Onlookers in the Davie Village cheer as members of the Qmunity queer resource centre celebrate the official opening of Pride House, the first gay-friendly spaces to be established during an Olympic Games.

Credit: Doug Shanks

NEWS: A more Pride-ful Olympics

Despite considerable political and social gains made by the LGBT community in recent years, only a small number of athletes in the professional sporting world have come out publicly as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered. The stakes remain high for those who do reveal their sexual identity, as exemplified by U.S. college basketball coach Rene Portland’s well-documented reign of terror over the Pennsylvania State University women’s basketball team. Portland, who resigned from her 27-year coaching position in 2007, was known to vilify and remove players she suspected to be lesbian. That same year, John Amaechi came out of the closet after retiring from the National Basketball Association, sparking controversy among other players.

It makes sense, then, that choosing to keep one’s sexual identity private can stem from a desire for privacy and consistency in one’s career, says Greg Larocque, president of the North American arm of the Gay and Lesbian International Sports Association (GLISA).

“I don’t think it’s a safe thing to do yet, when you’re trying to make money [as a professional athlete], because it kind of becomes your Achilles heel,” Larocque says. “I think that’s a reality in the corporate world: When you buck what some people see as mainstream thinking, you have a challenge to [earn] your way... Also, I think there’s a certain privacy people want to have around their [personal] lives.”

Those same conditions extend to heterosexual athletes, the most high-profile example being golfer Tiger Woods, who was trounced by media and the public when information about his extra-marital affairs became public, Larocque points out. “He offended what many individuals, particularly in the corporate sector, thought was a basic sense of ethics.”

Larocque also attributes the lack of ‘out’ pro athletes to a fear of being labelled the sports world’s voice of the gay community. “If you don’t want to be used as a model or whatever, I don’t think you’re going to come out,” he says. “And if you want to be earning your way, where the public voice and its intolerances have an impact, I don’t think you want to come out.”

Given the intolerance and injustices that continue to be directed towards gay athletes, Larocque commends the efforts of the community organizers who opened Pride House, the first queer-friendly spaces to be established during an Olympic Games, in Vancouver and Whistler as part of the 2010 Winter Games. A joyful opening celebration took place February 11 at Qmunity, a queer resource centre in the Davie Village.

“I’m not sure, quite frankly, that Pride House is necessary for us in Vancouver [or] in many parts of Canada, but I think it is critical for people that are coming here from other parts of the world to see how it is when you have a truly diverse and respectful society,” Larocque says. “Other countries, frankly, are behind us in terms of the evolution of these issues.”

Former Olympic swimmer and Vancouver resident Marion Lay is no stranger to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. “When I started in my career, I was terrified that someone would out me,” she told the audience at the Pride House opening. “In sport, coaches and administrators make many of the decisions, still, and they often are biased. Many people are afraid of coming out... Many of the athletes that you’ll be seeing in these Games are trying to lead a hidden life. At the same time, they’re trying to be the best they can be. It’s a very difficult place to be.”

Lay praised Pride House for its provision of a safe haven for gay athletes in an otherwise “fearful” sporting world. “There’s no safer place in the world than Vancouver to come out and make a very strong statement,” she said.

“This has never happened before,” Qmunity executive director Jennifer Breakspear told the crowd at the Pride House opening. “Never has there been something of this scope; never has there been a recognized entity that is a welcome space.”

As part of continuing the city’s tradition as a welcoming space for gay athletes, Vancouver will host the 2011 North American Outgames next summer, using 2010 Olympic venues. Recalling the GLISA North American Outgames that were held in Calgary in 2007, Larocque says, “I think it was a very good thing to do, to have them see the real people as opposed to the stereotypes. That’s what’s so critically important about Pride House: that people who visit it — whether they be athletes or whether they be coaches, or whether they be family and friends, or whether they just be visitors — they actually get to see that these people in this particular community or this particular lifestyle are no different from anybody else.”