Sunday, December 29, 2013

List fail

'Tis the season for year in review lists.
Outsports compiled its own "gay sports year in review." 
Year-end reviews can sometimes be cursory. But I was initially impressed by the lesser known and/or remembered stories writer Jim Buzinski mentioned in the piece including a gay male high school basketball coach who came out to his team and received tremendous support.
But when I reached the end I asked (out loud to the empty room), did they not include Brittney Griner? So I did a page search for "griner" to compensate for any poor reading skills on my part. Nothing. It was not just that Griner came out, or rather stated publicly that she was gay; one of the biggest parts of the story was the way in which she was, as a player at Baylor, compelled to not discuss her sexuality even after telling her recruiters that she was gay when she was just in high school.
To leave this story off the list is unacceptable whether on purpose or oversight. (Another list, also by Buzinski, posted around Thanksgiving "Things we give thanks for in 2013 gay sports"--did include the Griner story as part of the
And even if it was the latter, such a mistake comes at a bad time. Critiques have been mounting about how the movement for acceptance of gay athletes has been quite male-centric. Such an oversight, and the list in general, reflects this ongoing problem. Outsports has always been male-centric, but in an end-of-the-year list--something more microcosmic--it shouldn't be hard to pay a little more attention to women. I mean there might not be as many of the stories about naked or nearly naked male athletes that Outsports writers seem to enjoy putting on these lists, but it would still be a nice thing.