[ Introduction] [ 1] [ 2] [ 3] [ 4] [Appendices] [Bibliography ]
Chapter
Two
As I mentioned in chapter one, the concept of modern sport was
introduced to
In the beginning, however, gay/lesbian sports were practiced within
lesbian activist groups, not sports-specified groups. For instance, Wo Men Zhi Jian (我们之间), the first explicitly lesbian
group in Taiwan, formed in 1990, started to hold sports gatherings in 1992.[27]
Besides, Wo Men Zhi Jian also
published Nu Pengyou magazine
beginning from 1994 in which the issues of gay sports were discussed several
times. The founding of Wo Men Zhi Jian
and other successive lesbian and gay groups reflect the cultural upheavals
after the lifting of the martial law. The truth is the oppositional groups in
In the meantime, due to the economic boom and the rising living
standards, the government implemented the Two Days Off Every Other Week policy
on
Last but not least, the prevalence of BBS after the mid-1990s brought
new channels for gay and lesbian sportlovers in
According to Zheng Minhui’s thesis “Facing Reality in Virtual Space:
The Lesbian Practice in TANET BBS,” in the beginning of BBS development, there
was only one bulletin board designated and reserved for gays and lesbians—MOTSS,
which means Members of the Same Sex.[28]
Yet since gays outnumbered lesbians on the BBS, the topics of the posts were
mostly gay-oriented. Due to this reason, lesbians eventually applied for
another board for their kindred on December 1996 on Danjuan BBS.[29]
The board was named Les. Simultaneously the lesbian-friendly BBS Huainuer (坏女儿) was established.[30]
Zheng Minhui points out in her thesis that during this period of time there was
a wide spectrum of posts on Les board so that it was hard for lesbians to
engage in a more detailed discussion on certain issues, which I believe could be
applied to the discussion of sports. This explains why only one Les board couldn’t
satisfy the communication needs of lesbians and why different boards were
founded on Huainuer BBS, such as the
Sport board. In fact, from the 41 questionnaires I have collected from lesbian
athletes, 3 informants have pointed out that the
Sport board on Huainuer BBS was how
they first learned of lesbian sport gatherings and sports groups.
While lesbians started to have sport gatherings and form sports
groups on Huainuer, different gay
sports groups also began to recruit players on BBS and the WWW. However, the
process of the formation of gay male sports groups was comparatively slower
than the lesbian counterparts. I attribute this phenomenon to the NTU BBS Purge
incident. On
Stemming from the segregation policy mentioned above, various sub
BBS’s designed for gays and lesbians were founded on KKCITY, such as NTU, 5466,
Les-world, FriedEgg, Bear-World etc.[31]
On these BBS’s, lesbian and gay sports groups applied for individual boards for
their sports groups. Although some gay/lesbian sports groups prefer using yahoo
or msn groups on the WWW as their team discussion forum such as the lesbian
badminton team Jingbaodian (劲爆点), most gay/lesbian sports groups
cluster on KKCITY and its sub BBS’s.[32]
Take lesbian sports groups for example, there are Xiaomo (小摩) Softball Team, Heixingan (黑心肝) Volleyball Team, and Ye Guang (夜光) Basketball Team. As for gay sports groups, there are Bai Ling (百龄) Basketball Team, Hong Guang
(虹光) Badminton
Team, Zhuoqiu Tonghaohui(桌球同好会), Gay Volleyball Team, Xiong Hou (熊猴) Basketball Team, Bobo Volleyball
Team and Shuinanhai (水男孩) Swimming Group.
One thing I would like to emphasize is that the BBS’s I have
introduced here don’t account for all gay sports groups in
In conclusion, gay sports groups gradually emerged in the mid-1990s
from the advantageous forces I listed above whether political, economical or
technological. Nonetheless, each group is unique in its own formation process
and body politics. This chapter will analyze how some sports groups are
connected with the gay movement by examining the five dimensions in gay/lesbian
sports—structure, spatiality, temporality, experience, and function. With
structure uniting gay and lesbian athletes, spatiality challenging
hetero-space, temporality transcending time and space, experience reinforcing
gay and lesbian identity, I will end this chapter with the possible function of
doing gay/lesbian sports as doing gay movement.
It’s common in English to express doing certain sports with the verb
“play,” like playing basketball, playing volleyball etc. Besides, “play” has
often been associated with performing, something not for real, like “playing a
role,” or something not serious, like the expression “I said it in play.” In
the book Performance Studies: An
Introduction, Richard Schechner describes play as:
Play is very hard to pin down or
define. It is a mood, an activity, an eruption of liberty; sometimes it is
rule-bound, sometimes very free. It is pervasive. It is something everyone does
as well as watch others engage in—either formally in dramas, sports … at playgrounds.
Play can subvert the powers-that be, as in parody or carnival, or it can be
cruel, absolute power.… (Schechner, 2002: 79)
Here performance theorist Schechner has
extended the meaning of play from a concrete activity to abstract mood and
mentality. In sports, game is play and more than a play. The atmosphere of the
game and the mentality of the players enrich the game as a greater performance
and as a cultural activity. Schechner’s enunciation of play inspires me to look
at sports from a different perspective and tie it up with its possibility being
an anti-boundary project (Pronger), as what Schechner termed “eruption of
liberty.” This eruption of liberty is a universal feeling I observe in various
gay/lesbian sports groups. Also a great number of my informants have emphasized
how being in the gay sports groups makes them free—free from the expectations
of society, free from pretenses of being straight, free from conforming to
inscribed gender expressions. As for the ambiguous qualities of play being both
rule-bound and free, what Schechner means is play can be finite, for the
purpose of winning, or can be infinite, for the purpose of continuing play. In
different gay/lesbian sports groups, games are often held to enhance the
involvement of the players. Under such circumstance, rules are required to
decide who has won. However, the purpose of the game in the gay/lesbian sports
groups is not merely to decide who plays well but how everyone can keep
participating and interested. Thus the players could be paired or grouped with
different members every time in a game to prevent the boredom of always winning
or losing the game. It’s an infinite game played for the purpose of continuing
play. This is how such sport gatherings empower gay athletes and unite them.
Besides, we can also find the pervasive quality of play on and off the sports
arena as Schechner describes. This confirms my hypothesis that gay sports could
be utilized as a performance, changing people’s attitudes of homosexuality and
masculinity. The subversive qualities of gay sports will be further analyzed in
the function section. And of course play, as in
sports, can be cruel maintenance of boundary project. After approaching gay
sports from positive sides, I will also bring up some possible crises gay
sports groups might encounter.
In terms of analyzing “play,” Richard Schechner has listed seven
ways to approach it, which are structure, process, experience, function,
different genres of play, ideology, and frame. In his definition, structure is
the synchronic events that constitute a play act. Process is the diachronic
development and formation of play acts. Experience is what the players and
observers feel. Function is the possible uses play has. Ideology is the values
extracted from the play acts. Frame is to define the beginning and end of a
play act. Based on Schechner’s seven ways to approach play and considering the
specificities of gay sports groups I want to analyze, I have modified these
seven approaches into five to analyze gay sports groups, which are structure,
spatiality, temporality, experience and function. I’ve borrowed some of these
terms from Schechner but I’ve given them different interpretations and
dimensions. For instance, in the category of structure, I want to emphasize the
organizational characteristics of each gay sports group and the historical
background of them, so it’s quite different from the structure dimension
Schechner approaches. In addition, Schechner doesn’t include space in his
discussion of “play”, which I think is crucial for gay sports groups,
particularly in
Structure
Most of the gay and lesbian sports groups are informal in the sense
that the members don’t need to pay enrollment fees and they don’t have
obligations to the sports groups. These groups include GVB volleyball team,
BoBo volleyball team, Heixingan
Volleyball Team, Xiong Hou Basketball
Team, Ye Guang Basketball Team, Hong Guang Badminton Team, Jinbaodian Badminton Team, Shuinanhai Swimming Group, and Zhuoqiou Tonghaohui the gay table tennis
group etc.
The most organized groups would be Bai Ling Basketball Team and Xiaomo
softball Team. Bai Ling is a gay
basketball team founded in October 2000 while Xiao- mo is a lesbian softball team founded in November 2001. Both
teams require members to pay enrollment fees. The membership fee costs 200NT
dollars for Bai Ling basketball
players and 300NT dollars for Xiaomo
softball players. One thing to be noted here is that both membership fees only
cover six months, which means the membership needs to be renewed every six
months after it expires. This rule reflects the unstable attendance of players.
According to my observation, a good amount of players in both Bai Ling and Xiaomo are working professionals. These players sometimes have
business trips or errands, sometimes need to go home on the ball practice day.
Another great proportion of members is student. For them, family, schoolwork,
extracurricular activities, and examinations all constitute reasons for
absence. Therefore the reason why memberships in both teams only last six
months is to ensure that players could withdraw at their earliest convenience
if their schedules are in conflict with the ball practice. Also the membership
fees can serve as budget for purchasing miscellaneous equipment and accessories
for the ball practice. In addition to the formal expenditure, in Bai Ling Basketball Team, the membership
fees are also spent monthly in celebrating birthdays of players who were born
in the same month.
Another indicator showing the structure of both teams is the team jersey
both team members possess. Since team jerseys are only worn on official
competitions, owning team jerseys demonstrates the regular frequency of a team
participating in competitions. Moreover, jerseys also symbolize the unity of
team members. Wearing a jersey embroidered with team logos or team names
reinforces the identification with the team for the players.
Another characteristic of both sports groups is the organization and
division of work. Not only do both groups hold member meetings to discuss practice,
revenue and expenditure, publicity, and recreational activities but they also
elect designated candidates to be responsible for different affairs. Take Bai Ling basketball team for example, it
has an administration division, general affairs division, documentation
division, training division, activity division, and a medical division.
Literally speaking, the administration division is in charge of decision-making
while the general affairs division is responsible for finance and coordination.
The documentation division is to keep records and minutes of the team. The
training division provides mentors to be responsible for the ball practice of
different groups. The activity division is responsible for holding birthday
celebrations each month and holding socials with other sports groups from time
to time. The medical division provides first aid to secure the safety of team
members. Xiaomo softball team also
elects members to be responsible for different affairs, including a president,
vice president, treasurer, coordinator, WWW forum monitor, and bulletin board
monitor etc. The reasons the organization and division of work differentiate
Bai Ling and Xiaomo from other gay/lesbian sports groups are multifold. It
could be an inevitable part of maintaining a group with numerous members. It
could be a characteristic of team sports like basketball and softball. It could
be the intense identification with the sports groups that causes members to be
willing to volunteer to keep the team working.
By comparison, the other gay/lesbian sports groups are more
informal. Except Shuinanhai the
swimming group which doesn’t emphasize competition when gathering, members in
other gay/lesbian sports groups usually come to play the scrimmage or pickup
games without really devoting themselves to the institutionalization of the
sports groups. However, I am not arguing that gay/lesbian sports groups with
more structure are better than informal gay/lesbian sports groups per se. On
the contrary, my research suggests that the formality and informality of
different sports groups enriches various presentations of play and play mood in
the sports arena. What is more important is to see the hidden networking among
individuals and sports groups. Since February 2004, Shuinanhai has started to contact various gay sports groups and
plans to engage in dialogues with these groups. The motivation may be a
political one such as recruiting more gay/lesbian people to engage in sports to
counter the stigma of homosexuality; or the motivation may be just recreational
like providing members in different sports groups opportunities to meet people.
No matter what the real motivation is, one certain thing is that in the near
future the structure of gay/lesbian sports groups as a whole will be more
complex and more interaction among these groups will be expected.
Spatiality
Spatiality is a main element in constituting a performance. This has
been discussed and analyzed by many performance theorists. Theorists like
Richard Schechner want to expand the horizons of theater/ritual into everyday
life and adopt a new perspective in reading everyday life as a performance; of
course gay/lesbian sports groups can be considered in this light. In order to
expand the scope of performance, it’s necessary to magnify the spatiality of
performance. Thus before discussing the spatiality of gay sports groups as a
performance, different levels of space need to be addressed.
According to the panorama of the time-space-event chart Richard
Schechner provides in the chapter “Magnitudes of Performance” in his book By Means of Performance, space can be
divided into private space, local space, indoor space, general space and
multispace etc. In this chart Richard Schechner has foreseen the performativity
of sports and listed it on the chart along with other more traditional
performance genres such as aesthetic theater, sacred ritual, secular ritual and
social drama etc. In the category of sports, private space can be restricted
like sports played at home; or private space can be open like sandlot baseball.
Most of the gay/lesbian sports groups do sports in this private but open space,
such as university playing fields and park playgrounds. What I mean by private
is that the location gay/lesbian sports groups choose are usually not the top
choices of straight athletes and therefore can dominate the playing fields or
playgrounds by outnumbering their straight counterpart. However when straight
athletes want to do sports together with the gay/lesbian athletes, the latter
have no rights to refuse. Thus the space is still open to the general public.
It’s just the atmosphere of gay/lesbian sports groups that makes the space
private and not easy to access for non-gay players. Local space is more
welcoming to the general public, such as the local basketball league and
volleyball league etc. So far as I know, no gay/lesbian sports groups are in
the local sports league. At best they form their own sports league and hold
regular competitions, like Bai Ling
Basketball Team. This separatist politics from the heterosexual sports arena
demonstrates how gay/lesbian players are uncomfortable to play in a total
straight environment.
In terms of indoor space, it has been utilized more frequently for certain
gay/lesbian sports groups, like Hong
Guang Badminton Team, Jinbaodian
badminton team, Zhuoqiu Tonghaohui
the table tennis group and Shuinanhai
the swimming group. The regular attendance of Hongguang and Jinbaodian
is the main reason these groups are able to rent an indoor badminton court.
However, the expenses are much higher compared with gay/lesbian sports groups
exercising in free outdoor space. Zhuoqiu
Tonghaohui members play table tennis in open gym hours in a university gym;
therefore their gathering time is determined by the schedule of open gym hours.
As for the Shuinanhai swimming group,
it’s the most nomadic group of all gay/lesbian sports groups. As long as the
group members have a consensus about where to swim on the weekends, they can
swim indoors in expensive swimming pools or outdoors in public swimming pools.
Sometimes they even travel to different parts of
Despite the features of limited space, privacy, and exclusion from heterosexual
players that characterize the spatiality of gay/lesbian sports groups, there
are other forms of using space for gay/lesbian sports groups. The performance
of gay sports takes place in various places, which is similar to the concept of
multispace Richard Schechner defines Olympics. For instance, the Gay Volleyball
Team and Bobo Volleyball Team gather every weekend on the same university
playground. Due to the requirement of the volleyball rules, only two teams of
six players each can compete at a time. The other members came up with a good
way to kill time while waiting for their turn, i.e. playing poker games. This
is a very unique sub-culture of gay volleyball groups which is rarely seen in
the pickup games or scrimmage of straight volleyball groups. Thus the
performance of gay volleyball is extended from the volleyball court to the
off-court poker games. The play mood reaches out from the physical exercise of
volleyball to the mental and emotional interaction of gay players. In this
example, we can see the creativity of gay sports groups and the intensified
interaction among the gay members. I surmise that the performance of gay sports
groups in multispace is to counter the day-to-day oppression of heterosexual
space. By countering the normal expectations of playing only in the sports
arena, gay sports groups like Gay Volleyball Team and Bobo Volleyball Team
subvert the regulations of play. It’s a postmodern reaction to the
rationalization of most modern sports which emphasize set rules and fixed
sports arena. Moreover, the integration of play and play mood in both gay
volleyball groups on and off the sports arena help gay players to socialize
with various team members rather than focus on competing and polarizing “self”
(our team) and “other” (their teams).
Despite the positive maneuver of turning heterosexual space into
queer space of gay/lesbian sports groups, sometimes these groups experience
setbacks when searching for space to do gay/lesbian sports together. Below I
will demonstrate this with two incidents. One is a lesbian informant being
discriminated against on a basketball court. The other is a fight over the
right of using a volleyball court among the Heixingan
Volleyball Team, Bobo Volleyball Team and Gay Volleyball Team.
Potter, a lesbian informant who loves basketball, told me during my
interview with her that as both a woman and a lesbian, she encountered a lot of
discrimination from heterosexual men on the basketball court. She recounted
that one time she went to a basketball gathering for lesbians and a bunch of
heterosexual men came to take over the basketball court. These heterosexual men
didn’t even bother to ask whether they could join in. Potter felt irritated and
told them it was very rude of them to take over the place. Afterward Potter
went away for a break and left her basketball under the basketball stands
thinking she could come back later to play when these men went. To her
surprise, she came back finding her basketball stuck with lumps of chewing gum
where she had put it carefully under the basketball stands. When Potter carried
her basketball away suspecting the unfriendly heterosexual men, they
deliberately missed a shot and hit Potter. This incident is not just a singular
event happening to Potter, but it illustrates a general discrimination towards
female athletes in the sports arena, not to mention lesbian athletes. Many
other lesbian informants had similar stories to Potter’s.
If lesbian athletes were discriminated against in the heterosexual
world, one might expect them to be respected when doing sports with their gay
allies. However, this is not the case. This can be demonstrated by the quarrels
between the Heixingan, Bobo and Gay
volleyball teams. Among these three teams, the Gay Volleyball Team has been the
first team in using this specific school volleyball court in
In another unplanned gathering on
From the experience of Potter and Heixingan members, I have observed that an inequality of access to
playing space exists between female athletes and male athletes in general.
Female athletes, lesbian or straight, are treated as inferior in the sports
arena and their space in doing sports is not guaranteed despite the
gender-specific facilities. For instance men take it for granted that they can
play women’s net in terms of the volleyball. In terms of gender-neutral
facilities such as basketball or softball fields, female athletes are usually
looked down upon by male players and it is common for male players to take over
women’s space. This is related with the boundary
project of modern sport in terms of boosting male masculinity over female
masculinity and will be further discussed in the gender politics section in the
next chapter.
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. For instance Zhuoqiu tonghaohui the table tennis
group is mostly composed of students. Consequently they are more flexible in
the gathering time such as in the weeknights. The majority of gay/lesbian
sports groups have their gatherings on the weekends, thanks to the Two Days Off
Per Week policy I mentioned in the beginning of this chapter. Besides, a
relatively high percentage of lesbian athletes partake in more than one sports
group. According to the 41 questionnaires I
collected from the lesbian athletes, 5 people
have participated in two different sports groups at the same time. This is
probably related to the difficulty of maintaining a fixed number of people
showing up at lesbian sports gatherings. For instance, before there were the Heixingan volleyball, Ye Guang basketball and Jinbaodian badminton teams, lesbian
sports gatherings were usually contingent and held by lesbian awareness groups
such as Wo Men Zhi Jian and Lalainfo.
Now that there are fixed groups in various sports, of course lesbian athletes
cherish the opportunity to have regular sports gatherings. The best way for
them to support lesbian sports is to fund various sports groups and
participate. This explains the high percentage of lesbian athletes playing in
more than one sports group.
In addition, the length of a sporting
gathering is directly proportional to the amount of energy exerted and to the
degrees of friendship between the members. For sports as intense as badminton
and basketball, the actual playing time is typically shorter than less intense
sports such as volleyball and table tennis. If the members are good friends,
they usually extend the sporting gathering before and after the actual sports
time by adding other activities, such as having lunch and dinner together,
watching movies, playing mahjong etc.
If gay/lesbian sports are performances,
then the performances should be viewed as activities that involve the
recognition and identity politics of gay/lesbian athletics. Therefore the
everyday online chat/posts, occasional outings, competition with other sports
groups, warm-up before the sports, bodily movement in the sports, cooldown
after exercise and aftermath of the sports gathering are all part of the
performance called gay/lesbian sports. If we take temporality and spatiality
into account, the scope of the performance of gay sports is large enough to
challenge the general public as well as to unite the gay/lesbian athletes.
These experiences of participating in gay/lesbian sports groups are unique in
identity politics in the way in which they empower gay/lesbian athletes and
encourage them to achieve the goals of the gay movement through doing gay
sports.
Experience
Before there were gay/lesbian sports
groups, gay men and lesbians didn’t have many social outlets. School was
probably the safest place for gay and lesbian youths to access information
about homosexuality and to make friends of their kind. In the society, the
gay/lesbian bar is probably the meeting place for most gays and lesbians. However,
as Masao Kashiwazaki points out about the limitations of the gay bar setting in
his essay “Providing ‘Safe Spaces’ to Aid the Identity Formation Process of
Japanese Gay Youth.”
Commercialism and sexual relations are the focal point of
[gay/lesbian bar] where the patrons are expected to spend money and to
negotiate complex human relations with little direct assistance. Although the
gay bar scene may help gay youth to come to terms with the purely sexual
aspects of their identity, it does little to help them integrate that into
their larger social existence. (Masao, 1996: 490)
Even though Masao is addressing gay youth in
Besides, gays and
lesbians do sports together because they can freely and openly socialize with
other congenial partners and express their sexuality. First let’s look at the
performance of sexuality of the lesbian players. As I observed in the weekly Xiaomo softball practice and the Lesbian
Championship in the spring of 2003, the players were very relaxed and intimate
when they were among other lesbian participants no matter whether the space was
an open space, like the school softball field, or a private space, like school
gyms rented to hold Lesbian Championships. Take
Xiaomo softball team for instance, it is mostly composed of butch-identified
lesbians. Some of their femme partners come to watch them practice or cheer
during pick-up games with other women’s softball teams. The softball field they
regularly practice in is situated inside a school playing field, which means
outsiders could easily observe the interaction among players. Nonetheless the
couples and participants never try to conceal the sexual undercurrent or the
same sex camaraderie. It’s a common scene to see couples holding hands, hugging
or even kissing. And friends could make comments or jokes about single femmes
on the sidelines, like who is cute etc. Their acts and gestures that articulate
and enact desires of the lesbian participants contradict the regulated
sexuality of modern sport. Brian Pronger distinguishes the legitimate
play from the illicit sex (including sexual desire) and lesbian sport is
blurring the fine line between them. This is a liberating experience for these
lesbians.
As for the
sexuality of gay men in the sports arena, it is less obvious due to the general
fear of showing gay sexuality in public. Nonetheless gay men in the sports
arena are comparatively more subversive than their lesbian counterparts in
languages and in body movement. For instance, in the Gay Volleyball Team, some
players call one another sister and love to identify themselves with
professional female volleyball players instead with professional male
volleyball players. When at play, these players deliberately exaggerate their
body movement such as doing backhand spikes and screaming during defense. As
far as I can recall, one time a member even rolled on the floor when retrieving
a spike. After he missed it, he stayed on the floor and screamed “spotlight.”
This was a rich performance filled with subversive oral and body language.
Since there is a
show going in sports, we need to analyze the relationship of different layers
of viewing and interaction among the participants and between the participants
and non-participants. Richard Schechner illustrates this meta-performance
theory in his essay “News, Sex, and Performance Theory”:
A person sees the event; he sees
himself; he sees himself seeing the event; he sees himself seeing others who
are seeing the event and who, maybe, see themselves seeing the event. Thus there is the performance, the performers,
the spectators; and the spectator of spectators; and the self-seeing-self that
can be performer or spectator or spectator of spectators. (Schechner 297,
my emphasis)
To apply Schechner’s terms, the event
is the gathering of gay/lesbian athletes. The players see this event while
perceiving the presence of other spectators, i.e. friends and outsiders who
happen to be there either exercising or just watching the game. The different
individuals could choose to be a performer, spectator, or spectator of
spectators. The performative of sexuality creates the slippage among these
layerings of gazing and enacting. One can perform the female masculinity, make
fun of gender stereotypes such as sissy gay men, and even express same-sex
desire or camaraderie. One can choose to observe the act knowingly or
disagreeably without actually involving oneself in the performance, and one can
just impartially probe into the performance and the act of seeing as a scholar
or anthropologist, which is where this paper takes its stance.
Andy, a friend of one GVB volleyball
player, has come to watch GVB volleyball games several times. At my request, he
wrote down his experience as a spectator of the gay sports group GVB:
They are a team or even surpassing that, they
are the game itself, an event that transcends the boundaries that keep them
trapped in their own isolated little worlds. Suddenly they belong to something.
They feel safe, they feel strong, they feel accepted, they have found
refuge…Winning and losing play such a small part here. What is important is the
sense of being part of something that allows the burden of self in isolation to
dissolve, at least temporarily…Just watching them as a spectator, whether gay
or straight, is an inspiration to break down whatever self-centered boundaries
we have made for ourselves, that prevent us exploring our human potential.[33]
His reflections as a spectator not only echo the
experiences of the players, such as finding a sense of belonging, and forming
affirmative gay identities but also foresee the function of gay sports groups
in empowering gay/lesbian athletes and breaking the boundary project (Pronger).
Function
How function differs from experience is
in the objective evaluation of gay/lesbian sports as a social movement and the
subjective narration of the experiences of gay/lesbian athletes themselves.
Below I will tentatively list two important functions provided by gay sports
groups. One is the positive representation of homosexuals; the other is the
empowering networking within the gay/lesbian sports groups and across different
gay/lesbian organizations domestically and abroad.
Since the development of modern sport,
sport has been an indicator of normalcy and health. As I quoted Brian Pronger
in the first chapter about the various boundary projects of modern sport,
modern sport elicits the one-sided association of different dichotomies, such
as masculinity, heterosexuality, racial superiority, health, rationality and
order, which is opposed to femininity, homosexuality, racial minority,
sickness, irrationality and chaos. This rationale could be read as problematic
when recognizing the positive representation of gay/lesbian sports and athletes.
It’s as if gay/lesbian athletes are doing sports in order to pass as normal.
However, the opposite side of the coin is the transgressing power of gay sports
in challenging the binary boundaries of modern sport. Thus the categories will
be obscured and pluralism will take the place of boundary projects.
My hypothesis can be proved by the
positive reports of gay/lesbian sports groups in the media. For instance, the
student-run news website Sheng Ming Li (生命力) has done a story on the Xiaomo softball team. The reporter Zhang
Si-jie ended her coverage with the following conclusion:
The existence of this sports group can bring positive images for
homosexuals. The team members all hope not to be treated as minorities in the
society. They believe that if the sexual orientation is not seen as abnormal,
they will not be considered as marginal. (Zhang, 2002, my translation)[34]
Many of my informants and interviewees have seconded this positive
image gay sports can bring forth. In the questionnaire, I asked my informants
to express what images they thought gay sports can bring for homosexuals. 35% mentioned a healthy image, 28% mentioned a sunny image, while 10% mentioned a positive image. It’s very consistent
both inside the gay/lesbian sports groups and outside in the society to agree
upon the destigamatization effect of gay/lesbian sports. Of course the problematics will be what
qualities are ostracized in the destigamatization process. Is it femininity? Is
it sickness? Is it unspeakable sexuality? These questions will be further
discussed in the following chapter.
As for the networking in gay/lesbian
sports, I want to analyze it within the gay/lesbian sports groups and across
different gay/lesbian organizations domestically and abroad. The former is
networking that emphasizes identification and support while the latter is
networking that involves cooperation and gay activism. The experience of
gay/lesbian athletes within the gay/lesbian sports groups can be counted as the
first kind of networking in which participants seek support and recognize their
sexualities. The latter networking can be demonstrated by different events
involving communication and cooperation among different sports groups and
organizations like twice-yearly Lesbian Championship, Rainbow Games and Lesbian
Championship in 2000, participation in Gay Games in 2002, the Gay Parade in
2003 etc. These events wouldn’t have been possible without the gay/lesbian volunteers
who did all the coordinating and fundraising. Moreover, some of the events
require publicity in the media and financial support from the government, such
as the Rainbow Games and Lesbian Championship, participation in the 2002 Sydney
Gay Games and the 2003 Gay Parade. These experiences unite gay/lesbian
athletes, volunteers, and activists in creating a network by which a social
movement can be made possible. There is still much potential.
A
current project initiated by Shuinanhai,
the swimming group, is an electronic bulletin board named GaySports whose main
purpose is to continue the networking and dialogue among different gay sports
groups and eventually with lesbian sports groups and gay/lesbian activist
groups. A recent plan is to congregate gay sportlovers in different gay sports
groups to participate in Nike
Taipei International Expressway Marathon on March 28, 2004. Even though these
players will compete against one another and they won’t highlight their
sexualities in the marathon, the significance of the assembly is how
communicative channels have been built across these gay sports groups and how
in the future the networking can be utilized for other social campaigns and gay
movement.
After discussing the two functions—visibility and
networking—gay sports groups have, the next chapter will deal with the body
politics and gender politics of gay sports in which some boundary projects are
deconstructed and some are yet to be transgressed.
[27] See the historical records on http://groups.msn.com/v4pe6jm9u2g98jn9brm8sgmvh1/page9.msnw
On the website of Wo Men Zhi Jian, one line read “on February, 1992, two years after the establishment of Wo Men Zhi Jian, different groups including culture groups, sports groups, chatting groups and study groups were founded.” (1992.2两周年庆，成立艺文、运动、聊天、读书会等家族。)
[28] 郑敏慧。〈在虚拟中遇见真实—台湾学术网路BBS站中的女同志实践〉。台大建筑与城乡研究所硕士论文，1999。
[29] Danjuan BBS in Chinese is 淡江蛋卷广场站.
[30] Huainuer in Chinese is 酷/异坏女儿站.
[31] NTU, 5466, Les-world, FriedEgg, Bear-World are the English names of sub BBS’s of KKCITY. In Chinese, NTU BBS is 新椰林风情站. 5466 is 我是拉拉站. Les-World is 拉拉百货专柜站. FriedEgg is 炒蛋疯人院站. Bear-World is 熊熊猴猴俱乐部. NTU BBS was named “new” NTU BBS in response to NTU BBS Purge incident.
[32] See appendix 2 for detailed information of Jingbaodian and other gay and lesbian sports groups. The names of these sports groups are translated into English directly from the Chinese pronunciations with hanyu pinyin system unless they don’t have Chinese team titles like Bobo Volleyball Team.
[33] See appendix 7 for the complete contents of his reflections as a spectator of GVB Volleyball Team.
34 Sheng Ming Li news website in Chinese is 生命力公益新闻网. The report can be read online on http://vita.fju.edu.tw/ShowNewsDetail.asp?no=200241021022
[ Introduction] [ 1] [ 2] [ 3] [ 4] [Appendices] [Bibliography ]