Dr. Roger LeBlanc

École de kinésiologie et de loisir

Université de Moncton

 

Friday, March 1, 2019

11:59 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Room 144, Human Kinetics

 

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“Understanding the Invisibility of Alpha Male Gay Athletes”

 

To date and in comparison, to other professional sports, few if any gay athletes have ever come out publicly during or even after their professional career in contact sports. To better understand the silence and invisibility of gay players within contact sports, two questions relevant to this phenomenon are explored within this presentation:

a): Why?  and b) How?

The reconstruction of the meanings generated by the questions pertaining to why and how gay athletes remain invisible and silenced help better understand the phenomenon and the effects of fear. Hence, the phenomenon of silence and invisibility of gay athletes is better understood using the Conspiracy of Silence model.

 The model is used to reflect the pervasiveness of homophobia in this sport and its power to silence and render invisible most if not all current professional athletes. Moreover, it leads to several important sociological, political, moral and philosophical questions.

Research that seeks to understand the gay athlete’s perspective on the existence of silence and invisibility is made even more pertinent as gay rights and equality are currently manifested within social institutions as well as most mainstream professional sports.