By Pat Griffin
Ithaca College Conference on Sport and Sexuality First Ever
Ithaca College’s Sport, Sexuality and Culture Conference: Toward a More Human and Humane Sport Enterprise was organized by Dr. Ellen Staurowsky of Ithaca’s Department of Sports Management and Media, and attracted more than 150 attendees. Conference sessions included research presentations on such topics as “Perceptions of “Others: The Role of Heterosexism in the Decline of College Women Coaches,” “The Athletic Training Room as a Safe Space for Gay and Lesbian High School Athletes” and “The Trouble with Trans: A conversation on the Use of ’Transgender‘ Identities in Sport Scholarship.” Other sessions focused on media representations of female athletes; legal issues and sex and sexual orientation discrimination in sport; and gender, race, sexuality and culture.
Several sessions highlighted applied programs that work directly with or provide resources for athletic administrators, coaches, athletes or parents. It Takes A Team! Director Pat Griffin was part of one such panel. Griffin described It Takes A Team! and its resources and then focused on outlining, from her perspective and experience, persistent challenges and signs of progress in addressing homophobia and heterosexism in collegiate athletics.
Jeff Sheng’s “Fearless” photo exhibit of LGBT athletes decorated the walls of one of the large meeting rooms, and the LGBT student-athlete group, Our Group, had several members among attendees. The photo exhibit and presence of Our Group provided human faces to remind conference presenters and audience members of the importance of addressing LGBT issues in sport.
One highlight of the conference was a two-hour evening talk by openly gay ex-NBA player John Amaechi. This talk was open to the public and attracted a large crowd beyond the conference attendees. Amaechi proved once again to be a passionate, knowledgeable, humorous, engaging and inspiring speaker. Amaechi talked about his own experience and connected LGBT issues in sport with larger human rights struggles around the world. He also made clear the importance of addressing intersections of sexual orientation and gender identity with race, religion and class.
The conference provided an opportunity for both established and young scholars to share their work and connect with each other. Because the conference also included those who are working directly with coaches and athletes, the connections between research and practice were made; connections that are sometimes lost in scholarly conferences.