports. As for the pressure representing Taiwan, it reveals the nationalistic concern as Taiwanese since a heroic image is usually imposed on athletes who represent Taiwan to compete in international events. In chapter four I will discuss how lesbian activists and athletes make use of this nationalistic sentiment to legitimatize the participation in the Gay Games.
Despite
my belief that the gay/lesbian sports could be deployed as a way to do the gay
movement, according to the statistics, 14.2% of my informants hold the opposite
opinion. It indicates that there is not an overall consensus towards this
association. Still, most of the informants (81.6%) agree that more or less the
gay/lesbian sports can be utilized in the gay movement. As one informant Miranda comments
in the questionnaire:
[Gay/lesiban sports are related with the gay movement] because are united because of the same interests. The same interests bring fellowship and consensus which render us courage and strength.
I will come back to discuss the feeling of fellowship and networking in chapter 2 with more evidences and illustrations from my informants.
Last, as confident as I am about the anti-boundary project gay/lesbian sports are engaging, the survey shows that many informants (42.8%) have personally experienced or seen others experience exclusion from other members. The reasons for this exclusion include personality (28.5%), insufficient sports skills (25%), looks (20.2%), biological sex (5.95%), sissy (3.57%), masculinity (3.57%), femininity (2.38%), and outstanding sports skills (1.19%). The statistics show that even though gay/lesbian sports groups may have displayed unconventional body politics and gender politics defying the norm, they can also practice other boundary projects similar to the ones in the straight sports groups. Due to the scale of this project, I am going to focus on the gender politics of masculinity and femininity in chapter 3. The rest of the boundary projects will await other researchers to continue their analyses.
The Researcher
I will not claim complete impartiality and detachment from my research due to the impossibility of eliminating all bias and normative values. As a researcher, I will be approaching this subject as a gay man in my mid-twenties and a student who is immersed in the feminist literature, thinking and gay & lesbian/queer theories. Before deciding to do this research, I have participated in gay sports for three years. The role as both a longtime participant and a researcher is tough for me but on the other hand this role enables me to do the insider observation which might be difficult for non-participant in gay sports.
Thesis Organization
I will divide my thesis into four chapters. In the first chapter, I will address the issue of modern sport as a project of boundary maintenance based on Brain Pronger』s theory. In the essay 「Post-Sport: Transgressing Boundaries in Physical Culture」, Pronger defines boundary project of modern sport as an ideological tool which differentiates gender, sexuality, race, and health etc. I want to apply his theory to look at modern sport in the specific cultural context of postcolonial Taiwan and see how boundary projects work similarly or differently in the United States and Taiwan.
I will begin my second chapter by approaching gay sports groups with historical conditions and performance theories. In history, after Taiwan gained its independence from Japan, the sporting culture was deeply rooted in the educational system. However, due to martial law, people rarely gathered and formed clubs to engage in sporting activities outside the nation』s subsidized teams. Later martial law was lifted and the social climate started to change. Debates between the feminist movement and lesbian politics furthered the visibility and solidarity of the queer community. With the Five Working Day Policy releasing manpower and increasing the demand for leisure activities and through the ubiquitous Internet, gay sports groups gradually emerged from these advantageous forces whether political, economical or technological.
As for the performance theories, based on Richard Schechner』s seven ways to approach 「play,」 I have come up with five dimensions to analyze gay sports groups, i.e. structure, spatiality, temporality, experience and function.[18] In terms of structure, some gay sports groups are organized while some are more informal. This has to do with different sport populations, various formations, and group consensus. As for spatiality, it』s not easy for gay sports groups to play in a particular place since all space, not to mention just sporting venues, is heterosexual space. Therefore some groups make use of outdoor playing-fields in schools or parks while some rent indoor space on a regular basis if the members can afford the rent. The former makes use of the policy of the 「national fitness awareness program;」 the later functions under the capitalistic principle. When it comes to temporality, the gathering time varies according to the status of the members. Students are generally more available than the working members. Besides, the length of the sporting event is directly proportional to the amount of energy exerted and to the degrees of friendship between the members. More than often the sporting event doesn』t have a clear beginning and an end because the members might have treated it as part of a greater performance—a queer family or community. In terms of experience, I intend to bring in identity politics based on my interviews and participant observation to shed light on the positive empowerment of such sporting gatherings. The gay sports groups for some people are places to liberate their bodies and exert their sexualities; for some, the gay sports groups have become their alternative family. Moreover, they are fortresses for gay and lesbians alike to transgress the boundary project, to pursue further relationships with other gay people. All these are achieved through the act of gathering and engaging in sporting practices together. Lastly, I will talk about the function of gay sports groups from the perspective of the gay movement, such as voluntary fundraising for the lesbian players to join the Gay Games in 2002, and the participation of the gay swimming club in the gay parade in Taipei in November 2003. By theorizing gay sports as performance, the interaction among the performers, spectators, and those in-between enriches the potentiality of sports activity as a social movement or as a kind of politically charged social practice. The presentation of self in gay sporting culture is challenging to the boundary project as such.
In chapter three, I will deal with the body politics of gay sports groups. Members of the gay sports groups explicitly and implicitly unite to resist hetero-stereotyped identities, but are the gender behavioral patterns similar between lesbian sports groups and gay sports groups or even just among different gay sports groups? How does each group view masculinity and femininity? Is gender mocked or reproduced when engaged in sports? At this moment in my research my answer is both yes and no. In the gay context, some people I interviewed consciously pointed out the greatest difference between gay sport and straight sport was the fun that some effeminate men brought to the playing-field with their flamboyant demeanor, boisterous screams and laughter, and incessant wisecracks. However, some people confided in me the uneasiness and embarrassment they felt in the presence of these effeminate men. In the lesbian context, the butch-femme role-playing influences the interaction between self-identified butches and femmes. For example, butches will never want to lose to femmes in sports but in the meantime they are under peer pressure (other butches) to be gentle to femmes. That』s hard for butches and femmes to have a fair play. I will first delineate the respective body politics and gender politics within gay and lesbian sports groups. Then I will focus on the obsession of masculinity by both lesbians and gays when engaged in sport. I believe the obsession has different effects for women』s groups and men』s. Then I will try to find in the groups some possibilities for gay/lesbian sports to become postmodern and transgressing instead of being modern and conditioned.
In chapter four, I will focus on three specific events that reshape the relationship between sporting gays and the gay movement. One is the Rainbow Games and Lesbian Championship held in Taipei in the summer of 2001. It was the first gay sporting event sponsored by the Taipei government. The other event is the 2002 Sydney Gay Games which was the first time Taiwan had ever participated. The third event is the 2003 Gay Parade in which gay swimming group participated. In the first event, the players were well-protected for fear of being unnecessarily outed. In the second event, the players were supposed to embrace the event as an 「outing」 according to the spirit of the Gay Games but instead they chose to highlight national identity as if they helped Taiwan itself to come out but not themselves on this international debut. In the third event, the gay swimmers practiced the mask tactic in order to disclose their homosexual subjectivity while saving faces of their family. I find these events intriguing and I want to analyze different approaches and strategies deployed in these events concerning coming out and resisting media voyeurism. Besides, how the gay movement is contested between a politic of sameness and a politic of diversity. I』d like to unearth the hidden messages behind the participation of gay/lesbian sports groups in such social events and the gay movement and discuss whether there should be certain expectations of gay/lesbian sports groups or the gay movement in Taiwan and whether Gay Games is the ultimate realization for gay/lesbian sports groups to demonstrate their self-acceptance and anti-boundary project.
In conclusion I』d like to examine the
pros and cons of identity politics involved in gay/lesbian sports groups and
the gay movement. Identity politics could be a way to empower and to form a
community. However, any identity is formed based on excluding an 「Other」 and
sometimes is even incorporated by the 「primary」 identity. Gay/lesbian sports
groups and the gay community are no exception. Thus we need to be careful what
gay/lesbian sports groups might exclude and be prejudiced against because we
don』t want another boundary project at work in gay/lesbian sports. By engaging
dialogues and cooperation among gay and lesbian sports groups, gay activists
and other social minorities, gay/lesbian sports could implode the masculinity
and femininity myth, prescribed gender expression, and the desire to win
through aggression. Ultimately, I hope that my thesis can challenge the
boundary project as well as the traditional approach of doing sport studies in
[1] For reference of following Chinese terms in pinyin, please refer to appendix 1—the pinyin glossary.
[2] In my thesis, 「gay」 sports groups generally refer only to male gay sports groups. However, I will keep the common terminology such as gay movement and gay activists in which the word 「gay」 here includes GLBT people not just gay men.
[3] Film critic Lin Yihua borrowed the phrase 「comrade」 (tongzhi) to refer to gay people from the
Chinese idiom 「The revolution is not yet successful; the comrades still need to
make efforts」 and named the 1992 New Queer Cinema 「Tongzhi Festival」 (同志影展),which is part of Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. There are
several references I consult concerning the origin of using tongzhi to
refer to gay, including 「A Week in Gay Taipei」 (臺北同志一週) in Sinorama magazine (volume 23, issue 8, August, 1998), appendix
1 of When the Rainbow Raises (揚起彩虹旗) and Antonia Chao』s essay 「Review and Future Development of Queer Studies: A Viewpoint of
Political Economics」
(同志研究的回顧與展望：一個政治經濟學的觀點) in 1999.
[4] Rainbow Games and Lesbian Championship in Chinese is 彩虹運動會暨雷斯盃. It』s one of the activities of 2nd Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights Movement, Taipei 2000 (臺北2000同志公民活動) which is also called Taipei Gay Festival (臺北同玩節). Taipei Gay Festival is held once a year and carries different themes and activities. For more information, see http://glplay.ariesdog.com/
[5] See appendix 2 for detailed information of Shuinanhai (水男孩) the gay swimming group and other gay and lesbian sports groups.
[6] However, Lin Xianxiou (林賢修) proposed in 「Seeing homosexuals」 (看見同性戀) that instead of applying 「tongzhi」 or 」kuer」 to Taiwanese homosexuals, the gay/lesbian community should embrace the much stigmatized identity of 「tongxinglian」 as how homosexuals in the West turned the negative term 「queer」 into a positive identity.
[7] See appendix 3 for the contents of the questionnaire and appendix 4 for the statistics of the
questionnaire.
[8] A keyword search related to sport studies in the Dissertation and Thesis Abstract System (全國碩
士論文資訊網) testifies to this.
[9] Les Cup in Chinese is 雷斯盃which sounds like 「Lesbian Cup.」 In this thesis, I use the term
Lesbian Championship instead for clarity. For more information on Lesbian Championship, see
http://www.geocities.com/les5466/history.htm Zong Zhao-Jia』s thesis is on line on
http://sex.ncu.edu.tw/course/liou/Thesis2.html
[10] Even though Zhong Zhaoiia did』t play on the homophone of tongzhi yundong and gay movement in
the Chinese title, in the English translated title she purposefully used the expression 「movement
through sport」 to connect these two seemingly unrelated issues. In the academic research, she is one
of the
forerunners of such concept.
[11] The thesis title of Li Zheng-Hong (李振弘) is 沙程: 一個男同志的主體實踐與小說創作 while the ongoing thesis of Ye Jian-De(葉建德) is特定社群次文化下的「陽剛氣概」與自我認同建構之分析研究 —以同志百齡籃球隊為例.
[12] Bai Ling Basketball Team (百齡籃球隊) was formed in October, 2000. See appendix 2 for detailed information of Bai Ling Basketball Team and other gay and lesbian sports groups.
[13] The original Chinese titles of 「My Youth Goes On and On」 and 「Under the Silent Sun」 are 我的青春走啊走 and 靜靜的太陽下.
[14] When the Rainbow Raises is the English translated title of 揚起彩虹旗: 我的同志運動經驗. The book is edited by Zhuang Huiqiu (莊慧秋). Nu Pengyou magazine was initiated since August, 1994 by the earliest-formed lesbian group Wo Men Zhi Jian (我們之間).
[15] Lalainfo in Chinese is 拉拉資推工作室. See http://www.lalainfo.com.tw/
[16] 2002
Sydney Gay Games Achievement Report Meeting (雪梨成果發表會) was held on April 6, 2003 in a meeting room of Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline
Association (臺灣同志諮詢熱線協會).
[17] For a complete list of the interviews and informants, please refer to appendix 5 and appendix 6.
[18] Richard Schechner reads play as more than just an activity. To him, play can also mean anything from a mood or a performance to make-believe. In this sense, gay/lesbian sports groups do create certain moods and are related to both gender and political performance. See Performance Studies: An Introduction. (New York: Routledge, 2002.)
[ Introduction] [ 1] [ 2] [ 3] [ 4] [Appendices] [Bibliography ]