[ Introduction] [ 1] [ 2] [ 3] [ 4] [Appendices] [Bibliography ]
Chapter Three
Despite
the fact that there are fixed and universal rules in most team sports, I’d like
to argue that the body politics of gay/lesbian athletes are very different from
the heterosexual ones. These body politics include speech acts, representation
of one’s body, aesthetics of outfits, and blatant display of sexuality.
However, as I noted from the interviews and questionnaires, the body politics
of gay and lesbian athletes are very different. Thus I will discuss the body
politics of gay and lesbian athletes separately.
In
terms of body politics of gay athletes, the speech acts of sarcasm and humor
are practiced distinctively. For instance, in the Gay Volleyball Team, almost
everyone has a nickname based on volleyball skills and appearance. One team
member is nicknamed Serena Williams because he spikes very hard as the tennis
player smashes the tennis ball. Another reason is that the member is quite
tanned and likes to mimic the howl of Serena Williams in a tennis rally. In
addition, when at play, the players identify themselves or others as women’s
professional volleyball players according to specific situations. For example,
some players might call themselves the Japanese team or the Korean team once
they find out their average height is much shorter compared with their
opponents in a scrimmage game. Similarly some players will be dubbed as Russian
female players if they are tall and hit the ball the way Russian players do. It’s
also common for gay members to call one another sister. In the Gay Volleyball
Team, there used to be a group named Shi Jiemei (十姐妹), literally meaning “ten sisters” to symbolize their unique
friendship. I also found this phenomenon in the Bai Ling Basketball Team where there was Bai Ling San Duo Hua (百龄三朵花).
In
addition to the names of the players, the naming of events and teams are very
creative as well. The Gay Volleyball Team has held several gay volleyball
championships with different themes such as “The War of the Fairies”(仙女们的战争) and “The Battle of the Men”(Man货大乱斗). The winners were required to
don a tiara and hold a magic wand. The names of teams in these championship are
very special too, such as “Russian team”(恶螺丝), “Italian team”(一大粒), “Brazilian team”(G!芭吸) etc. In these examples, the team names are sexually explicit with
the implications like screws (螺丝), a big one (一大粒) and sucking cocks (G!芭吸). By naming and uttering these terms, gay players blatantly reclaim
their sexuality in a humorous way. Linguistic philosopher J. L. Austin once
discovered the performative feature of language when one makes a promise and a
curse etc. Following
The unit of linguistic
communication is not, as has generally been supposed, the symbol, word, or
sentence, or even the token of the symbol, word, or sentence, but rather the
production or issuance of the symbol or word or sentence in the performance of
the speech act. To take the token as a message is to take it as a produced or
issued token. (Searle, 1969: 16)
This theory of speech
acts is how I tie up the rhetoric of gay humor with performance. By using
gender-subversive and sex-related terms to describe players or teams, the
actions of speech have helped the gay players to transgress the boundaries of
gender and challenge moral surveillance on sexuality.
As
for the representation of body, gay men are more comfortable in exposing their
upper torso than straight men. This not only happens in the Bai Ling Basketball Team where this
practice is common, but also in the Gay Volleyball Team. In fact, different
sports evoke different body imaginings. Basketball is a sport in which players
usually take off their shirts not just in the gay context but in the completely
straight scene as well. This has to do with the buddy-buddy relationship in
basketball games. Basketball players are comfortable hugging each other or
patting on the shoulders of partners after a good defense or scoring. The
contact with body is frequent and thus is a good way for gay players to express
their sexuality without being suspected when they play with straight basketball
athletes. For instance, one informant, Tony, told me some Bai Ling basketball players would deliberately take advantage of
this particular body practice in basketball to have closer body contact with
straight basketball players. Unlike with basketball, players rarely strip off
their shirts when playing volleyball. Nonetheless, in the Gay Volleyball Team,
several players like to bare their backs to attract the attention of the other
players. Exposing the body has become a way to disclose gay sexuality. This
also holds true for Shuinanhai
members, in and off the swimming pool. One informant, Simon, told me in the
swimming gathering, people would lean against one another’s back without
embarrassment. After getting used to exposing one’s body and seeing others’
bodies, the body politics has reinforced self confidence and extended itself to
daily representation of body for these gay swimmers. Simon recounts:
I used to stay in a
men’s dorm and I felt that I should always wear pants and T-shirts or proper
clothes. But since I participated in the gay swimming group, I usually walk
around in my apartment wearing underwear even when friends are visiting. This
is the same for the other two roommates who are also members of Shuinanhai. To a degree, the body
politics in the gay swimming group influences how we look at our bodies in
daily life. As long as friends who visit are from Shuinanhai, my roommates and I won’t deliberately try to conceal
our bodies from them because we are used to seeing one another this way in the
swimming pool.
From Simon’s
statement, we can grasp a general idea of how participating in a gay sports
group can influence one’s body image.
Another
interesting body politics for gay athletes is the emphasis on the aesthetics of
their outfits. This phenomenon is most prevalent in Shuinanhai the swimming group. According to my informant Simon,
specific swimwear is expected:
In terms of swimwear,
most members prefer wearing the famous brand, Arena. As a matter of fact,
besides swimming in them, Shuinanhai
members love modeling their bikini swimsuits. There used to be this member who
wore swimming trunks whose brand is not well-known. The other members ridiculed
him and threatened to exclude him because they considered it essential to wear
bikini style swimsuits. Some people even have ten bikinis or more. Besides, the
sides of a bikini are expected to be a certain width. Usually the narrower the
sides are the sexier people would think you are.
This philosophy of
outfits is not exclusive to Shuinanhai.
In other sports, some gay athletes love to wear fashionable sportswear
including shirts, shorts, socks, or even shoes to make themselves stand out
above the rest. I assume this may be because the gay players want to outperform
the straight athletes since they have usually suppressed their individuality in
the public due to their sexuality. The special attention to clothing is an
implicit way to reassert their sense of being, including the sense of existence
and the sense of pride.
As
for the display of sexuality, it is usually under the cover of doing sport. For
instance, as I mentioned earlier, gay basketball players take advantage of the
inevitable contact with other players such as hugging, patting on the shoulder,
head and buttock et cetera while Shuinanhai
members lean against one another’s back in the swimming pool. Since sport is a
positive and supposedly “sex-free” activity, the straight athletes or
spectators on the scene will not question the homoerotic behavior among these
gay athletes. It will only be considered as manly camaraderie. Scholar Alan
Dundes has done an analogous queer reading of sport back in 1980 in the essay “Into
the Endzone for a Touchdown.” Dundes employs a psychoanalytic reading on folk
speech, idioms and metaphors related to American football and exemplifies how
sexual and homoerotic American football can be. His quote from David Kopay, one
out homosexual in professional football, recapitulates the hidden sexuality I
observe among gay athletes in gay sports groups in Taiwan:
David Kopay, despite
suggesting that for a long time football provided a kind of replacement for sex
in his life and admitting that football is “a real outlet for repressed sexual
energy,” refuses to believe that “being able to hold hands in the huddle and to
pat each other on the ass if we felt like it” is necessarily an overt show of
homosexuality. Yet I think it is highly likely that the ritual aspect of
football…is a form of homosexual behavior. (Dundes, 1980: 209)
Besides
body contact, the gaze is another expression of gay sexuality. Many informants
have admitted that they have discussed with other gay members straight athletes
who are on the same or a different playground. For instance, Howard, the
current leader of the Gay Volleyball Team, told me about this gaze:
It occurred quite
often that some GVB members didn’t concentrate on playing volleyball. Instead
they paid attention to the basketball players on the basketball court.
Sometimes some members even went near to watch them play. It’s very cute for
these members to express their sexuality so directly.
This code of looking
is unique for homosexuals. The gaze is a way not only to express one’s
sexuality but to engage an identity politics for discussing same-sex desire.
That’s why another member Chris told me the difference between the gaze in the
Gay Volleyball Team and in the school volleyball team.
In the school team I
can only gaze at other players without sharing, but here in the Gay Volleyball
Team I can share my gaze with other gay athletes. It’s a warm feeling.
The warm feeling Chris
brought up responds to the identification process I mentioned as the gaze opens
up dialogues among gay athletes and reinforces their identity as homosexuals.
As for the body politics of lesbian
athletes, the representation of one’s body is the major manifestation. Unlike
exposing one’s body and having close body contact with other teammates as gay
athletes do, lesbian athletes express their sexuality and female masculinity by
appearance and mannerisms, especially for T-identified
lesbians. In terms of appearance, a high percentage of these lesbian players
wear short hair and defy feminine clothing such as skirts. In addition, it’s a
common practice for T-identified lesbian athletes to practice breast binding or
wear bind-bras. For instance, Jessica from Heixingan
told me over fifty percent of Heixingan
members have worn bind-bras or practiced breast binding. Another informant
Mini, who participates both in Heixingan
and Xiaomo, told me the breast
binding culture is even more prevalent in Xiaomo.
As a matter of fact, based on interviews and questionnaires, the four lesbian
sports groups (Xiaomo, Jinbaodian, Ye Guang, Heixingan) in
my research are mostly composed of T-identified lesbians, which accounts for
the general masculine appearance and mannerisms of lesbian athletes.
When asked about interactions when engaging
in sports, my informants told me body contact is subdued to the accepted forms
of clapping hands, patting on the shoulder and on the head but rarely on the
buttock. Based on this observation, I speculate that lesbian athletes have very
different interpretations of accepted intimacy among friends than gay athletes.
Nonetheless, the gaze and discussion of other members’ bodies also exist in
lesbian athletic culture even though it is more subdued. For instance Jessica
said:
I appreciate female athletes with great bodies. But when I am
playing volleyball, I don’t discuss this with other people. I only think about
how in shape someone is and how cute someone’s butt is. Usually I think within
my head instead of saying it out loud. When I am watching other people play, I
will compliment blatantly and jokingly “what a beautiful butt” or “I really
want to touch that butt” etc.
Besides, lesbian athletes surround
themselves with an aura of solemnity when doing sports instead of using camp or
gender-subversive humor. Jane and Connie from Xiaomo confided this difference on speech acts to me:
In terms of humorous talk, it only happens among close friends but
generally it’s not a common practice. For instance, if you know someone is fat,
you will avoid using the word “fat” in front of that person. Comparatively
speaking, gay men are more gifted in manipulating language. Their way of talk
and humor make me laugh all the time.
However, sometimes lesbians do joke about their bodies humorously
and sexually. One time I did a field observation with Heixingan group. After playing volleyball, we went to a restaurant
to have a snack and chat. That day one lesbian member hurt her hand. Other
members joked how this injury will cause dissatisfaction of the lover of this
member. To my surprise, these lesbian athletes were quite open-minded making
such jokes with sexual implications. So despite the fact lesbian athletes are
solemn and serious when playing sports, off the sports arena they also perform
humor rhetorics as a way to confirm their sexuality.
If
the body politics mentioned above demonstrate the performing aspect of body,
speech, and sexuality in gay/lesbian sports, then my discussion of gender
politics in this section aims to analyze how gay and lesbian athletes relate
individually to gender issues such as femininity, masculinity, gender, and
agency.
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, which are analyzed in the
previous body politics section of gay athletes. For instance, Chris, an
informant from GVB, explained the difference between playing volleyball in the
school team and in GVB:
The school team is
low-keyed. Unlike here (GVB), where players are more relaxed and they have more
fun. Both their speech and body movement are fancy, like the fairies. There are
no fairies in the school team. The fairies scream and dig balls “elegantly”. Besides,
it’s fun to see them act like girls…the more fairies the merrier.
Fairy (仙女) in Chinese is an euphemistic way
to describe effeminacy and sissy behavior. However, it’s one thing to admit the
pleasure of seeing fairies but another to admit oneself as one.
Some
informants confided in me about the uneasiness and embarrassment they felt in
the presence of these effeminate men. I attribute this to the general fear of
gay men being labeled as “feminine.” In other words, in spite of the transgressing
and challenging qualities of gay body politics, there is underestimated
sissyphobia (Bergling) among gay men, including gay athletes. According to Tim
Bergling, the author of Sissyphobia: Gay
Men and Effeminate Behavior, sissyphobia is a disavowal of “qualities
historically attributed to women…weakness, timidity, delicacy…unmanly,
unvirile.” (Bergling, 2001: 4) Bergling suggests that sissyphobia not only
exists in the straight society but also exists in the gay community. This can
be illustrated by the informant Chris, who had a good time with fairies around
but had concerns about sissiness when playing official volleyball games.
If there is a sissy
teammate when playing an official volleyball game, I’d feel quite embarrassed.
I haven’t encountered such situations. One time it’s because the game (Gay
Volleyball Championship) was held outdoors. Since I couldn’t protect myself, I
left the place as soon as the game ended.
What
Chris was referring to was the tradition of putting on tiara and holding magic
wands in Gay Volleyball Championship in the post-game ceremony. In Chris’
account, the game was held outdoors where gay athletes were under the
heterosexual gaze. This gaze made Chris afraid to be labeled as a sissy or even
reveal his homosexuality. Another informant
There
is not an absolute equation between being gay and being a sissy even though
effeminacy is a stereotypical indicator of male homosexuality for both gays and
straights. Since modern sport values masculinity, aggressiveness, leadership
and skills, especially in competitive team sports, I am curious about what will
happen when effeminate gay athletes participate in gay sports groups. Will they
conform to the standards of “proper” male masculinity in sports or will they
challenge the ideology of masculinity or femininity per se? After several years
of participant observation and recent interviews and questionnaires, I think effeminacy
works both ways in gay sports groups. As I analyzed previously in the body
politics section, some gay men deliberately mimicked the body language of
females and talked girlishly. This can all be seen as practice of effeminacy or
sissiness and it challenges the fixed gender expressions of men. If effeminacy
is read this way, then it can resist the boundary project. However, effeminacy
also is met by sissyphobia within gay sports groups as illustrated from the
previous remarks from Chris and
There
is still one aspect concerning effeminacy I have not yet disclosed, which is
the agency of performing effeminacy. Effeminacy can be intrinsic and it can
also be performed. This complicates the effects of effeminacy I mentioned
previously. Many informants honestly told me that they don’t mind being
referred to as sissies even though in daily life they are not. From the
rhetoric, we can presume that they are afraid to admit their effeminacy. On the
one hand, this could be understood as the reason that they can “pretend” to be
sissies but not really “be” sissies. But another possibility is that they are
not afraid of effeminacy and by “performing” effeminacy they want to defy the
fixed gender expression of masculinity.[35]
This reading makes effeminacy playful and full of possibilities because the
agency is in the hands of the gay athletes. The agency trivializes the question
of whether one is really a sissy or not. What matters is what can be performed
as “effeminate” and what can be performed as “sissy-like.” If this behavior
makes a stir or makes people laugh, it may as well make people reflexive about
the underlying ideology of masculinity. For instance, Kay, a narrator from GVB,
told me about his practice of effeminacy:
In the school team, I
played volleyball seriously. But not that much is expected from the players in
Gay volleyball team. Everyone just plays for fun. That’s why the body language
of players is expressive and there is no need to hide anything. For instance,
some players scream. There are also sissies. It’s fun this way. I don’t reject
this behavior and I am not embarrassed by it either. Sometimes I even act that
way (sissy)…this is the culture of gay community.
Kay doesn’t categorize
himself as a sissy but from his talk we know he is one of the practitioners of
effeminacy. It’s exactly this self-conscious agency of performing effeminacy
that can defy the boundary project of gender.
Socialization
and cultural prejudice work hand in hand in terms of maintaining the
masculinity myth. As
Current
gay sports groups cover five different sports including basketball, badminton,
table tennis, volleyball and swimming. Basketball is probably the most violent
sport of all because it involves a lot of physical contact during games.
Badminton, table tennis and volleyball are similar sport types in which players
compete with opponents on two different sides with a net separating them. Due
to this format of net sports, players from different sides hardly ever knock
into one another like basketball players do. The only possible hit comes from
the ball itself. As for swimming, it is probably the most nonviolent sport of
all, not to mention Shuinanhai
swimming gathering emphasizes more on interaction among swimmers than real competitions
like who swims faster. It’s these different characteristics that have created a
myth among the general public as well as gay athletes that some sports are more
masculine than others. Here basketball is on the top of the hierarchies of
masculinities in sports.
Many
informants agreed that basketball is a more masculine sport. For instance, Chris,
a member of Gay Volleyball Team, has played basketball once with Bai Ling basketball players. He
commented that Bai Ling players are more macho compared with volleyball players
in GVB. Angus, also a member of GVB, explained that volleyball is usually
considered as a female sport and therefore people think it is not a very
masculine sport compared with basketball. Tony from Bai Ling described his impression of gay basketball players when he
first joined Bai Ling:
The first time I went
to Bai Ling, I was very surprised. I
saw this group of basketball players that didn’t look gay at all. They had crew
cuts, they were sun-tanned, they worked out in gyms and they wore tank tops. I
had not known at that time these qualities were part of gay subculture. I felt
very intimidated by these images.
From the description
of Tony, I observe that Tony associates homosexuality with effeminacy.
Therefore when he saw masculine sports apparel, masculine bodies and demeanor
on Bai Ling athletes, it was
difficult for him to cope with. However, as he ter mingled with other
teammates, he started to see a wide spectrum of different gender expressions in
other members:
Later I discovered
some players had very interesting body movement when playing basketball. There
was this tall, skinny and sissy guy who bent his wrist all the time and swung
his body unlike other players. When he hit a shot, he would run around the
basketball court flamboyantly or lay on the ground like a lady.
Indeed,
like what Chris, Angus, and Tony pointed out above, basketball players do in
general look bigger and tougher, but it doesn’t mean basketball players are
necessarily masculine, such as the example Tony provided. This association
between hyper-masculinity and basketball can be attributed to the influence of
NBA culture and the media portrayals of basketball athletes. Tony described
this influence from the media:
We incorporate many
values from the mainstream society when playing basketball, especially from the
media. The media portrays basketball as a specific type of sport to demonstrate
masculinity and naturally we conform to this ideology in the basketball court. Bai Ling members used to be less serious
when playing basketball but now many of us play aggressively. To a certain
degree this aggressiveness is taken as a way to perform masculinity.
The ideology of
masculinity permeates basketball via the influence of media. Similarly, media
can also impose different body images on different sports and create the myth
of hierarchies of masculinity in different sports. Below I want to talk about
two films that contribute to this body imaginings of gay athletes. One is Iron Lady and the other is Waterboys.
Iron lady talks about the
story of a volleyball team from Lampang in
If
the film Iron Lady to a certain
extent encourages the association that gay volleyball athletes are effeminate,
then the film Waterboys also suggests
that swimmers’ bodies can be aesthetic and elegant instead of conforming to the
orthodox masculinity with its aggressive and feisty behavior in ball games. Waterboys is a story of five lousy
swimming club members striving to learn synchronized swimming, which is
considered an extremely non-manly sport in
From
the real life experiences of my informants to the cultural texts of the two
films Iron Lady and Waterboys, I want to suggest that
different masculinities are imagined and categorized in gay sports via the
representation of athletes in the media and cultural industries such as film,
arts or novels. As my informant Craig reasoned:
Every gay sport group
consists of both sissy gay men and manly gay men. People who excel in a certain
sport supposedly have the relevant build and body language related to that
particular sport. That is the reason why we think basketball players are tall
and muscular, volleyball players are tall and skinny, and badminton players are
swift in their movement. These outward representations of body might be the
reasons for the stereotypes of [different masculinities in different sports.]
As Craig pointed out,
representations of the body coerce the generalization of certain sports as more
masculine than others. This can take the form of the lauding of the body
representations of NBA athletes. Or alternatively, it can be the deifying of a
nation-wide popular and skilled sport, such as baseball in
In
the lesbian context of gender politics, the butch femme interaction in the
sports arena has been a contested terrain for butches between impartiality and
respect towards femmes. Based on my observation and interviews, I discover that
most lesbian athletes claim themselves to be butches. Take Xiaomo for instance, of the members of this team only one member
Lei Lei claims herself to be femme. As a femme and not being very athletic, Lei
Lei sometimes experiences unintentional jeers from other butch members. In one
field observation in January, 2004, I witnessed this interesting interaction
between pitcher Amy and Lei Lei. In this softball practice, Amy was throwing
groundballs for Lei Lei to catch. However, because of the speed and irregular
jumps of the groundballs, Lei Lei screamed a couple of times and missed
catching the groundballs. Then Amy yelled, “Lei Lei, remember you are a P, a
player, not a Po (婆) ok?” The other members who stood around almost all laughed to this
pun. In this particular case, Lei Lei was expected to meet the requirement of
catching the groundballs despite the fact that she is the only femme in the
team. She didn’t get any special treatment. The butch players treat her
impartially. Yet not every interaction between butches and femmes is as
unequivocal as this one.
In
general, the interactions between butches and femmes are much more troublesome
than the one described above. To begin with, it’s almost a rule of thumb for
butches to treat femmes gently and politely as heterosexual men treat
heterosexual women. Yet in sports it’s inevitable to play tough and rough in
order to pursue for victory. Under these two mentalities between courtesy and
victory, it’s hard for butch players to make up their mind whether to play fair
or play weak with femme opponents. One informant Helen, a self-identified butch
athlete, told me her experience when playing basketball with femmes:
I don’t like to keep
reminding myself who are butches and who are femmes when I do sports. Some
butches think that butches have to respect femmes when doing sports together
and it’s better to reduce physical contact with femmes. I can’t believe this is
required. One time I stole a ball from a femme player in a basketball game, and
other butch players blamed me for this. Personally I don’t feel like reserving
any physical capability when I play against femmes.
Helen’s
account describes the complex interaction between butches and femmes. Besides,
it also shows how in general butches presume that femmes are physically and
technically inferior. That’s why out of politeness, butches have to play weak
and gentle against femme players. However, this polite play has a limit. As Helen
added to her previous remark, “if a femme blocks a butch’s shot, the butch will
be laughed at or even booed.” It’s a very tricky mentality of butches that A
Hou brought up here. As a butch athlete, there is a certain pride or dignity to
be defended. Lesbians who believe in butch and femme identities tend to
appropriate heterosexual beliefs that masculinity overrides femininity in terms
of physicality and athletics. However, female masculinity has its own ways of
manifestation and it’s not a feature that only characterizes butch athletes.
Femme athletes can also possess this quality of female masculinity in terms of
doing sports. Helen is not reserving any physical capability towards femmes in
sports shows a new aspect considering butch-femme relationship: believing in
butch femme identities doesn’t mean treating femmes as secondary or thinking
butches should be athletically superior to femmes. This is a new anti-boundary
project related to butch-femme interaction in sports waiting to be further
discussed and engaged in.
The
other characteristic of lesbian athletes is the avoidance of sexuality in the
sports arena. This can be interpreted that lesbians consider sexuality as
private, something not to be meddled with unless other lesbians bring the issue
up themselves, such as consulting friends about relationships. Besides, this
can also be interpreted as suggesting that sports are treated seriously and the
issue of sexuality or relationships in the sports groups is seen to cause
disturbance and chaos to the maintenance of sports groups. For instance, Jane,
a narrator from Xiaomo Softball Team,
explained this phenomenon of avoiding sexuality in the sports arena:
There is an unwritten
rule in Xiaomo which is intimacy is
not allowed in the presence of other members. If a couple breaks up in Xiaomo, one will undoubtedly leave…Doing
sport is a healthy and decent activity while sexuality and desire are very
private personal matters. Therefore, sexuality and desire are only allowed
under the table or out of the sports arena. After all, it is not worthy to
sacrifice the harmony of the sports groups with pursuing personal pleasures.
From Jane’s
description, we can see the traces of one of the boundary projects of modern
sport that Brian Pronger mentions: legitimate play and illicit sex. Besides,
there is a clear delineation between public and private matters, such as play
is public and sexuality is private.
Speaking
of the division between public matters and private matters, some people might
argue that the personal is political. Indeed, sexuality shouldn’t be avoided
and shunned away just because mainstream society treats it as private. Yet, the
previous illustration of how sexuality is avoided shows how systematic the
social scrutiny is and how sexuality is stigmatized. For bisexual athletes,
avoiding talking about their own sexuality and sexual identification has
another layer of meaning. It responds to the general misunderstanding of
bisexuality per se by the mainstream gay and lesbian members. Despite the
umbrella GLBT, bisexuals are often treated as outsiders in the gay movement and
campaigns, which are mostly run by gays and lesbians. Even in gay/ lesbian
sports groups, bisexuals often feel estranged for their sexuality. This
estrangement of bisexual players can be epitomized as the political dilemma
bisexuals face in identity politics in everyday life.
Besides
avoiding talking about sexuality, female bisexual athletes tend to use
ambiguous identification, such as claiming to be bufen (不分), to protect their bisexual
identity. Bufen (不分) means gender neutral; it is also a refusal to be categorized as
either butch or femme. Betty, member of Heixingan,
told me how reluctant she was to talk about her sexuality when other butch
athletes assume masculine acting members to be lesbians. As a bisexual, Betty
felt estranged emotionally among other butch identified athletes. She knew she
could be despised if she “came out” to other lesbian members as bisexual. This
fear has coincided with the misunderstanding and accusation of bisexual women
as “sleeping with the enemy.” Betty’s testimony reveals that bisexuality in the
queer community still remains marginalized subjects.
This
dilemma of Bettty shows how in lesbian sports there are still taboos and
limitation. If the existence of lesbian sports groups is to provide lesbian
athletes places to exert their energies and do sports without interference from
the heterosexual society (such as discriminatory language and behavior Paula
experienced in a basketball court which I mentioned in the spatiality section
in chapter two), then discriminating bisexuals or less athletic femmes/butches
in the lesbian sports groups contravenes the purpose of the establishment of
lesbian sports groups. The discrimination occurs when a primary identity
overlooks the existence of marginalized identities, such as butch-femme
believers exclude bisexuals, bufen in
the sports arena or athletic lesbian athletes look down on less athletic ones.
In
connection with this exclusionary characteristic of identity politics, I
propose to step out of one’s identity and rethink the possibilities of politics
of difference. As social theorist Eli Zaresky describes:
The notion of identity
involves negation or difference—something is something, not something else.
Post-structuralists, such as Derrida, problematized identity, for example by
arguing that identity presupposes differences, that it involves the suppression
of difference, or that it entailed on endless process of deferral of meaning.
Post-structuralism, therefore, contributed to the complication of identity
politics by introducing what is sometimes termed a politics of difference, a politics aimed less at establishing a
viable identity for its constituency than at destabilizing identities, a
politics that eschews such terms as groups, rights, value, and society in favor
of such terms as places, spaces, alterity, and subject positions, a politics
aims to decenter or subvert than to conquer or assert (Zaresky 1994: 200,
my emphasis)
Identity politics
helps queers to found gay and lesbian sports groups, but it also repeats
boundary projects such as excluding bisexuals, treating femmes as weaker
athletes, and discriminating less athletic players. If politics of difference
can be practiced among gay and lesbian sports groups, it helps to transgress boundary
projects and implode the masculinity and femininity myth, prescribed gender
expression, and the desire to win through aggression. Then this new politics
will undoubtedly relate to what the gay movement also tries to achieve:
legitimizing differences of sexuality and embracing similarities of humanity.
[35] This is why many gay athletes used the term “performing sissiness”
(装C) when they
described the effeminate behavior of other gay athletes or themselves. They are
aware that effeminacy is something that can be deconstructed and further
analyzed.
[36] According to the definitions of the online Chinese dictionary approved by Ministry of Education, Zenyao refers to (1)people with weird behavior and who do other people harm (2)transsexuals (3)sarcastic term to describe ugly people who overdress or put too much makeup.
[ Introduction] [ 1] [ 2] [ 3] [ 4] [Appendices] [Bibliography ]