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LGBT sportspeople have, in modern times, faced intolerance common in many vocations and arguably worse than some due to the heteronormativity of sports teaching in schools. There have been several notable outspoken homosexual athletes, including Sheryl Swoopes, Billie Jean King〔(The Legacy of Billie Jean King, an Athlete Who Demanded Equal Play )〕 and Billy Bean. In the 1980s Tom Waddell, an Olympic decathlete, hosted the first Gay Games in San Francisco. Since then many homosexual sporting organizations have been founded along with sporting events that feature homosexual athletes.〔http://www.atlantagaysports.com/〕 While, overall the trend is towards open acceptance, different sports vary widely and homosexual athletes still face many challenges. International sports organisations have come under scrutiny for holding competitions in countries where LGBT equality is out of step with their own policies. ==Homophobia in sports culture== Heteronormativity can be seen as the dominant paradigm in sports culture, stemming all the way into children's athletics in school.〔Wilkinson & Pearson 2009 (http://gas.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/23/4/542)〕 Heteronormativity describes "the myriad ways in which heterosexuality is produced as a natural, unproblematic, taken-for-granted, ordinary phenomenon." It is defined as a world/ common view of heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexuality.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/heteronormative )〕 This way of thinking is often taken to the extreme in sports culture, as a wide body of sociological scholarship has documented the emphasis of hegemonic masculinity in sports.〔http://gas.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/19/6/829〕 Arnd Krüger has shown that the history of homosexuality in sports in closely linked to the history of sports and goes back until antiquity.〔A. KRÜGER (1999). The Homosexual and Homoerotic in Sport, in: James RIORDAN & Arnd KRÜGER (eds.): The International Politics of Sport in the 20th Century. London: Routledge, pp.191 – 216. ISBN 0-419-21160-8〕 The priority of heteronormative thinking in athletics has led to a traditional view in sports culture that is highly intolerant of homosexuality. This homophobic attitude has been documented in adolescent sports especially, as a recent study by Osborne and Wagner showed that male adolescents who participated in football were significantly more likely to hold homophobic attitudes than other peers their age. In a 2009 study on the well being of same-sex-attracted youth in the United States, Wilkinson and Pearson found that lower self-esteem and higher rates of depression in same-sex attracted youth were correlated with the prevalence of football in high schools (2009). Sociology researchers Sartore and Cunningham also found a similar stigmatization in the view of homosexual coaches, as high school parents were shown to have an unwillingness to allow their children to be coached by a homosexual (2009). They also found a similar attitude from high school athletes themselves toward participating on teams coached by either gay or lesbian coaches (2009). In spite of the apparent prevalence of homophobic thinking in athletic culture, recent scholarship has documented an increasing trend toward openly gay athletes in high school and collegiate level sports. This trend, however, has not been seen in professional sports, where homosexuality still remains largely stigmatized in the four major North American professional sports leagues. Only Jason Collins of the NBA has come out while active, and only eight players have come out after their careers were over: Wade Davis, Kwame Harris, Dave Kopay, Roy Simmons, and Esera Tuaolo (NFL); Billy Bean and Glenn Burke (MLB); and John Amaechi (NBA). This same trend can also be found in England's Professional Footballers' Association (PFA), as a recent ad campaign devised by the PFA against homophobia failed because no professional football player was willing to associate themselves with the advertisement. Although professional team sports remain dominated by heterosexuality, individual sports, such as tennis have had more openly gay athletes as is evidenced by the lack of out players in professional teams sports, and the increasing numbers of individual athletes who have publicly come out as LGBT. Recent attempts by organizations such as the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) have also been made to break down homophobic attitudes in collegiate and professional team sports. NCLR has worked with the San Francisco 49ers, as well as collegiate athletic departments at universities such as North Carolina, Florida, and Stanford at revising team policies to more openly accommodate LBGT athletes. There is also a gender difference when it comes to the responses to male and female athletes who come out as LGBT. Male athletes coming out is treated more as a major announcement whereas female athletes face an expectation that their athleticism somehow implies they are more masculine, and therefore unsurprisingly LGBT. Brittney Griner softened the blowback from announcing her sexuality, by casually announced her coming out in an interview almost immediately after being drafted into the WNBA. This was a month before Jason Collins came out and there was a media uproar for him while there was barely any coverage over Griner's announcement. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Homosexuality in sports」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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