Not All Sluggers are Sapphists

I was recently invited to attend a high school softball game coached by two of my female friends.  Personally, I’ve never been a softball-lovin’ Sapphic slugger, but many of my good friends have dabbled in the sport.  I think the last time I played softball was under the compulsion of physical education classes in elementary school.  I’m more of a basketball butch.  I like sports where women are fast, sweaty, show a little leg, and aren’t required to swing giant metal or wooden phalluses at a ball.  The high school game I attended Friday evening was only the second softball game I’ve attended my entire life.  The other game I attended a few years ago and, I believe, was some sort of prison guard league that was chock-full of lesbians.

Despite my lack of experience with the game, softball seems especially coupled with the lesbian experience.

“Women’s softball has been associated with lesbians and being gay for a long time.  That’s been sort of a signal like two men sunbathing together on a beach, or something like that.  The immediate implication is that they’re gay, and I’ve known that for a long time.”

-- Pat Buchanan

Although Pat Buchanan is a right-wing nut-job, he’s not entirely wrong.  Softball has been part of the lesbian experience for decades.  In Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A Historyof Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America, Lillian Faderman reveals that during the 1950s and 60s, softball games succeeded in providing working-class and young lesbians with a place to make contact outside of the bar culture.  Faderman asserts that without institutions like women’s softball teams, women’s military units, and women’s bars, “not only would large numbers of women have been unable to make contact with other women in order to form lesbian relationships, but also it would have been impossible to create lesbian communities.”  Back when few other options existed, softball helped bring my people together.

            What does it mean when a lesbian has short nails?

            1)      She’s currently in a sexual relationship, or

            2)      It’s softball season

 

Although lesbians might be drawn to softball, that doesn’t mean that all sluggers are sapphists.  My female friends who coach high school softball are both presumably straight.  I say presumably not because I have any serious doubts about their sexuality or because they coach softball; the simple fact is that you cannot make assumptions about someone’s self-identified sexuality based on appearance, interests, or even known sexual history.  I mean, I’ve had sex with men before, but that certainly doesn’t make me straight.  If you’re a woman who coaches softball and/or gets drunk and hits on my wife, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gay either; it just means you like sports, my wife’s hot, and you’re kind of easy.   We all know folks who are a few drinks away from a gay encounter.  Hell, I’m always just a few drinks away from making out with gay men.  Trust me, I’m not here to judge.

Unfortunately, the assumption is that women who play softball (or most any other sport) are likely lesbians.  This “lesbian-baiting” hurts all women and especially hurts female athletes.  We most often assume someone is gay because he or she defies gender stereotypes.  If a man is effeminate, people assume he must also love cock.  If a women displays masculine traits, such as athleticism, her sexuality is called in to question.  This forces female athletes who are straight to assert their heterosexuality, and it keeps gay female athletes in the closet.   [Be sure to check out the documentary Training Rules, which explores the issue of lesbian-baiting in the world of women’s collegiate basketball.]   The Women’s Sports Foundation actually addresses lesbian-baiting in their publication Special Issues for Coaches of Women’s Sports: "Encourage team members to think about why some people think being called a lesbian is an insult. Discuss some of the negative stereotypes about lesbians and how it is unfair to judge any group of people based on stereotypes. Ask them to think about how it hurts lesbian athletes and their families and friends to hear the word 'lesbian' used in hateful ways."

I have to give kudos to my coach friends for having a big ol’ butch like me hang out at their game and for not being dissuaded by lesbian-bating.  Having people think you’re a lesbian is only a bad thing if you believe being a lesbian is bad. 

And kudos for telling me that I was the best smelling man at the game; that’s the sort of respect and recognition we masculine women like from our straight female friends.