Etiqueta: USA

Opening the Sports Closet. Media Coverage

+ info: Journal of Sports Media (Lori Dann y Tracy Everbach, 2016)

Dann, Lori and Tracy Everbach. «Opening the Sports Closet: Media Coverage of the Self-Outings of Jason Collins and Brittney Griner.» Journal of Sports Media, vol. 11 no. 1, 2016, p. 169-192. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/jsm.2016.0003.

This textual-discourse analysis examines coverage of the coming-out revelations of two American professional athletes in major sports media. When Brittney Griner of the WNBA and Jason Collins of the NBA made their announcements within two weeks of each other in April 2013, sports media embraced both athletes by praising their courage and calling for tolerance. However, sports media treated Collins’s revelation as big news and Griner’s as routine. The sports world continues to cling to the idea that masculinity and heterosexuality are linked, in line with the concept of masculine hegemony. Because Griner defies societal constructions of femininity, she adheres to the stereotypical view that aggressive female athletes are “masculine.” The media discourse reflected these conceptual frameworks. Yet the positive media coverage in support of these gay athletes demonstrates that these constructions may be in flux.

A Photographer and Writer Document the Stories of Queer People Across the US

+ info: Hyperallergic.com

Right around the time that artist Devyn Galindo and writer Hope Steinman-Iacullo purchased their 1978 green Westfalia Vanagon, a New Yorker article caught the couple’s eye while doing some research on queer history. In her article, titled “Lesbian Nation,” Ariel Levy discusses the 1977 Van Dykes movement in which a caravan of lesbian van owners traveled across North America and Mexico. Their travels formed a sort of roving utopian community; they “avoided speaking to men unless they were waiters or mechanics.”

What the media get wrong in coverage of LGBTQ politicians

+ info: Columbia Jornalism Reviews

THE NEW REPUBLIC RECENTLY RETRACTED an op-ed on presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg that was filled with sexually graphic speculation and harmful tropes about the promiscuity of gay men. The article, “My Problem with Mayor Pete,” was widely denounced as “inappropriate,” “disgusting,” and homophobic—but it is far from the only writing about Buttigieg’s sexual identity that misses the mark. Public rumination on whether he is “out but not too out”or “gay enough” is a running part of the national political discourse.

Journalists have relatively limited experience covering sexual identity in the campaign world. There are few LGBTQ elected officials in the United States. Queer and trans representatives account for less than .013% of the nation’s 550,000 elective positions. To date, seven states have never had an LGBT representative at any level of government. Texas, the second-largest state in the country, has fewer than 10 LGBT representatives.

How LGBTQ candidates are perceived when they run for office is determined in large part by how the media treats their coming out stories, the historic nature of their candidacy, and their self-presentation. And the stories journalists report are shaped by ideas about sexual identity that are sometimes uninformed.