#lesbianvisibilityday2019 and stereotyping women athletes


Tennis is full of lesbians according to Margaret Court. If true, that would be great but, unfortunately, visible ‘out’ lesbians are thin on the ground. However, there is one among the last 18 winners of the last 18 tournaments1. Leaving aside the strangeness of these rotating results, let’s talk about why van Uytvanck2 is the only ‘out’ lesbian out of the 18 winners.

I was lucky enough to grow up seeing and admiring many lesbian players, such as Amelie Mauresmo, Jana Novotna, Hana Mandlikova, Lisa Raymond, Gigi Fernandez, Conchita Martinez, Rennae Stubbs, and, of course Martina Navratilova later on in her career playing doubles. So, I find it especially odd that there are now less visible lesbians on tour. Indeed, it’s become fashionable to advertise and give media coverage to women tennis players entering heterosexual marriages. We don’t have an opportunity to celebrate lesbian marriages of current or past players in the same way, despite gay marriage becoming legalised in many areas of the world for some years now. Although we have been able to celebrate Casey Dellacqua giving birth for the first time last month, expanding her family with Amanda Judd to 5! Great to see her sharing her baby news and helping lesbian visibility by showing us her lifestyle openly on her social media, not leaving it all to conjecture.

However, unlike players such as Wozniacki, Dellacqua was not on the cover of Vogue or Elle. We could argue she is not as famous as players who have been number 1 or won a Grand Slam. But, in the name of equal representation, why don’t we see lesbian tennis players in glamorous photo shoots on the cover of high profile mainstream women’s magazines? Dellacqua and Amanda Judd are certainly pretty enough for modelling and magazine features so that can’t be the reason. If lesbian players were given more off-court advertising and modelling opportunities earlier in their career it would raise their profile, making them more visible. Whereas, as it stands now, magazines promote heterosexual players at the expense of lesbian players which must be putting the latter at a financial disadvantage in off-court earnings. Surely now that ‘coming out’ no longer automatically means players lose sponsorship, unlike in Billie Jean King’s day, the next step forward is positive media coverage of current and past lesbian players in top celebrity magazines.

It’s time to move past homophobic stereotyping in sports which results in myths, such as, all sporty girls grow-up to be lesbians (and no sporty men are gay, a myth perpetuated by no visibly gay men on the ATP). This stereotyping has resulted in the bullying of girls before they have even had a chance to participate fully in a sport, especially one which has an image of being testosterone fuelled eg football3. So when we talk about getting girls into sport, how do we do that while still allowing a culture of abuse against sporty girls? As Olivia Hancock (a girl footballer who suffered homophobic abuse, both verbal and being physically punched, despite not identifying as a lesbian) points out, it shouldn’t matter who you are or grow-up to be, everyone should be treated respectfully as a human being4. Hence, I don’t think that covering heterosexual athletes more than gay and lesbian ones addresses stereotypes in sport. The lack of visibility, intentionally or not, feeds into the notion that being gay or lesbian is something to hide, deny, be embarrassed by or reject. This perpetuates the culture of using words for lesbians as an insult as though it is an undesirable identity. Thus, if lesbian athletes are not given off-court visibility and positive media coverage, then this adversely affects up-and-coming sporty girls and young women, irrespective of their sexuality.   

This has a knock-on effect on whether they continue to engage in sport or not, or choose different forms of exercise which are perceived as more feminine by being less strenuous, competitive and more sedate eg jogging rather than sprinting, or yoga rather than tennis. Have we left the 19th century yet? Apparently not, given a recent study by EIS which thinks breaking down barriers for women in sport amounts to focusing on how professional sportswomen’s bodies malfunction during performance eg a tennis match. In my opinion, this does not remove stereotypes, barriers or stigmas but reinforces the very sexist prejudices women have only recently somewhat shaken off. In the 20th century, women were considered so “fragile” that it was not until the 70’s that the ban on women running the Boston marathon was lifted5. So notions about girls’ and women’s bodies being more weak and feeble than boys’ and men’s and how their bodies impede their athletic participation and performance is not only nonsense but is a dangerous route to go down. It already contributes to a poor attitude towards girls’ ability in sport and encourages bullying eg Hancock came across parents winding up their sons on the football pitch, ‘Softie! You’re letting a girl get the ball!’6.

How long will it take for the argument to go from claiming exercise is too demanding for women’s bodies causing all sorts of aliments to claiming that they should not participate in athletic sport? There are worrying generalisations about how the female body is structured and how it reacts to exercise. I for one do not identify with any of the problems listed in a recent sensationalist article7 and find them highly implausible as a direct consequence of exercise for the female body. Just because some women athletes experience certain physical problems, this does not prove a causal link between having a female body and physical problems when undertaking athletic exercise.

One, there could be many reasons why women suffer certain symptoms which may be unrelated to being female. For instance, why assume a lack of bone density in a woman is possibly related to infrequent/absent periods? This certainly isn’t the cause of Andy Murray’s bone density problems, contributing to his hip replacement! And he’s not the only male tennis player to need major hip surgery. But no one puts his health issues and lack of bone density down to him possessing a male body. Quite the opposite, men are still perceived as universally all possessing greater bone density. Sports science also claims that women are more prone to knee problems than men due to their wider female hips, something that holds them back as runners. Well, Nadal certainly can’t say his recurring knee tendonitis is due to a female physique and wider hips! Nadal has the problem for whatever reason but were he a female player, would we assume it was due to female weakness? These gender assumptions could result in approaching injury treatment incorrectly with women because symptoms will be put down to their femaleness rather than investigating all the possible underlining causes so nothing is over-looked. As philosophy of science and metaphysics can show, one needs to take great care in analysing causal links and making extrapolations before drawing general or specific conclusions from them. Just because one event follows another, it doesn’t mean one must have caused the other. For instance, just because I trip over a matchstick and then the dog barks across the road, it doesn’t mean my tripping over caused the dog to bark.

Two, it creates body image stereotypes and assumptions which affect all women whether it applies to them or not. Bra fitting is not an issue for all women. This article8 already portrays women as being too stupid to find a bra which doesn’t suffocate them! Did I read that right? Perhaps they meant women in the 19th century struggled with athletic performance due to their corsets and restrictive clothing. Today, there are many high technology bras on the market which are designed for those athletes who are a larger cupsize. However, in extrapolating from the smaller sample in their research to sporty women in general is a leap too far. They do not speak for me when they claim athletic women struggle with bouncing breasts and physical stress responses such as incontinence and period problems worsening from exercise. For me, period pain is non-existent or minimal and if I do have it, I find it improves with vigorous exercise. Breast bounce is not an issue for me, with or without a bra and I’m sure I can’t be the only one. There are and have been players who have very streamline figures such as Justine Henin yet our types of female figures are hardly ever discussed. Women’s figures vary greatly and athletes are no exception. Yet it is female athletes who have problems which may arise from the functioning of their female bodies which are encouraged to speak out. This makes those, such as myself, who do not feel limited by their female bodies, invisible.

It also generates myths and prejudices in sport against transpeople and those who are intersex by encouraging a very binary view of people and physiques through very narrowly defining who women are, what the female experience is and what they are and are not capable of. Science is a complex subject with a range of studies which can draw different conclusions between them or over time. It is therefore, for instance, not as simple as merely stating men are stronger than women so transpeople and those who are intersex should be restricted in how they compete accordingly. Recently, it has been argued in the British Medical Journal that the view of how low women athletes’ testosterone should be is unscientific9. They maintain that “testosterone levels vary massively in men and women, with higher averages in elite athletes” and “testosterone is only one indicator of sports performance.”10

So, I don’t think any taboos can be lifted by propagating gender binary views of what is so-called normal for women or focusing on so-called problematic features of women’s bodies while ignoring their positive or advantageous features, such as greater stamina. After all, how would so many women get through childbirth if they were so inherently weak? And then on top of that, have a longer life expectancy than men? Why is it that women in so-called male pursuits eg army and sport are more likely to be the focus of gender assumptions about their weaknesses and physical abilities than women who undertake so-called female activities or careers such as dance?  I am unaware of ballerinas being called too feeble to carry out complex choreography. Indeed they have more physical demands on their bodies, including dancing on hard blocks at the ends of their pointe shoes, than male dancers and female athletes. Ballerinas are all extremely underpaid and undervalued for the enormous effort they make.

Is it, therefore, a case of picking over women’s physical capabilities, attributes and sexual or gender identity once a field, such as sport, begins to increase their pay and media coverage and with it fame?





1https://www.wtatennis.com/photos/vive-la-difference-18-titles-18-winners-2019-so-far



4ibid




8ibid

9 Majendie, M., ‘Testosterone rules for female athletes ‘unscientific’’ in Evening Standard, 21/3/19, p59

 10 ibid


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