A fan at Qatar's Lusail stadium dared to show up with the LGBTIQ+ flag, which was predictable but still brave. Between reportage and personal experience, this article talks about sexual diversity in the world's most popular sporting show, which reaches a special level of sexism.
When I play soccer I'm compared to Cristiano Ronaldo: I'm the gayest guy on the team. If you found what I just wrote funny, it's time for you to deconstruct that model of the pro-macho that lives inside you. The truth is that my clumsiness never allowed me to practice any sport and I never even qualified to be the gayest of the team. But I was always called a "sissy" for not having the psychomotor coordination necessary to kick a ball.
"You're a faggot, Daniel, can't you hit the ball like a boy?", I was challenged by my classmates every time the ball landed at my feet.
I couldn't. Besides, did kicking a ball make me less gay? To avoid being mocked, I hid my homosexuality —which had nothing to do with my sporting ineptitude. The best defense I found was to appear to be a macho man who questioned the manhood of others, including that of Cristiano Ronaldo. It's not only heterosexuals who are homophobic.
When reviewing the history of sexual diversity in soccer, always comes the case of Londoner player Justin Fashanu. The striker, with Nigerian roots, was the first black player to earn a contract worth more than £1 million in England and Scotland. He was also the first to come out of the closet globally. He did so in 1990, when racism and homophobia were more normalized than they are today.
The British tabloids claimed that Fashanu's sports career was affected after announcing his sexual orientation. A version that is not shared by his brother, who maintains that Justin stayed away from soccer because of an injury, that he was not gay and that he just wanted to attract attention. However, in the autobiography of Brian Clough, who was his coach at Nottingham Forest, there is a conversation in which he claims the player for going to a "queer club".
Many supported the player, who retired from playing in 1997 after an inconsistent career and a few years as manager of Maryland Mania. Fashanu committed suicide the following year, when he was reported for molesting a seventeen-year-old boy in Maryland, USA, since homosexual acts were still illegal in that state. He was 37 years old. His death left several doubts in the air and just as some LGBT movements label him as a hero, others question his ethics.
Before Fashanu, there was talk of Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, a Spanish soccer player who was the partner of the poet Federico García Lorca. His sporting career did not last long: he died in the Civil War, in 1937. After Fashanu, it took more than twenty years for another elite player to make his orientation public. It was Norwegian Thomas Berling who, like the vast majority of his gay colleagues, told his story after hanging up his gloves. This may be because, as short as careers in soccer are, there is a fear that a gay player will be associated with being weak.
Just like the silly jokes that speculate about Cristiano Ronaldo's virility, or that so many people are convinced that Manuel Neuer, the goalkeeper of the German national team, is gay, homosexuality in soccer is used as an insult. Neither of them are gay, but taking care of their physical appearance, demonstrating against discrimination or wearing bracelets with the LGBTIQ+ pride flag automatically makes them "queer". And that's more unacceptable than bribing FIFA officials to get a country to host the World Cup.
Kicking love
This is not another one of my jokes. In school, Hernán* was called Pelé because he was the top scorer in all the tournaments and the only one in the neighborhood who was signed in the lower divisions of one of the most prominent soccer teams in Bogotá. Thirty years later, laughing, he says that "I'm more like Maradona: I'm short, fast, ugly and a party animal".
His family is convinced that this last attribute was the reason why, in the mid-nineties, he was kicked out of the team. Today he runs a collection office. The true story almost resembles A Kiss from Dick: Hernán was in love with a training partner and proposed to him at a party. Contrary to what happens in that great novel by Fernando Molano, the other guy ran away as fast as he could and the next day spread the news that Hernán was gay. So much for his career. The other guy's didn't get very far either, no matter how fast he ran.
Alex* didn't need to declare his love to anyone. In 2015 he was part of the minors of a Medellín team and, with the support of his family, he decided to tell the coach about his homosexuality. After that talk he was relegated with the excuse that his performance was not the best. Then he suffered an injury and, even though he could recover and play again, he preferred to go to Bogotá and study Architecture. Over time, he began to hate soccer: "people live fascinated by it and don't realize that money is the only thing that matters in that sport".
In contrast to the male soccer, it is not uncommon to see professionals in women's soccer who have spoken without fear of their diverse sexual orientation in teams in the United States, Spain, Australia, the United Kingdom, Colombia or Brazil. Is it that women find it easier? The answer is no. The difference between lesbians who have come out in sports is due to a macho stereotype: women who practice certain sports are considered "butch".
Although it may seem more normal for a female soccer player to say she's a lesbian, those who are not must also endure absurd criticism. In the collective imagination, the idea that has been nested is that pretty players are bad, and the less attractive ones are the best. A stupid idea that can be refuted by striker Linda Caicedo. She is pretty and a great soccer player.
"Let's have a threesome"
When I met Carolina, one of my best friends, she lifted weights and several college mates said she was a lesbian, but she's not. She introduced me to Kelly, who is a lesbian and has always played sports that are considered rough, like indoor soccer and field hockey. In high school, the friendliest comment she received was "butch." At university she became passionate about rugby and the insults lost their force, although it has been common for some men to minimize her sexuality and, when they see her with her partner, they say to them, as funny as they are: "let's have a threesome".
Angela has experienced similar situations. For her, rugby is a space for empowerment, not only for lesbians but also for women who feel insecure; however, she often receives sexual comments. That's partly why she prefers to stay away from men. And since journalism is the real social network, Angela and Kelly introduced me to the only rugby player they know in Colombia who has come out of the closet.
Michael is 23 years old, studies at the Film School and has never been afraid to go public with his sexual orientation. He has been playing rugby since he was 15 and, like all gays around the world, has learned to normalize homophobic comments and accept them as harmless jokes. He recalls that a few weeks ago the coach called his team to attention and told them, "You're playing like sissies. You look like girls." And Michael called him back because "you have to raise awareness among everyone." He sounds optimistic about the change in attitudes towards sexual diversity: he's part of an open and inclusive generation. After talking to Michael, I even felt like believing in humanity.
In May 2019, two Atlético Nacional fans kissed in front of the cameras of a TV channel broadcasting a game against Santa Fe, in Medellín. Someone recorded the screen and uploaded that instant to Twitter adding with mockery: "No wonder @Sin_ingenio is leaving so early for the stadium". The tweet went viral and generated responses like "this embarrassing spectacle should not be allowed in front of children". For his part, former goalkeeper René Higuita came to the defense of the boys: "That's the beauty of soccer… in the stadium everyone is welcome and everyone enjoys it in their own way". Most internet users applauded him, but some claimed that you need to be gay to support Atlético Nacional. As always, the easy way out, short on wit: using sexual orientation as an insult.
Despite the many disappointments every two or three days, Hernán forgets the responsibilities that the collection office demands, and continues to be a loyal fan of the Bogotá team that kicked him out of the youth team for being a homosexual. Almost every Sunday he gets together with several friends to shout hurrahs and insults at the TV. More than a decade ago they all decided not to return to the stadium. Although they were never assaulted, they realized how absurd it was to repress any expression of affection in front of the other fans.
Only love counts
The word is still the same as the one I heard in my childhood, forty years ago: "faggot". If a sportsman makes a mistake or takes care of his physical appearance, or cries, or talks about his depression, he's a "faggot". And let's make it clear to the macho guys that only faggots have the right to call each other faggots, OK?
Well, seriously: even though anti-discrimination laws have been passed, even though there's equal marriage and Bogotá is governed by a lesbian mayor, in many contexts it's still felt that being gay is outlawed, that it's better to avoid comments and stupid questions. Among other things, it's still believed that telling a gay person that he or she does not look gay is a compliment. A report by the NGO Colombia Diversa indicates that between 2019 and 2020, 189 LGBT people were murdered in the country, mainly trans women and gay men. So there are not as many safe spaces as we would like.
Hamburg's St. Pauli was the first soccer team with an openly gay president and has become an anti-fascist and inclusive institution. On the walls of their stadium there's a mural that reads "Only love counts" above a stencil of two men kissing. Part of why we continue to live in fear is that no other team in professional soccer dares to stand up for diversity in such a clear and courageous way. Of course, there are many barras, such as the Fla-Gay that was born in the 1970s to support Flamengo of Rio de Janeiro, the Gais Ultras of Gothenburg, the various GAPEFs (Gais Apasionados Por El Fútbol - Gays Passionate About Soccer) in several Latin American countries, or queer fan groups of Borussia Dortmund or Bayern Munich, with enviable haircuts. All these collectives give us encouragement to believe that at some point we will stop hearing in the stadiums the cry of "puto", so common in my native Mexico.
Argentina, for example, has a famous amateur club, Los Dogos, which is committed to diversity in men's soccer. They recently won the support of various political entities for their country to host the LGBT World Cup 2024, an event that hopefully will get the coverage it deserves in the media and bring together all sexual and gender diversity around a ball. We have a year to discuss the edges of another issue: trans people in sport.
A survey conducted in 2016 revealed that 92 percent of British soccer fans would have no problem if a footballer spoke openly about his sexual orientation. It would be worth doing the same survey in other countries and reviewing the acceptance of the issue by the various players in this business, especially the sponsoring brands. By the way, what would Colombian fans say? A sign of how little the issue matters to the leaders of men's soccer is that the world's national federations ignored the scintillating homophobia of Russia —host of the 2018 World Cup— and have downplayed the importance of Qatar's laws. To justify themselves, they claim that, in general, public displays of affection are forbidden, regardless of sexual orientation. They seem not to have read that homosexuality is indeed considered a crime and that even carrying a rainbow flag is an act punishable by imprisonment.
Regardless of the evidence or criticism, millions of spectators will watch the stupid and sensual World Cup in Qatar because one rarely has the opportunity to admire the legs of this player, the arms of that one, the beard of that cutie... The sexualization of athletes is a separate discussion. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this will be a homophobic event, nor is it necessary to make a great effort to understand why many people plans ignoring it, even if it sounds like "cancel culture".
The world is moving forward and soccer, in many respects, seems to resist change. Corporations prefer to continue profiting from the homophobia present in the sport, turn a blind eye and wait, as always, for marketing to do its thing. We are so queer that we continue to be part of this embarrassing spectacle.
*Names changed at the request of the interviewees.
Originally published in Spanish in SoHo magazine in November 2022.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario