1. Improve Team and Coach Performance. Interpersonal tensions among teammates related to homophobia and acts of discrimination or harassment directed at LGBT people in athletics often have a negative effect on team performance as well as team unity. LGBT athletes and coaches perform best when they are treated with respect and accepted for who they are.
2. Decrease Suicide Rates. A 1989 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study reported that up to 30% of suicides among young people are lesbian and gay youth who are so isolated and depressed in the face of societal and peer condemnation that they kill themselves. College and high school coaches and sport organizations are working with this age group and have an opportunity to reduce such incidences.
3. Decrease the Incidence of Hate Crimes and Harassment. Statistics show that high school aged young men,often acting in groups, commit hate crimes and harassment directed at many minority groups, including lesbian and gay people.
4. Challenge Destructive Stereotypes. When LGBT coaches or athletes do not feel safe enough to disclose their identities, other athletes and coaches, in the absence of accurate information, believe that destructive stereotypes of LGBT people are true.
5. Reduce Fear, Ignorance, and Discrimination. Naming LGBT athletes and coaches as "the problem," rather than homophobia, perpetuates ignorance, fear, and discrimination.
6. Create Safe Environments. In a hostile athletic environment, LGBT athletes learn to feel shame and self-hatred and hide their identities at great psychological cost. Creating safe environment improves the psychological well-being of LGBT and heterosexual athletes.
7. Improve Team Chemistry and Learning Environment.When homophobia is not addressed, heterosexual young people are defensive and fearful because their prejudices about LGBT people are unchallenged. Homophobia? encourages athletes to fear association with gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender teammates or coaches. Reducing defensiveness and fear improves team chemistry and relationships and improves the teaching environment.
8. Remove Athletic Participation Barrier. Many heterosexual young people are afraid of being perceived as LGBT. As a result, they may restrict extracurricular interests, career choices, and friendships. Many women do not choose to participate in sport because they fear being called lesbians. Removing this barrier to participation increases the likelihood of more students being involved in sport.
9. Redefine Masculinity. Homophobia encourages men and boys to deny feelings and interests inconsistent with traditional conceptions of masculinity. Rigid conformity to masculine stereotypes may be harmful to their full psychological and social development.
10. Make Sport a Safe Place for Future Generations. Unless coaches and athletic directors take action against homophobia, the next generation of young coaches and athletes will inherit the same prejudices of previous generations of coaches and athletes.