[ Introduction]
[ 1] [ 2] [ 3]
[ 4] [Appendices] [Bibliography ]
Chapter Four
In the introduction, I claim that gay/lesbian
sports is a new kind of tongzhi yundong (gay movement) by relating them
to the participation of three activities, including the
Rainbow Games and Lesbian Championship (彩虹运动会暨雷斯杯) in 2001, the Gay Games in 2002, and the Gay March in 2003, without
clarifying why these three activities qualify as the gay movement and what
constitutes the gay movement.
The
gay movement is one type of social movements that according to the Encyclopedia
of Sociology involve “collective attempts to promote or resist change in a
society or a group.” (1880) To promote change or to resist change depends on
different contexts. In general, revolutionary movements and reform movements
tend to pursue changes more than movements that are launched by the vested
interests or the conservatives. So far as the gay movement in
Based
on the concerns for change of the gay movement in
Most
movements require movement organizations to acquire and deploy resources,
mobilize adherents, and plot strategy and tactics. In terms of the three
activities mentioned above, various gay/lesbian sports groups undertake the
responsibilities of movement organizations, such as Lalainfo
and Shuinanhai. As a matter of fact, the correlation between the
gay/lesbian sports groups and the three activities helps me to see the agency
of gay/lesbian sports groups. Based on the observation of the agency, this
research has so far explored the anti-boundary projects (Pronger) gay/lesbian
sports groups engage in by means of body politics and gender politics. In this
chapter, I intend to lay out the historical backgrounds of the respective
activities and bring out issues of utilizing different strategies and tactics
in these three activities.
The
connection between gay/lesbian sports and movement was brought up by Zhong Zhaojia in her thesis “Movement
Through Sport: An Analysis of ‘Les-Cup’ and Lesbian Identity.” Unlike Zhong’s approach to relate sport to movement by analyzing
the empowerment of gathering, pleasure/leisure theory, and identity politics,
this chapter intends to emphasize the problematics concerning coming out
strategies, media voyeurism, nationalism, and the unique “masking” tactic of
gay/lesbian athletes. These problematics reflect the heated debate in the gay
community over sameness and diversity—i.e. whether to become accepted into the
mainstream or to build a separate gay identity. For instance, Lesbian and Gay
Civil Rights Movement (同志公民运动) devise different activities each year. Some activities, such as
the cross-dressing performance in the 2000 Rainbow Fair, has been criticized as
imposing bad images of homosexuals on the minds of the public and marking
homosexuals as different. Some activities, such as the Rainbow Games and
Lesbian Championship, seek recognition from the public and intend to emphasize
the similarity between homosexuals and heterosexuals. The deployment of masking
in the Gay March is also interpreted differently. While some scholars posit
that masking marks the difference, the shameful of homosexuals, some hold the
opposite opinions about masking believing it’s a good tactic to alleviate the
family oppression as well as maintaining the subjectivity of homosexuals. The
emphasis on patriotism rather than sexual identity of lesbian athletes in the
2000 Sydney Gay Games can be seen as a strategy to reassert the sameness
between gay/lesbian and straight athletes at the cost of subsuming their sexual
identity beneath national identity. I intend not only to pinpoint the contradiction
and ambiguity of the problematics but also to demonstrate how the problematics can
be interpreted as flexible and empowering tactics of burgeoning yet vulnerable
gay/lesbian sports groups.
Rainbow Games and
Lesbian Championship (彩虹运动会暨雷斯杯)
The reason why Rainbow Games and Lesbian Championship
was made possible in
In the summer of 1996, one young ardent lesbian activist
B.C. (her pseudonym) on her own launched the first sports meet for lesbians,
including basketball and volleyball games. This event was later titled as the
Lesbian Championship. In 1997, B. C. joined in Lalainfo,
a cyber non-profit organization to help lesbians familiarize themselves with the
Internet in order to build a virtual community of their own. With the resources
and manpower of Lalainfo, the Lesbian Championship
was held again in the summer of 1998; it eventually became a regular activity
of Lalainfo. Since the third Lesbian Championship of
1999, the event became twice-yearly and was divided into two sections, the winter
Lesbian Championship and summer Lesbian Championship. The winter Lesbian
Championship is composed of badminton and ping-pong while the summer one is
composed of basketball and volleyball.
In 2000, Department of Civil Affairs of Taipei City
Government (台北市政府民政局)
officially listed the expenses for holding Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights
Movement (同志公民运动)
annually in the municipal budget. Even though the name “The Lesbian and Gay
Civil Rights Movement” sounds like a movement not an event, it is actually an annual
government-sponsored activity to promote better understanding of the queer
community. The theme of the activity each year varies. The activity of the
first year (2000) was a Rainbow Fair in Warner’s Village in which Lalainfo participated. In the following year 2001, several
gay/lesbian activist groups were planning to use the municipal funding to hold
the first Tongzhi Athletic Meet.
Since Lalainfo is very experienced in holding the
Lesbian Championship, it eventually became the main organizer of Rainbow Games
and Lesbian Championship.
In fact, in the beginning there were different opinions
on the naming of the athletic meet. Gay activists from Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline
Association and other gay activist groups proposed naming it “Rainbow Games,”
but representatives from Lalainfo argued that the
title of “Lesbian Championship” should be kept due to its historic significance
in the lesbian community. In general lesbian activist groups, such as Lalainfo, have been much aware of the potentials of
developing lesbian sports groups in terms of assembling closeted lesbian
athletes, recruiting lesbian volunteers in holding the Lesbian Championships,
and empowering lesbian identities. By contrast, gay activist groups seldom work
with gay sports groups to hold any gay sports activities or maintain any forms
of networking. In the end, the organizer of Lalainfo
convinced other gay activist groups to use a compromised title “Rainbow Games
and Lesbian Championship” to symbolize the diversity of queer community by
including the term “Rainbow Games,” and to emphasize the political significance
of Lesbian Championship by including the phrase “Lesbian Championship.”
In this athletic meet, gay and lesbian athletes were
well protected for fear of being unnecessarily outed. Only those who could come
out greeted the media outside the old gym of
The spatial layout of Rainbow Games and Lesbian
Championship reflects a new approach to protect gay/lesbian participants while
still providing a “spectacle” for the media to report, such as the cheerleading
dance. By defining the indoor gym “conditionally public” and cheerleading
performance outside the gym “absolutely public,” gay/lesbian activist groups
prevented the media’s paparazzi kind of photography. However, despite such
efforts, the newspaper reports on the Rainbow Games and Lesbian Championship
were still written in a voyeuristic tone. For instance, reporter Li Shuren from United Evening News (联合晚报) wrote:
This was not the scene of the Thai
film Iron Lady (人妖打排球). On the volleyball court a
male player with a pony tail dug vigorously. The player acted rather feminine
and looked rouged and powdered.…[As for] lesbians on the basketball court…their
breasts were flat, voices low, demeanor masculine. When they played basketball,
they were as tough as men. It was hard to tell whether they were female from a
distance.[38]
The rhetoric of the report
repeatedly emphasizes the femininity of gay athletes and masculinity of lesbian
athletes as a way to reaffirm the fixated images of homosexuals. With or
without photographs and videotaping, the media manipulates what is considered
as sensational through exaggerated descriptions from its voyeuristic position.
In fact, the representations of femininity and
masculinity of gays and lesbians have always been a thorny issue for
gay/lesbian activist groups. In the first Gay Civil Rights Movement (同志公民运动) in 2000, a cross-dressing
performance evoked controversies in the queer community because TV news used
this cross-dressing footage when reporting related news on the Rainbow Fair in
Warner’s.[39]
This has caused criticism from the queer community, especially gay men. Some
gay men argued that cross-dressing wasn’t representative of the gay community
and cross-dressing associated femininity with male homosexuals.[40]
Gay men who held different views argued that cross-dressing was part of gay
culture and there was no question of its representability of gay community.[41]
In addition, in the opinions of these gay men, cross-dressing challenges
heteronormal masculinity. These contrary viewpoints demonstrate the
problematics of representability per se. Can marginal subjects represent the
whole queer community or can the whole queer community be represented by the
majority without caring for the marginal? From the debate, I speculate that the
current gay movement is a two-headed train. It engages in undemonizing
homosexuality in two opposite directions. One is to highlight the sameness, the
normalcy. The other is to emphasize the diversity, the “queerness.”
Compared with the much criticized performance of
cross-dressing in the first Gay Civil Rights Movement (同志公民运动), Rainbow Games and Lesbian
Championship seemed to be well acclaimed by the gay/lesbian community.
Athletics is something heterosexuals can relate to unlike cross-dressing.
Athletics is also politically more correct in terms of representation of
masculinity and femininity than cross-dressing. From the slogan of Rainbow
Games and Lesbian Championship “Sunshine, Vitality, Homosexuals” (阳光、活力、同性恋), it is obvious to see how
athletics is a trope to emphasize the similarity between homosexuals and
heterosexuals. If the strategy employed in 2001 cross-dressing performance at
the Rainbow Fair was intended to manifest the diversity and the queerness of
homosexuals, then the one in 2002 Rainbow Games and Lesbian Championship meant
to reveal the sameness, the normalcy between queers and heterosexuals.
Nonetheless considering the newspaper reports on the Rainbow Games and Lesbian
Championship, one has to ponder if gay/lesbian athletics has succeeded in “undemonizing” images of gay men and lesbians and what it
really means to “undemonize” them.
Media is a vessel containing heterosexual beliefs and
values. Its reports on homosexuality most of the time reflects the prejudice,
fear, and anxiety of heterosexuals. Therefore even when given the “positive”
side of homosexuality, such as gay/lesbian athletics, the media can still
depict it as something secretive,
and something that conforms to fixated conceptions of homosexuality like
sissy gay men and butch lesbians. If such reports cause dismay within the queer
community, it suggests that gay men and lesbians want the gay movement to
eradicate “stereotypes.” However, the gay movement will never be a successful
one if only “normal” representations of homosexuals are presented in public
rather than “eccentric” ones, such as cross-dressing. It requires time and
experience for government officials, participants and heterosexual citizens to
revalue the stereotypical descriptions of homosexuals and to look into deeper
constructions of stereotypes. As for gay and lesbian activist groups, different
approaches and effects in planning Gay Civil Rights Movement (同志公民运动) will enrich their
experiences in coping with the media as well as adjust the strategies of the
gay movement.
2002 Sydney Gay Games was the first time Taiwanese queer
community participated in such an international event. As early as when Gay
Games was decided to be held in Sydney in 1998, a group representing the committee
came to Taiwan to visit Lalainfo and spread the words
about this event wishing there would be gay/lesbian athletes from Taiwan to
participate. This information was passed on to athletes in the Rainbow Games
and Lesbian Championship in 2001, which was organized by Lalainfo.
It turned out that not many athletes were willing to participate in the Gay
Games because of the risk of being outed. The success of Rainbow Games and
Lesbian Championship didn’t help Lalainfo activists
to recruit enough athletes. In the end, Lalainfo had
to keep recruiting on the bbs. It was in the end of
April, 2002, that Lalainfo finally recruited 8
basketball athletes, which was the minimum number required for a basketball
team. Then Lalainfo applied for governmental
subsidies but only got a hundred eighty thousand NT dollars, which was
one-fourth of the predetermined costs. In order to solicit contributions, a
huge variety show was staged on August 17, 2002 in the auditorium of Taipei
City Council. With the efforts of Lalainfo volunteers
and sportloving lesbians, the variety show turned out
a big success. The contributions from the variety show and the following
donations finally met the expected sum of budget for participating in the Gay
Games.
Gay Games was contrived by Tom Waddell, a former
Olympian decathlete in 1968. Gay Games is his vision of a sports environment
characterized by inclusion, and a space free from prejudice of any kind. Because
he used to be an Olympian representative, he knows how racist, exclusive, and
nationalistic the Olympics are. Thus his intention of holding Gay Games is to
differentiate the exclusive and elitist nature of the traditional Olympic
Games. In Gay Games, people of different nationalities, races, gender, sexual
orientations, and skills are all welcome to compete. That’s why there is
usually more than one team from the same country to compete in one sports
category, like basketball, volleyball etc. This is unlike the Olympic Games, in
which only one team can represent each individual country. Since Gay Games is
not a competition among different nations but more like a reunion of
gay/lesbian sports groups, teams rarely name themselves after their countries;
instead, participants name their teams according to the city they are from or
the local characteristics, such as Team Oregon, London Cruises, and the
Mullets.[42]
By contrast, the lesbian basketball team from Taiwan
maintained the patriotic nomenclature—Taiwan/Chinese Taipei—to participate in
the supposedly de-nationalized, de-racialized event.
Besides, the basketball team was very eager to show the national flag of Taiwan
in this international event. The players’ jackets, sponsored by Nike, were all
emblazoned with the national flag of Taiwan and embroidered with the characters
Zhonghua (中华), which specified the racial
identity of Chinese. In the opening ceremony, almost every athlete from Taiwan
held a tiny national flag. This emphasis on national identity of Taiwan was distinct
from athletes from other countries who mostly emphasized their campy and
flamboyant costumes instead of their national flags. During basketball games
the lesbian athletes from Taiwan also brought national flags and decorated the
basketball court they played in. Taiwanese lesbian athletes took every chance
to exhibit national flags of Taiwan.
The political gesture of the
lesbian basketball team is very patriotic and performative. And
yet I find this political performance quite problematic when situated in the
first-world discourse of Gay Games, which emphasizes boundaries breaking and
queer identities embracing. First, Gay Games is against the boundary project Pronger talks
about, but the lesbian basketball team seems to place themselves within this
boundary project again by holding on to nationalism. Not only do they specify
their nationality, Taiwan, but also racial identity, Chinese. Second, under the
western discourse, Gay Games is the occasion to recognize one’s sexual identity
and embrace gay pride. But during the procession in the opening ceremony, only
one out player walked in the front waving the national flag of Taiwan to
attract attention of the media and protect the unexposed lesbian players from
having their pictures taken because they were not out back in Taiwan.
The gay pride these lesbians demonstrated was a
compromised one. As a researcher, I can’t help wondering about the
signification of “coming out” in Gay Games. Diana Fuss explains the duplicity
of “out” in “Inside/Out”:
“Out” cannot help but to carry a
double valence for gay and lesbian subjects. On the one hand, it conjures up
the exteriority of the negative—the devalued or outlawed term in the
hetero/homo binary. On the other hand, it suggests the process of coming out—a
movement into a metaphysics of presence, speech, and cultural visibility. (Fuss
4)
In the western coming out
discourse, “out” usually refers to the positive side of visibility. This
discourse has also dominated Taiwan’s gay movement. Wearing masks or avoiding
media for some activists is a futile effort to rectify shame and still assert
the subjectivity of homosexuals. Under such logic, one might jump to a quick
conclusion that Taiwanese lesbian athletes only affirm the exteriority of the
negative by not fully exposing themselves under the camera. Lin Xianxiou’s 1997 article “Tongzhi yundongde
wutou gong’an” [The
mysterious case of the headless tongzhi movement] critiques such
strategy of hiding behind masks. Lin thinks coming out is necessary in
delineating the subjectivity of homosexuals and demystifying homosexuality. He
thinks mask discourse obscures a unified subjectivity and thus is not
beneficial for a gay movement inclusive of different identities. He said:
If a gay movement is a movement of
equal rights, a movement that creates dialogue between homosexuals and the
national apparatus in the public domain, homosexuals have to come out. We can’t
give same-sex marriage rights to invisible people. We can’t protest against the
layoffs of invisible homosexuals. We can’t debate with the judges in the Supreme
Court that even though the homosexuals don’t exist their rights should be
guaranteed. (Lin 1997: 65)
In the case of Taiwan’s lesbian
basketball team, the national flag and national identity can be seen to be
appropriated as masks. By wearing these patriotic masks, it seems that the
lesbian basketball team “put out” their lesbian identity as something bad and “brought
out” the national identity as something good. Below I am trying to borrow Fran
Martin’s yin/xian (concealment/disclosure)
theory to do another alternative reading of the political performance of the
lesbian basketball team.
In the essay “The Closet, the Mask and ‘The Membranes,’”
Fran Martin specified the differences between western coming out discourse and
the specific mask discourse in Taiwan’s gay movement. In the western coming out
discourse, the eventual goal for queer subjects is to come out in public and
fight for equality in various aspects. Therefore coming out is an essential
step in the gay movement. Fran Martin distinguishes this logic of coming out discourse
from Chinese concepts of yin/xian (concealment/disclosure). The only way to affirm
one’s identity and engage in the gay movement under this coming out discourse
is to disclose one’s sexual identity in public (xian).
Fran Martin then complicates the relationship between yin/xian by narrating mask discourse as a common
operation of the gay movement in Taiwan. Wearing masks in campaigns and rallies
are unique strategies of Taiwanese marginal subjects. For instance, public
prostitutes wear masks to avoid the stigma of prostitution; for homosexuals,
they wear masks to avoid the shame that homosexuality brings to them and their
families. Wearing masks in campaigns and rallies, homosexuals disclose their
subjectivity by their physical presence (xian)
and prevent shame by the absence of their features (yin). Mask discourse
is a state of both concealment and disclosure. Martin’s yin/xian theory defines western coming out discourse as
spatial concepts and mask discourse as a tactic that responds to social scrutiny.
In contrast to Lin Xianxiou, Fran Martin thinks
coming out in public doesn’t apply in every culture. The mask discourse
deployed by Taiwanese queer community for Fran Martin not only ensures the
diversity of the subjectivity by not been seeing through but also eases the familial burdens of most homosexuals in Taiwan.
Considering Martin’s yin/xian
theory, the closeted Taiwanese lesbian athletes may not conform to the ideology
of western coming out discourse; nonetheless they are never invisible or unpolitical in terms of their lesbian identities. The
national flags are the metaphoric tactic masks of these lesbian athletes in one
way to disclose their subjectivity as lesbians in public (We are here we are
queer and we are Taiwanese) and in another to prevent shame from overexposure
in the media. By appearing in the Gay Games, the existence of Taiwanese queer
community is made known in the world. In addition, according to my interviews
with one accompanying volunteer Yan-ni, many unouted and closeted athletes were so empowered from the
interaction with other gay/lesbian athletes and friends in the Gay Games to the
extent that when they came back to Taiwan they were not hesitant anymore in
coming out to their friends and family members. Since a mask can be put on and
take off at will, homosexuals can decide whether to put on masks or not
depending on different issues and occasions. For instance, homosexuals once
protested Tu Xingzhe
publishing biased research on AIDS and homosexuals in 1995. In the protest
scene, Tu Xingzhe said “anyone
of you can have further discussions with me if you admit you are homosexuals.”
At that time mask tactics weren’t developed yet. Under the media scrutiny, no
protesters could risk coming out. Since the mask tactics developed, homosexuals
can more confidently protest, rally and deal with the media. Tu Xingzhe’s rhetoric no longer
becomes an obstacle for gay movement.
Another interpretation of the highly patriotic behavior
of Taiwan’s lesbian athletes can be seen from the similar situation of being a
Taiwanese and a homosexual. The political status of Taiwan is as marginal as
the social status of homosexuality. In need of recognition, Taiwanese have been
eager to grab opportunities to declare the political existence of Taiwan even
though Taiwan is under the pressure from mainland China which does not want any
country to admit that Taiwan is a nation. As we know, there is no singular
identity in one person. Various identities often contest with one another in
different situations and contexts. For instance for a woman being discriminated
against in a male-dominated working environment, her gender identity will stand
out from the rest of her identities. For a Chinese being called a “chink,” his
racial identity under such circumstance will precede other identities. For the
participants, as both Taiwanese and homosexual, this double marginality
inevitably makes Gay Games not an event simply for queer people to participate
in but one for a marginal political body like Taiwan to proclaim its
subjectivity.
In the 2002 Sydney Gay Games Achievement Report Meeting held on April 6,
2003 in a meeting room of Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association, Huban described the contesting identities she experienced,
being both a lesbian and a Taiwanese:
We had been thinking about how to
introduce ourselves in the opening ceremony. Even though we [Taiwan’s lesbian
athletes] were short in height, we were uniformed and attracted a lot of
attention. We also wanted to differentiate ourselves from China and let
foreigners know about Taiwan. In fact China registered in the Gay Games. But
after our investigation, no one from China team came to the opening ceremony.
We had planned many ways to protect our unoutable
athletes, one of which was to let one outable athlete
Pao holding the national flag out so that the rest
could walk low-keyed behind since the national flag was huge and could block
the unwanted photography of the media. We even thought of wearing sunglasses.
When the emcee introduced our team “Taiwan,” suddenly we were very aware of our
nationality and then we proceeded in the procession without fear.
From Huban’s account, one can
find that the national identity outweighed the lesbian identity for these
participants. After all, in an international event like this, it’s hard to put
the queer identity above the national identity. However, we can’t deny the
subjectivity of these brave lesbian athletes and volunteers just because some
of them can’t come out as the politically correct way of participating in a gay
movement. In the process of making it to the Gay Games, these lesbian athletes
and volunteers have successfully drawn attention from the public by attending
press conferences, staging a fundraising variety show and negotiating its
representability of Taiwan with the government. These efforts are all worth
giving credits for.
In an interview, one Lalainfo
activist Xiao J explained the consciousness of combining nationalism with gay
movement when Lalainfo took over the task of
recruiting gay/lesbian athletes to represent Taiwan:
The Gay Games is so positive that
there is no reason for the government not to sponsor the lesbian basketball
team. When the government sponsors the team, it naturally implies that the
government approves homosexual activities or homosexuality per se. It doesn’t
matter how much money the government can put up. This is meant to challenge the
government and to see how much they can accept with regard to homosexual
activities.
Here Xiao J showed how nationalism
was not the main concern of participating in the Gay Games but how the
government granted representability of the lesbian basketball team and approved
homosexual activities. On the one hand, Gay Games is an international event, a
good chance for Taiwan to be visible. Lalainfo can
apply for subsidies from the government because the Gay Games is a diplomatic
matter. On the other hand, by persuading the government to sponsor and
authorize the representability of Taiwan, the government validates and
legitimates homosexual activities and homosexuality. The significance of being recognized
is far more important than representing Taiwan. As Xiao J said:
During the operation of “nationalism” in participating in the Gay Games, different strategies and
ideologies are deployed. It’s the flexibility I highly value. It is not about
embracing nationalism and sacrificing subjectivity.
Based on
questionnaires, many gay/lesbian athletes are planning to participate in the
2006 Montreal Gay Games while some are reluctant because of their skills, financial
abilities, the coming out issue and the pressure representing Taiwan. Hopefully
my research can render new thoughts concerning the intention of Gay Games, the
operation of nationalism, and mask tactics in the gay movement.
The
Gay march was the main activity of the fourth Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights
Movement (同志公民运动) in
2003. To be able to march demonstrates the liberalism and democracy of a
society. This is true for all marches, not to mention a march aimed at
prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals and promoting gay rights
including gay marriage and gay rights of children adoption. Another purpose of
the march, said Cheng Chih-wei, a member of the
Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association, was to “declare to Taiwan the existence of
gays and lesbians here.” Indeed, despite the estimation that one out of ten
people is gay, there is an insufficient representation of homosexuals in
everyday life. The homosexuals portrayed in the media are often ruthless
killers, robbers, suicidal pessimists and AIDS infectors. The gay march was a
chance to demonstrate the diversity of the queer community and undemonize the
negative associations of homosexuality.
In
the beginning a couple of representatives from Shuinanhai attended two march preparatory meetings in October,
2003, and recounted the agenda of the gay march to other Shuinanhai members. Even though the idea of participating in the
gay march with the name of Shuinanhai was
approved by the leaders, the participation was not obligatory but voluntary.
Within less than a month, over 70 members and friends of Shuinanhai registered to march on Shuinanhai’s bulletin board on
BBS. This number even exceeded the total participants of the host organization
Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association. Lalainfo
activists and lesbian basketball athletes who participated in the 2002 Sydney
Gay Games also partook in the march. The presence of gay and lesbian sports
groups in the gay march signifies that gay/lesbian athletes can be as political
as gay/lesbian activists. In addition, in the gay march gay/lesbian athletes
can exercise their body politics which they have been performing in their
individual sports arena.
In
the afternoon of November 1, 2003, 228 Peace Park swarmed with various
gay/lesbian activist groups. Wearing bikini swimsuits, exposing muscular
bodies, Shuinanhai members
immediately caught the attention of media as well as other marchers and
passers-by. Live reports and newspaper coverage included a lot of close-ups and
introductions of the Shuinanhai
members. All in all the image of these Shuinanhai
members in these reports was very healthy unlike the gruesome portrayals of
homosexuals in common news headlines. As Li Ching-ling,
an official of Taipei city government's Bureau of Civil Affairs, stated:
“Through the march, we want to present the ‘sunshine’ side of homosexuals to
society...to let them be better understood by the general populace.”
Interestingly, the ‘sunshine’ side of Shuinanhai
members successfully grabbed the attention of the public and the media, but
they were still criticized within the gay community because of their nudity,
adornment, and demeanor. Below I would like to probe into the meaning behind
this criticism.
In
the Motss [Members of the Same Sex] bulletin board, John
posted an article complaining about the dress and the demeanor of Shuinanhai members:
To be honest, some of
the marchers dressed too peculiarly. I can’t believe they put butterfly
adornments on their back and didn’t even wear shirts. When the reporter
interviewed them, the way they talked exactly matched straight people’s stereotypes.
I don’t think the gay march can achieve the goal of equality but only
reinforces the stereotypes of homosexuality in the mind of the public.[43]
From John’s argument,
he is accusing Shuinanhai of
conforming to the typical stereotypes of male homosexuals as sissies. But
exposing bodies with tanned skin is rarely associated with sissiness. It’s an
indicator of regular exercise and confidence. Therefore I speculate the
loathing was caused by the butterfly adornment and the demeanor of the gay
swimmer. Heterosexual men have to maintain their masculinity myth by wearing
gender-specific clothes and talking in a manly way. Butterfly adornment and
expressive ways of communicating with a macho body of the gay swimmers
challenge the masculinity myth as performative, something that can be
constructed and deconstructed. This was an anti-boundary project the gay
swimmers were doing. John’s anxiety to an extent shows how influential and
fixated conceptions concerning masculinity can be. Without the performance of
gay swimmers in the gay march, people would never envision the diversities of
gender expressions.
Another
bbs user Eddy analyzed John’s argument and wrote:
One sees what one can
best see from oneself….The main problem is you care too much about how other
people look at homosexuals so that you internalize that standard. That’s why
you want homosexuals to be portrayed as normal. But can the normalization on
the surface gain support from the heterosexual society? Can “normal” images
challenge the loathing and fear heterosexuals have?[44]
John’s and Eddy’s viewpoints
represent two contesting strategies of doing the gay movement—a movement that
emphasizes similarity and a movement that stresses differences and diversity.
Lin Xianxiou called the former strategy as pursing “gay
identity” and the latter as pursuing “kuer
[queer] identity.” Even though these two strategies are both identity politics,
the latter can be as effective and less exclusionary than the former one.
Taking to the streets and demonstrating diversities of the gay march are
exactly the strategies of a politics of difference. By reoccupying the streets
(space), the subject positions of the homosexuals are clearly demonstrated.
Being different is only a means to decenter and
subvert the power that be.
Another
issue I want to talk about is the mask tactics. As mentioned earlier, mask is
one of the past strategies of collective coming out. At one point, the mask was
even used to symbolize the true subjectivity. For instance, during a speech in
1997 tongzhi party, a representative
of the Tongzhi Space Alliance (同志空间行动阵线) declared that those who didn’t wear masks on the scene were not
real tongzhi. It was a resistance to
the public voyeurism and a reversal of the shame discourse that has long
troubled homosexuals. With the declaration, wearing a mask is no longer
associated with guilt or shame but a determination to render visible the
subjectivity of homosexuals. The Mask has become a symbol of collectivity.
It
was under such a logic of mask tactics that the leaders of Shuinanhai had previously suggested closeted members to put on
masks, swim caps, goggles, or other accessories to protect themselves. The same
suggestion was given by the main organizer Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association
to other activist groups and individual marchers. However, on the day of gay
march, still a lot of people, including Shuinanhai
members, didn’t put on masks. This doesn’t mean the mask tactic is obsolete. It
indicates that the social climate has become much more gay-friendly since the
beginning of the gay movement. The hybrid practice of the mask tactic and the
coming out strategies show how the gay movement is still looking for a best way
to present the homosexual subjectivity.
In
conclusion, we can no longer look at sport, especially gay and lesbian sport
from the pedagogical or medical perspectives. By reading gay and lesbian sport
as a gender and political performance, we could see clearly the omnipresence of
the matrix of patriarchy, heterosexuality, and nationality, which determine our
consciousness and everyday behavior. Through the gender/body politics of gay
and lesbian sport, we see the possibility of awakening to the matrix we’ve been
imprisoned in since the day we were born. As the aura of bonding in gay and lesbian
sport brings self-recognition and collective identity, gay and lesbian sport
groups (as a community) could empower the gay movement and political campaigns,
such as the three activities I focus on in this chapter. From holding Lesbian
Championship to Rainbow Games, from participating in Gay Games in Sydney to Gay
March in Taiwan, gay and lesbian sports groups have crossed the boundary
between sport and movement and opened up a new way of doing the gay movement.
[37] The sources for the historical information of Rainbow Games and
Lesbian Championship can be referred to on the websites http://glplay.ariesdog.com/
and http://www.lalainfo.com.tw
[38] 这不是泰国电影“人妖打排球”的情节。球场奋勇救球的男子球员绑着小马尾，举止秀气，略带脂粉味…篮球场上的拉子们…胸部扁平，声音低沉，动作阳刚，打起球来，剽悍不让须眉，从远处观看，很难察觉出她们是不折不扣的女儿身。(2001.08.25)
[39] See http://groups.google.com.tw/groups?selm=3cK0aN%24Qbb%40www.kkcity.com.tw
[40] See http://groups.google.com.tw/groups?selm=3cMiSa%24OaD%40www.kkcity.com.tw
[41] See http://groups.google.com.tw/groups?selm=3cMiY2%24Oy3%40www.kkcity.com.tw
[42] These names are found in the brochure Lalainfo published and distributed in the 2002 Sydney Gay Games Achievement Report Meeting (雪梨成果发表会) held on April 6, 2003 in a meeting room of Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association (台湾同志谘询热线协会).
[43] The article was posted on
[44]
The article was posted on
[ Introduction]
[ 1] [ 2] [
3] [ 4] [Appendices]
[Bibliography ]