Female sports, male jock journos and Blithering Idiot Syndrome

Montreal and Toronto packed the Bell Centre for their Professional Women’s Hockey League skirmish last weekend.

As with many who stub their toes in public these days, the character assassination of Gregg Doyel has been swift, voluminous and “off-with-his-head!” in tone.

He’s become the Pinata of Print, battered fore and aft in mainstream media and on social media.

Doyel’s trespass?

Basically, being a doofus.

For reasons known only to himself, Doyel held to the notion that a press conference to introduce Caitlin Clark to the Indiana Fever faithful last week was about him, not the fresh new face of hoops in America. He then delivered a mea culpa that definitely was about him, not her. In short, he unleashed an ego the size of the Goodyear Blimp, at the same time confirming the existence of Blithering Idiot Syndrome (more on that later).

If you missed it, here’s how it went down:

The Fever trotted out Clark two days after they’d used the first shout-out in the Women’s National Basketball Association draft to claim the University of Iowa star as their own. Doyel was among the assembled news snoops and one of the first invited to ask a question, which the Indianapolis Star scribe prefaced by flashing a hand-heart, Clark’s signature gesture to her family post-game.

“You like that?” said Clark.

“I like that you’re here. I like that you’re here,” replied Doyel.

“Ya, I do that at my family after every game.”

“Okay, well, start doing it to me and we’ll get along just fine.”

Eeeeeuw! I think the creep-o-metre just went kaflooey.

It was an awkward bit of business with gusts up to ignorant, because it got worse.

When called upon again, Doyel said this to Fever head coach Christie Sides: “You just were given the keys to that. What are you gonna do with it?”

That? It?

Oh my.

Many have submitted that no jock journo, male or female, would be inclined to refer to, say, LeBron James or Steph Curry as a “that” or an “it,” but those words tripped off Doyel’s tongue as easily as if he was talking about a raccoon rooting through his rubbish bin.

Well, women aren’t thats or its or raccoons. They’re people, some of whom happen to excel at sports.

Which brings me to Blithering Idiot Syndrome.

It’s a curious abnormality that afflicts the male species on press row (some, but certainly not all) when they feel obliged to stray over to the distaff portion of the playground and report on the women at play. The lads are rendered clueless, and in-grained beliefs and built-in biases, if not colossal stupidity, slithers into their copy and/or commentary.

Thus, in the wake of the Doyel sideshow, the suggestion has been made that male jock journos know squat about how to cover, and interact with, female athletes.

Here’s sports scribe/commentator Jemele Hill: “Another upside of Caitlin Clark’s popularity is that it is going to finally force the sports media to grow up. Sports media has been extremely complicit in marginalizing and infantilizing women’s sports. A lot of the commentary and coverage is now coming from people who have little experience covering female athletes.”

Here’s Jackie Powell of MSNBC: “Sports coverage has generally been aimed at satisfying the stereotypical white, male sports fan. What’s going to happen, then, when journalists who are used to appeasing the interests and tastes of mostly men have to write to the interests of WNBA fans, a more diverse demographic?”

Hmmm. A more diverse demographic. Diversity is female sports, and lord help those dear boys on press row once they discover that scads of gay women populate the field and stadium pews.

Oh, yes, we all know that lesbians are plentiful in female sports. Somewhere between 25 and 30 per cent of the WNBA roll call is out and proud. The Canadian women’s hockey team that won the 2022 Olympic gold medal featured nine out gay players. Nine. That’s 39 per cent of the roster. Meantime, there’s an abundance of LGBT(etc.) players on World Cup soccer sides (96 in 2023), not to mention the National Women’s Soccer League. It follows, therefore, that a high number of lesbians count themselves among the constituents of elite female sports leagues, and they’ll be looking to read and watch informative dispatches in print, on air and online, not tripe.

But I digress.

The gay component is a sidebar to the main issue, that being the schooling of male jock journos who, until the ascendancy of women’s futbol, hockey and, especially, basketball into the consciousness of the public in recent years, were quite content to carry on with business as usual. Which is to say ignore, ignore, ignore women’s leagues.

The very idea that the rabble is now following, and enjoying, female sports with record head counts and unparalleled viewership must be such an inconvenience to a male-dominated industry (a study shows that less than 20 per cent of sports staffs at 100 newspapers and websites in North America are female). Minds must be a-boggle.

Truthfully, though, the notion that male jock journos require an immediate crash course on how to properly cover female athletes seems dopey in the extreme.

I mean, come on, man. Whether it’s Nelly Korda or Scottie Scheffler shooting under-par golf, surely the dudes on press row ought to be able to tell the story of a person who’s arrived at the pinnacle of their sport. Does it actually matter that Scottie has chin whiskers and Nelly ties her hair in a topknot?

I’d like to give the lads the benefit of the doubt and suggest Jemele Hill and Jackie Powell are conjuring up a faux boogeyman, but the Doyel buffoonery makes that difficult. Ditto the scribblings of someone like Postmedia columnist Steve Simmons, who appears to be blissfully unaware that his opinionating is sexist in tone.

For example, when National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman announced last week that he’d be plopping a franchise in Salt Lake City, Utah, this was Simmons’ reaction:

“Why won’t Utah have a name and logo for its first season? It’s April. The season starts in October. Surely, a name, a logo and a jersey is more than possible by then.”

Rather benign, wouldn’t you say?

Now compare that to what he wrote when the National Women’s Hockey League introduced a no-name, no-logo, no-jersey Toronto franchise in 2020.

“It has been officially announced that Toronto has been awarded an expansion team. What hasn’t been announced: the team’s name; the team’s logo; the team’s venue. And some of those things, if not all of them, can make an outsider rather skeptical and troubled about the future of this kind of endeavour. You don’t gain credibility by announcing a team with no name, no place to play, and no big-name players. When you have all that in place, then make the announcement. The press release referred to the expansion team as a ‘first class team of professionals.’ Time will answer that, but the new Toronto Whatevers are not off to a great start.”

Rather harsh, wouldn’t you say?

Also sexist. I mean, Simmons basically gives the Utah Whatevers, a men’s team in a men’s league, a questioning tsk-tsk, yet the Toronto Whatevers, a women’s team in a women’s league, was taken to the woodshed and bludgeoned. (Simmons also has repeatedly mangled the names of female leagues.)

It’s Blithering Idiot Syndrome in motion.

But, hey, perhaps dudes like Doyel and Simmons have actually done the lads on press row a solid—they’ve showed them how not to do it.

As Hill and Powell submit, class is definitely in session.

PWHL debut was a red-letter day for the Pride Rainbow

I don’t recall the exact moment goose bumps began to sprout on my arms, and I can’t say for certain when I first reached for a Kleenex to dab at my moist eyes.

What I can tell you is this: What went down at Mattamy Athletic Centre on the first day of this new year tugged hard, but not heavy, on my heartstrings, and I’m not sure any sporting event since Canada vs. the Soviet Union in 1972 has held me in such an emotional grip.

This was a red-letter day on so many levels. For girls/women. For female sports. For the LGBT(etc.) community, shunned by the National Hockey League in the past 12 months but wholly embraced on Monday afternoon, as the dream of a one-size-fits-all Professional Women’s Hockey League gave way to reality.

That reality was Toronto vs. New York in the inaugural skirmish in PWHL history, an ‘if you can see it, you can be it’ moment for so many toque-topped kids among the 2,537 witnesses who’d gathered for the first of what will be 12 sold-out games this winter at Mattamy AC, inside the shell of fabled Maple Leaf Gardens.

It was a landscape-shifting occasion and, seemingly at every turn, it included an LGBT(etc.) presence.

There was a mention of LGBT rights on the public address system, and Billie Jean King, a gay woman and member of the PWHL board, was there to drop one of two pucks for the ceremonial faceoff, the other handled by Jayna Hefford, also a gay woman and senior VP of hockey operations for the new league. Joining them were the team captains, Blayre Turnbull of Toronto and New York’s Micah Zandee-Hart, another gay woman. The two women opted for a hug, rather than a handshake.

Billie Jean also had a sit-down natter with Andi Petrillo of CBC, during which she mentioned her wife, Ilana Kloss, another of the PWHL’s driving forces, and said the players were “so excited. They keep pinching themselves.”

Perhaps the most influential woman in the history of female sports, King entered the Toronto boudoir to shout out the names of the starting six, at the same time suggesting the women absorb the moment.

“This is a day to cherish for the rest of your lives,” said the tennis legend and equal rights champion, wearing a wrist watch with a Pride rainbow band. “I cannot tell you how meaningful it’s going to be as you get older.”

There can only be one first game, and this was it, two teams-to-be-named-later sending the PWHL off on its maiden voyage. For now, they’re just Toronto and New York, but nicknames and logos are in the hopper for all six franchises (Ottawa, Montreal, Boston and Minneapolis/St. Paul are the others).

The final tally, 4-0 for the visiting New Yorkers, was important yet not important.

“Today, it was about soaking it all in,” said Cheryl Pounder, a former Canadian national team player and now a TSN natterbug.

These dovetailing moments had been almost five years in the making, beginning spring 2019 when the Canadian Women’s Hockey League was razed to the ground and, scant days later, the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association rose from those ashes.

Rather than throw in with the Premier Hockey Federation (nee National Women’s Hockey League), the finest female players on the planet became a band of barnstormers (Dream Gap Tour), flitting to-and-fro across the tundra and engaging in glorified scrimmages largely ignored by the rabble and mainstream media.

The PHF and PWHPA shared a common interest—one sustainable, professional super league that would allow the women to quit their day jobs—but they didn’t share methodology.

The PHF was an actual league, whereas the Dream Gappers had a beer league vibe and a simple-minded and flawed strategy—trash talk the PHF out of existence; failing that, wait for NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to file papers and adopt the Hockey Orphan Annies.

Both sides were prepared to soldier on in conflict this winter, but Mark and Kimbra Walter, at the urging of King and Kloss, opened their vast vault (personal net worth $5.9 billion) in June and purchased the PHF, adding to an ownership portfolio that includes the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chelsea FC, Los Angeles Sparks and a wildlife reserve in Florida.

Detente and one super league had arrived in Ponytail Puck, and what ensued was a six-month sprint, headed by Stan Kasten, taking the Walter group to go-time and all that gay-friendly energy at Mattamy AC in downtown Toronto on Monday.

It’s noteworthy that two of the game’s goal-scorers—Alex Carpenter and Jill Saulnier—are gay, and perhaps the most poignant moment was delivered in the broadcast booth, when the all-female crew squeezed in a mention of gay spouses/retired Olympians Gillian Apps and Meghan Duggan and newborn news (also a pic) of baby Sophie, a sister for George and Olivia.

As a member of the LGBT(etc.) collective, I took nourishment in all the gay-positive attention, especially given Bettman’s buffoonish and idiotic bans on Pride jerseys and Pride tape, which permitted bigotry to take root, if not flourish, in the NHL.

It was a beautiful occasion, this PWHL birth. An emotional occasion. An occasion special enough to make you want to believe that hockey truly is for everyone.

Homophobia and the hockey rink

It’s no secret that hockey has a gay issue.

Check that: Men’s hockey has a gay issue.

We need only look at the highest level of the game—the National Hockey League—for evidence to confirm the existence of anti-gay sentiment, and it’s in abundance.

Consider:

• No openly gay man has skated in an NHL game, nor has one come out once the cheering had stopped. (A woman has played, but never a gay man.)
• Eight of 700-plus NHL players refused to wear Pride-themed warmup jerseys last season, citing scripture or a fear that Russia strongman Vlad Putin would turn them into a pillar of salt as the reason for not playing dress-up.
• NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman cowered like school kid caught smoking in the washroom and allowed the eight homophobes to rule the day, banning all specialty jerseys from pre-game warmups. Only those with an IQ that matches Bobby Orr’s sweater number (4) recognized it as anything other than an anti-gay edict.
• Those same decision-makers noted that numerous players had been wrapping their hockey sticks in Pride Tape, which, they reasoned, surely had to be the work of the devil. Thus the Rainbow wrap was placed on the NHL’s list of banned substances. Players were no longer allowed to use it in games, at practice or to patch up a tear in their La-Z-Boy recliner. (The fact that the Lords of Shinny walked it back and Rainbow wrap is now permitted changed nothing.)

But that’s the NHL. What about hockey as a whole? Is homosexuality a hangup at lower levels?

Well, I’m glad you asked.

Hockey Canada, you see, has delivered something called the Tracking Maltreatment in Sanctioned Hockey Report, and its 17 pages of data includes the issue of discrimination. More to the point, of the 1,872 maltreatment complaints submitted to HC’s independent third party (ITP) between July 1, 2022, and June 20, 2023, 34.1 per cent went into the discrimination file.

Now, before we proceed, perhaps we should provide the HC definition of discrimination, found in Section 11 of the Hockey Canada Rule Book:

Rule 11.4 – Discrimination strictly relates to any player or team official who engages in verbal taunts, insults or intimidation based on discriminatory grounds. Discriminatory grounds include the following, without limitation:
• Race, national or ethnic origin, skin colour or language spoken;
• Religion, faith or beliefs;
• Age;
• Sex, sexual orientation or gender identity/expression;
• Marital or familial status;
• Genetic characteristics; and,
• Disability.

With that in mind, I direct your attention to two telling sentences in the maltreatment report that grabbed my attention:

1) “The type of discrimination resulting in Rule 11.4 penalties called in the 2022-23 season was similar in breakdown to the 2021-22 season, with sexual orientation/ gender identity as the most common type of discrimination (italics emphasis added).”

2) “Of the Rule 11.4 penalties called, a minimal number were levied against girls/women.”

It figures that of the 913 penalty calls for discrimination there’d be fewer in the women’s game, because females make up less than 20 per cent of registered HC players. But we also know that being gay isn’t a hindrance in Ponytail Puck, at least not in Canada.

Caroline Ouellette, for example, was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame just last month. Her wife—yes, wife (Julie Chu)—had a front-row seat at the ceremony. Caroline wasn’t the first lesbian to receive the ultimate individual honor, nor will she be the last. Meantime, Canada’s gold medal-winning side at the 2022 Olympic Games featured nine lesbians, the gayest lineup to reach the top step of the podium in any sport. Ever. Moreover, when the Professional Women’s Hockey League drops the puck next month, lineups will be dotted with gay players.

So this is a dude hangup, a notion supported by studies, one of which offers this submission:

“Discriminatory behaviours also deter LGBTQ+ youth from playing sport. Greenspan, Griffith, and Watson (2019) found evidence is stronger for males than it is for females and trans people, concluding, there is now ‘ample data to suggest the prejudicial nature (of sport environments) can serve as a deterrent for athletic participation for gay males, in particular, as this population appears to be targeted harshly.’”

That same study also found that male athletes are more apt to spew homophobic language than females.

Thus, since the Hockey Canada maltreatment report focused on 480,680 mostly male youth players, the instances of discrimination based on sexual orientation/gender identity is a most regrettable bit of business.

There’s a school of thought, you see, that suggests our young people lean more toward diversity and inclusion than older generations, and that gives rise to the notion that gay kids won’t be chased away from hockey by bigotry. There’s hope they’ll stay the course, like Luke Prokop, now with Milwaukee Admirals of the American Hockey League.

But perhaps, given the results of the HC report, that’s believing in unicorns and fairy dust.

Reality tells us that homophobes walk among us in every nook and cranny of society. Always have. Always will. But it sure would be nice to get them the hell out of the hockey rink.

Where is Gary Bettman’s head at?

Gary Bettman

Is there a method to Gary Bettman’s madness?

Or perhaps madness is the National Hockey League commissioner’s method.

I just don’t know.

I mean, if there’s a measure of logic behind Bettman’s baffling relationship with the LGBT(etc.) community, I’m struggling to find it.

Think about it.

A decade ago, the NHL hopped into bed with the You Can Play Project, a forward-thinking group determined to make the sporting arena a welcoming and safe place for the LGBT(etc.) community.

Its mission statement: “The You Can Play Project works to ensure the safety and inclusion for all who participate in sports, including LGBTQ+ athletes, coaches and fans. We achieve this by creating a community of allies that is able to foster a true sense of belonging. This becomes possible when sports teams sharpen the focus on the person’s skills, work ethic, and competitive spirit, not their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. You Can Play seeks to challenge the culture of locker rooms and spectator areas by developing a culture of respect, in every player, coach and fan.”

And this was Bettman in April 2013: “Our motto is Hockey Is For Everyone, and our partnership with You Can Play certifies that position in a clear and unequivocal way. While we believe that our actions in the past have shown our support for the LGBT community, we are delighted to reaffirm through this joint venture with the NHL Players’ Association that the official policy of the NHL is one of inclusion on the ice, in our locker rooms and in the stands.”

Given the homophobic culture of men’s hockey, it was an admirable kinship between the NHL and YCPP.

Yet here we are today, 10 months into an anti-gay push unlike anything we’ve seen in major men’s sports, and it’s fair to wonder where the hell Bettman’s head is at. Is he an ally or a faux friend? Is his alignment with You Can Play nothing but window dressing?

Well, let’s follow the bouncing puck and see where it takes us.

Last January, Commish Gary gave players his official okie-dokie to reveal their anti-gay leanings, scant days after Ivan Provorov, then of the Philly Flyers, picked up his Bible and said showing support for the LGBT(etc.) collective didn’t square with scripture. Thus, the Russian Orthodox defender declined to don a Pride jersey for pregame warmup.

When the stuff hit the fan and many among the rabble heaped a huge helping of scorn on Provorov and the NHL, one of Bettman’s minions issued the following advisory: “Players are free to decide which initiatives to support, and we continue to encourage their voices and perspectives on social and cultural issues.”

That emboldened seven more of the NHL’s 700-plus players—James Reimer, Ilya Samsonov, Eric and Marc Staal, Ilya Lybushkin, Andrei Kuzmenko and Denis Gurianov—to join the NHL’s Rainbow Resistance Movement and out themselves as anti-gay by the end of the season.

That, in turn, prompted Commish Gary (surely at the urging of certain team owners) to get out of the garment industry in June. That is, specialty jerseys were abolished. All of them. But anyone with a lick of common sense the size of a gnat recognized it as an anti-gay gambit. No player, after all, had ever balked at wearing military colors, or Indigenous attire or a uni in support of fighting cancer, etc. Only the Pride rainbow. It was, to use Bettman’s word, a “distraction.” It had to go.

Which brought us to early October, when the NHL’s Rainbow Resistance Movement arrived at the crossroads of Idiotic Lane and Dimwit Drive: Bettman banned Pride tape. Players were no longer permitted to use it on their sticks during games, in warmup or at practice. Essentially, it was a don’t-say-gay gag order.

To reiterate my remark from last week, it was the silliest and dumbest directive in NHL history.

But wait. Commish Gary gave his head a shake, or someone did it for him, and the Pride tape ban was lifted on Tuesday.

So, again, does anyone know where Bettman’s head is at?

I mean, okay, he did the right thing two weeks after doing the wrong thing, and the league’s on-ice employees are now permitted to wrap their hockey sticks with Pride tape, but, for gawd’s sake, why did we spend a fortnite talking about something so silly when the focus should have been on the start of the current crusade? What was Commish Gary’s aim in the rainbow ban? What is his end game re the LGBT(etc.) community?

Everything that’s gone down during the past 10 months is so very strange and, given the NHL’s allyship with You Can Play, it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

So what changed and who are the forces behind this year’s anti-gay initiatives?

Team owners are whispering (barking?) in Commish Gary’s ears at all times, so perhaps a handful of them have been driving this bus.

After all, a robust anti-LGBT(etc.) sentiment exists in North America, and it isn’t unthinkable that it’s found its way into the NHL board room. Team owners are Bettman’s bosses. He does their bidding. It’s hard to imagine that he’s the sole architect of this epic bungling.

Commish Gary has to wear it, though, and it’s a terrible look.

The NHL won’t let me love hockey anymore

Once upon a long time ago, I loved skating and hockey.

I took my first tentative stride on a frozen pond at age six or seven and, scant seconds later, I went splat! and suffered my first bloodied, swollen lip. It was the size of a Michelin tire.

I quickly became a serial stumbler on skates. Compared to me, Bambi was Sonja Henie.

It was as if my mission in life was to serve as a crash-test dummy and confirm the unforgiving firmness of ice.

My wobbly ways led to elbows and knees bruised like rotting bananas, and I soon concluded that falling with such regularity was something I didn’t enjoy. I wanted no part of it. Piano lessons seemed the better bet. They were, after all, conducted in the warmth and coziness of our living room, and not once had my upper lip hit the keyboard and bloated up like my Uncle Jim’s tummy after an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Alas, some wise acre thought it would be a swell idea to sign me up to play hockey. That’s right, it wasn’t enough that I fell on my own; now the other kids would be allowed to knock me down. Deliberately. Without retribution.

Except I was such a dreadful skater that they stuck me in goal, only to discover that I couldn’t stop a puck either, so I spent the rest of my first hockey winter watching from a board-side snow bank.

My second year of Little NHL was no less a disaster. I was recognized league wide as the worst player, and scored my only goal of the season in the final game. It took no amount of skill, other than standing on my wonky ankles at the lip of the crease and shoveling the puck two feet into an empty net.

I harbored zero fondness for hockey. It was a curse.

Then an odd thing occurred in my third winter of hockey. As if by magic, my legs and feet worked in concert. I could skate. Fast. I went from one goal to 50-plus and became the Little NHL scoring champion. Our league all-star team won the Pee Wee title against neighboring communities.

Best of all, many of the kids who once teased and taunted me for being so small, frail and, to use their term, a sissy now wanted to buddy-up.

I loved hockey.

Hockey became my joy, the rink my safe place. My escape from demons. I would go to the outdoor freeze after dinner each night to skate and play shinny in the worst weather, and all concerns vanished. Nothing mattered, not the inevitable scolding I’d receive for my so-so report card, not the back of my dad’s hand, not being grounded for an imagined violation, not gender confusion. It was just skating and hockey and a fantasy-like state of existence for a few hours.

It stayed that way throughout my youth, then fate took a very favorable turn and I was hired to write sports for a newspaper, fresh out of high school.

It was a dream job that I lived for 30 years. I covered everything from Pee Wee to the National Hockey League for five different dailies, and sat on press row in story-studded citadels like Madison Square Garden, the Montreal Forum and Maple Leaf Gardens. I enjoyed natters with giants of the game—Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Vladislav Tretiak—and walked among the fabulous—Jean Beliveau—and the felonious—Humpty Harold Ballard and Alan Eagleson.

I was there when Gretzky made his professional debut in Indianapolis, I was there when the Winnipeg Jets won the final Avco World Trophy, and I was there when the Edmonton Oilers took ownership of the Stanley Cup for the first time.

I loved hockey. Then.

Now?

Gary Bettman won’t allow me to love hockey anymore.

The NHL commissioner, you see, continues to trumpet the “Hockey Is For Everyone” mantra, but we know his pants are on fire. It’s his “Don’t Say Gay” league’s Trademark Big Lie, which some of us have been emphasizing since 2018, and many among the rabble and media are just now wising up to that reality.

They started to clue in when Bettman and team bankrolls put the kibosh on players wearing specialty theme jerseys in support of various causes/groups in pregame warmup, a directive that even the most naive should have seen as an anti-gay attack. If doubt remained, the NHL’s Rainbow Resistance Movement arrived at its predictable end-game this week with an idiotic ban on Pride tape.

That is, NHL players no longer will be permitted to wrap their hockey sticks with Pride rainbow tape anywhere on earth, except perhaps in a game of road hockey with the neighborhood kids. But, even at that, they’ll likely have to do it under the cloak of darkness, for fear mysterious men in black might approach and confiscate their sticks and sponge puck.

And that’s the tipping point for me, because it’s just stupid.

Bettman/owners have totally caved to seven Bible-thumpers and/or Putin Puppets who refused to wear Pride colors last season.

Look, I spent enough time in men’s hockey to know toxins have always existed—misogyny, racism, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, bullying—and they seem more prevalent today, undoubtedly due to the shifting of people’s sensibilities. (Ask the disgraced Mike Babcock or Kevin Constantine about that.) But you can’t light a room by placing a basket over the candle, and you don’t eradicate homophobia by being homophobic.

So this is truly a sad moment in time. The NHL, so full of toxins, has become the toxin.

I’d remind Bettman that his NHL and the NHL Players Association issued a Declaration of Principles in September 2017, the last of which read: “We believe all hockey programs should provide a safe, positive and inclusive environment for players and families regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status. Simply put, hockey is for everyone.”

I sorry, boys, but I don’t want to hear about hockey being ‘for everyone’ when the NHL remains the least diverse of all major men’s sports leagues in North America, and it refuses to permit its on-ice employees to support a marginalized group for 15 minutes once a year.

There’s nothing to love in that.

A great day for Ponytail Puck and gay icon Billie Jean King

Billie Jean King and Taylor Heise.

Even from a great distance, you could feel the good vibe at CBC headquarters in downtown Toronto on Monday.

You could see it in the smiles on your flatscreen TV, in the purple carpet, in the outfits, in the urchins seeking autographs and a word with their hockey heroes. You could hear it in Alina Muller’s quivering voice and in so many other voices, so excited and, at the same time, somewhat disbelieving.

It was the realness of the surreal.

“I keep pinching myself,” Billie Jean King said in a natter with Andi Petrillo of the CBC. “Like, is it really happening today after all these years of working?”

Yes, Billie Jean, there really is a Professional Women’s Hockey League, and Christmas had arrived three months and a week early for the finest female players on the planet, ninety of them wrapped up and delivered to six franchises in a dispersal of hockey talent like we’d not seen before.

Billie Jean was at the inaugural PWHL draft not simply to lend high celebrity to the occasion, but as one of the new league’s founding partners and a woman who knows a thing or two about pioneering in sports.

“Oh wow, what a day,” the tennis legend and equal rights icon said softly after she had slow-poked her way to the dais. (Two months shy of her 80th birthday, Billie Jean isn’t quite as spry as back in the day, when she was winning tennis Grand Slams on the regular, but then who is?)

There was a sense of relief, if not exhaustion, in her voice, as if a great burden had been pried from her mind.

And it had been, actually.

The creation of the PWHL had been a journey of four-plus years, starting with a March 2019 phone call from Kendall Coyne Schofield, one of America’s leading ladies of Ponytail Puck who had a four-word request of Billie Jean: “Would you help us?”

The response was “let’s talk, let’s listen.”

That was ground zero for a startup league that now features six-franchises—New York, Boston, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto—with a roll call of six general managers, six coaches and 108 players, 90 of them selected Monday and another 18 signed to three-year contracts prior to this milestone draft.

All six outfits are still teams-to-be-named-later, and we’ve yet to learn which rinks they’ll call home once the puck is dropped in January next year, but that’s part of the start-from-scratch process.

“A trailblazer is one that blazes a trail to lead and include others,” Billie Jean said, peering through a pair of fuchsia-and-purple eyeglasses. “The first person to do something or go somewhere, who shows that it is also possible for other people. Trailblazing is bold, it’s brave, and it can be very scary and lonely. But it’s worth it, it’s really worth it. It’s worth it for each one of us who have fought so hard for this day, and it’s worth it for the generations of women and girls who will come behind us. This is an incredible moment, but it’s not about a single moment, it’s about a movement. Finally giving women professional hockey players the structure, the support and the platform they deserve, that hockey deserves. I proudly stand here celebrating these trailblazers. And the best part? We are just getting started.”

You could have heard a ball of cotton hit the floor as she spoke to a gathering of a few hundred at CBC HQ.

Billie Jean then introduced Taylor Heise as first among the Chosen Ones (to the Minnesota franchise) and 89 women followed her to the stage.

Left unsaid during the four-hour landmark extravaganza was that it was a great day for the LGBT(etc.) community.

Billie Jean King, of course, is a gay icon, and both she and her wife, Ilana Kloss, are PWHL founding partners. Erin Ambrose, the sixth player selected in the first round by Montreal, is gay. Ditto Jamie Lee Rattray (Boston), who mentioned her partner, and Jill Saulnier (New York).

They join other notable out gay players Marie Philip-Poulin and her fiancé Laura Stacey (Montreal), Brianne Jenner (Ottawa), Alex Carpenter (New York), Micah Zander-Hart (New York) and Emily Clark (Ottawa), each of whom agreed to a three-year contract during the PWHL free agent period.

That speaks to where female professional sports is at in terms of diversity compared to the men’s portion of the playground. It’s become a bio footnote with the women, who can be comfortable in their own skin, whereas a male athlete coming out still generates man-bites-dog headlines. There are zero out gay men in North America’s five major pro team sports.

The National Hockey League, for one, talks a good game about diversity and inclusion, but the PWHL lives it.

How long they’ll live it is the million-dollar question, although the financial backing of billionaire couple Mark and Kimbra Walter suggests they’re in it for the long haul.

“For all of our fans, our job now is earning, earning the investment of your time and your support,” said Billie Jean, a Pride rainbow band on her wrist watch. “We have to earn that, and that is a challenge we happily accept.”

Betting on sports has become all the rage, and I wouldn’t want to bet against the gay icon.

Will the last female transgender athlete to leave the arena please turn out the lights?

Once upon a lifetime, I played chess.

I wasn’t very good at it, not like those clever kids who can play, and win, multiple games simultaneously, but I once managed to register a stalemate vs. the most basic of chess computers (at the third-lowest level) in the 1970s, when I was no longer a kid.

That modest achievement failed to arrest the attention of world champion Bobby Fischer, and I took his indifference as a clear signal that I best not give up my day job, which was mostly a night job writing and editing sports copy at the Winnipeg Tribune. The pawns, the knights and the rooks would have to get along without me, and I without them.

Until this past week, I hadn’t devoted much ponder to chess since then, the exception being in the 1990s when Garry Kasparov went mano-a-machine vs. Deep Blue, an IBM computer.

Kasparov, at that time world No. 1, whupped Deep Blue in their initial six-game test (4-2), but the computer exacted revenge in the rematch (3½-2½ ). Their two exchanges generated headlines globally, even in the sports sections of some newspapers, and the brainiacs of board games had their 15 minutes of fame.

Fast forward to another century, which is to say the here and now.

Chess is once again generating headlines because the International Chess Federation (FIDE) has ruled that transgender females have “no right” to join in the checkmate fun. At least not in FIDE-sanctioned women’s competition. They can play vs. the dudes (or a computer, one supposes) but the damsels are off limits.

“In the event that the gender was changed from a male to a female the player has no right to participate in official FIDE events for women until further FIDE’s decision is made. Such decision should be based on further analysis and shall be taken by the FIDE Council at the earliest possible time, but not longer than within 2 (two) years period,” is how FIDE worded it in the updated handbook.

The Lords of Checkmate provide no explanation for their puzzling posture, leaving us to conclude that they believe biological women are too daft to match strategy with their transgender foes or men. Can you say misogyny and transphobia, kids?

But wait. FIDE vows to gather deep “research evidence” on the matter, like mulling the benefits of a Sicilian or Scandinavian Defence, but in reality they’ll give it no more thought than the breakfast menu at McDonald’s.

After all, what’s to learn? They’ve already joined the nasty and relentless anti-transgender lobby and pushed it into a new lane, from the physical to the cerebral. Instead of yelping that transgender females are bigger, faster and stronger, FIDE is now inferring that cis women are lacking a full load of hay in the loft.

How FIDE plans to prove that a great gap in grey matter exists is a mystery, but I’m guessing they’ll cobble together a group of people with egg-shaped heads and their findings will be as hair-brained as the chess ban. Little wonder US Chess along with federations in England, Germany, France and Finland have given thumbs down to the FIDE policy and will continue to welcome transgender players.

“While we do take FIDE policies into consideration, we independently establish our own policies and procedures,” US Chess Senior Director of Stategic Communication Daniel Lucas told The Messenger.

Here’s the reality of the situation:

The Lords of Checkmate want transgender females included in their game like Donald Trump wants another sheriff with a subpoena knocking on his door.

FIDE doesn’t actually believe transgender females have more smarts than cis women. That’s pure rubbish and insulting in the extreme. And they know it. But they, like so many sports groups ahead of them in the monkey see-monkey do, anti-trans queue, want trans chess players to know their proper place, just as the lords of rowing and rugby and swimming and cycling and World Athletics, etc. have already done. And like more than 20 U.S. states that have enacted laws to have them exiled.

In the anti-trans lobbyist’s perfect world, the Gender Police would gather all the female transgender athletes and ship them off to a remote locale, the way the British did with their dispensable nogoodniks in the 1700s/1800s. Or perhaps they’d rather create transgender colonies, where the sports lepers can run and jump and move their knights and rooks in anonymity.

Ridiculous? Of course. But no more illogical than the notion biological females were given partial portions when brains were passed out.

I now wonder what sports governing body will next join the anti-trans lobby, because there are people in positions of power and influence (politicians, media) who won’t be satisfied until the transgender female athlete in women’s competition is extinct.

Perhaps it will be the World Pool-Billiard Association. After all, there are striking similarities between chess and, say, 8-ball. Neither is physically demanding, since it takes only marginally more strength to push those 15 little balls around a patch of green cloth than it does to slide a Bishop diagonally across a chess board to capture the Queen. And a cue weighs what, 17-21 ounces? Why, that’s barely bigger than the swizzle stick in a FIDE board member’s cocktail glass.

But here’s where the transgender female pool sharks might find themselves at risk: 8-ball is very much a matter of mind. There’s decision-making. Tactics. Creativity. Problem-solving. Ruthless attitude. You know, the same as chess.

The Lords of 8-Ball might see that as a recipe for banishment.

Go ahead and say it won’t happen—that it will never happen—but who would have thought that FIDE, with its immense, superior man brains (61 of 72 officials’ positions are occupied by dudes), would be so dense as to be duped into doing the anti-trans lobby’s dirty work.

Talk about pawns.

A red card to BBC reporter for trying to out Moroccan futbol players

Coming out is difficult.

You fret, wondering how many of your family and friends will disengage, and who among the rabble will whisper behind your back or, worse, climb atop a roof to shout out the news that you’re part of the LGBT(etc.) community, making you a target of every hate monger with a creepy and unnatural interest in your dating inclination.

You wonder how many among those hate mongers might lean toward violence.

You also give ponder to issues of employment, housing, medical care, schooling and your next trip to the bakery, hoping the cashier won’t look at you as if you grew a second head overnight or deny you service.

It’s a heavy load, and the weight of worry (some would accurately describe it as fear) seems to be particularly problematic for gay men, most notably professional athletes, and transgender individuals looking for the proper public pot to pee in, the women’s or the men’s.

I have described the coming-out process thus:

“Discovering yourself is the interesting part, accepting yourself is the hard part, revealing yourself is the frightening part that goes bump in the night.”

Fortunately, in our portion of the globe we are spared one scary bit: Prison.

Not so lucky are Moroccans, which is why an aborted natter between a BBC news snoop and national soccer side captain Ghizlane Chebbak at the FIFA Women’s World Cup was excessively dim-witted and exceedingly problematic. If you missed it, this was the exchange:

BBC: “In Morocco, it’s illegal to have a gay relationship. Do you have any gay players in your squad, and what is life like for them in Morocco?”

Moderator: “Sorry, this is a very political question. So we’ll just stick to questions relating to football.”

BBC: “It’s about people. It’s got nothing to do with politics. Please let her answer the question.”

End of discussion.

So give that man a red card!

Actually, make it two red cards, one for remarkable nitwit-ism and the other for being—to use tennis legend Martina Navratilova’s word—a “wanker.”

You can go to prison for being gay in Morocco, one of 68 countries on our big, blue orb in which homosexuality is a felony. It’s outlined in Penal Code 1962, Article 489 Unnatural Acts: “Any person who commits lewd or unnatural acts with an individual of the same sex shall be punished with a term of imprisonment of between six months and three years and a fine of 120 to 1,000 dirhams, unless the facts of the case constitute aggravating circumstances.”

Armed with this knowledge, the BBC dude still expected Chebbak to out her LGBT(etc.) teammates, if not herself, whereupon they would be at risk of time behind bars. Perhaps he believes “Go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass Go” would make for a boffo marketing campaign.

Good grief.

Maybe he’ll next grill the Nigerian captain, demanding a roll call of lesbians among that country’s 23 World Cuppers, even though outing them could lead to death by stoning.

Anything for a story, right?

Except that isn’t the story you chase, and not simply because it could lead to dire consequences. It isn’t the province of a news snoop to out anyone, let alone the principals on a global sporting stage.

Coming out is a difficult, delicate decision, and you don’t want some nameless goomer with a pen and notepad doing it for you, not unless it’s at your beckoning. It needs to be your call, on your timetable, just as it is for all in the LGBT(etc.) collective. Anything else is irresponsible journalism.

Fans, of course, can speculate, and they do. For example, one New York Post reader suggested that the players in Australia and New Zealand are “mostly a pack of lesbians,” as if that’s a bad thing. What, gay women shouldn’t be allowed to join a kick-about? Is the roller derby rink a more suitable environment? How about the UFC octagon?

The ill-informed musings of the rabble notwithstanding, we know there are 95 out LGBT(etc.) players on the pitch down Under (12.9 per cent of the 32 nation rosters), because they outed themselves on various platforms. And they’re at risk, even in North America.

For the first time ever, the Human Rights Campaign has declared “a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the United States.” It cites the alarming number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills being passed in state legislative houses (more than 500 introduced in 41 states this year) and says “our community is in danger.”

Three members of the American side Down Under are out LGBT(etc.). There might be others still in the closet. If so, I’m sure the BBC will be first to ferret them out. Sigh.

Let’s talk about the Mars and Venus dynamic of elite futbol and team sports…Rapinoe’s last stand…hockey power rankings in July…a criminal, a cheat and a hypcocrite…and long live Tony Bennett…

The FIFA women’s World Cup down there in Australia and New Zealand is not merely an example of fabulous sporting theatre, it’s also a stark reminder of the contrasting cultures in elite-level football.

For one thing, the women play a much more honest brand of futbol than the men. That is to say, they spend more time frolicking on their feet rather than on their backsides, gyrating as if they’re giving birth to 10 pounds of barbed wire.

Oh, sure, flopping is part of female footy, too, but when we see a player supine on the pitch there’s a high likelihood that she’s actually wounded, not Meryl Streeping in the hope of hoodwinking a referee into a red card or maybe even an Oscar nomination. (See 2011 Wake Forest study re female and male soccer players diving.)

But fake-injury time isn’t the main point of separation between the women’s and men’s games. Sexuality is.

According to the folks who track such things at the website Outsports, 94 of the 736 players (12.7 per cent) getting their kicks Down Under are LGBT(etc.), and that’s likely a low number because the tally doesn’t include those in the closet. Twenty-two of the 32 sides feature at least one out player, with the co-hosting Matildas leading the way at 10 and Ireland and Brazil right behind at nine apiece.

Our Canadian side includes out players Kadeisha Buchanan, Quinn and Kailen Sheridan, plus Bev Priestman, one of two gay coaches.

Now consider the men’s World Cup.

Number of out gay men at Qatar in 2022: Nil. Number of out gay men at any of the 22 World Cup tournaments: Nil.

I suppose we could say this is all much ado about nil, because a player’s sexual orientation isn’t noted on a game sheet and no one wins the Golden Boot based on clicks on a dating app. Except that misses the point, which speaks to where we are in team sports 23-plus years into the 21st century.

It’s no secret that female athletes are comfortable in their own skin. The WNBA is the clubhouse leader on the inclusion file, with estimates of gay players ranging from 20 to 50 per cent. Connecticut Sun stars Alyssa Thomas and DeWanna Bonner announced their engagement on Friday. Meantime, soccer and hockey aren’t lagging far behind. Canada’s gold-medal winning shinny side at the 2022 Olympics, for example, included nine lesbians—Brianne Jenner, Erin Ambrose, Emily Clark, Melodie Daoust, Jill Saulnier, Jamie Lee Rattray, Micah Zandee-Hart, and two who became engaged in May, Laura Stacey and captain Marie-Philip Poulin. Meantime, the Yankee Doodle Damsels who won the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France featured half a dozen out gays—Tierna Davidson, Adrianna Franch, Ashlyn Harris, Ali Krieger, Kelley O’Hara and captain Megan Rapinoe, who’s engaged to WNBA legend Sue Bird.

“Go gays. You can’t win a championship without gays on your team. It’s never been done before, ever,” is how American captain Rapinoe put it during her fabulous French journey to a fourth WC title.

It’s to the point whereby a gay female athlete need not out herself. It’s dog-bites-man stuff. Nothing to see. Let’s move on.

The men, on the other hand…well, homosexuality remains a major bugaboo. You know, that scary thing that goes bump in the night.

Carl Nassib

Gay men continue to make their mark in most segments of society, but not major team sports. Go ahead and scan the landscape. The out gay man in the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB and MLS is as scarce as belly laughs in a graveyard. Carl Nassib is a football player without a team, and Luke Prokop is a Nashville Predators prospect who might one day defy the longest of odds and actually become the first openly gay player—ever!—to wear an NHL jersey. That’s it. Two gay guys, one who’s been to the show and the other a wide-eyed wannabe.

So why the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus dynamic in elite team sports?

Well, people with egg-shaped heads have spent considerable time studying that very issue, and there doesn’t appear to be a one-size-fits-all conclusion.

One theory holds that young straight men remain tethered to the antiquated notion that gay equals lesser-than, and that the mere existence of a gay guy on the roster would up-end the apple cart (Tony Dungy called it a “distraction”), thus making on-field success an extremely remote, also illogical, likelihood.

Robbie Rogers

But would Argentina have been less likely to win the 2022 men’s World Cup had there been an openly out gay sharing the pitch and changing room with Lionel Messi and the straight guys? We can only speculate, but we do know that the LA Galaxy became lords of Major League Soccer with Robbie Rogers on the pitch and in the changing room in 2014. So what’s to fear?

The abundance of successful LGBT(etc.) players on the distaff side of the playground is the strongest indicator that a mix of gays and straights is doable. They work in concert and lift championship trophies together, not to mention pad their bank accounts with playoff coin.

Yet, despite overwhelming evidence, that remains a foreign concept among the men, even as studies tell us a majority of gays who come out experience a favorable reception from teammates. So why is it that gay male athletes are still considered poisonous fruit best kept out of sight? If they truly believed it was safe to come out, wouldn’t we be seeing them?

Perhaps it really is as simple as the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus thing.

Whatever the case, I don’t expect to see a men’s World Cup featuring 94 out LGBT(etc.) players in my lifetime, but it would be nice if the guys would learn the lessons of Venus and, even better, live in the same century.

If Canada doesn’t win Down Under, my World Cup rooting interests shift to these countries, in this order:
Ireland…What can I say? I’m Irish.
Sweden…Never met a Swede I didn’t like.
England…It’s a Commonwealth thing.
Brazil…Big fan of Marta.
Australia…Matildas have the most gay players.

Attendance for the first three days of the women’s World Cup of soccer:
42,137 Eden Park, Auckland (record for New Zealand futbol).
75,784 Stadium Australia, Sydney (record for Aussie female futbol).
21,410 Melbourne Rectangular Stadium.
13,711 Dunedin Stadium, NZ.
22,966 Wellington Regional Stadium, NZ.
41,107 Eden Park.
16,111 Waikato Stadium, Hamilton, NZ.
44,369 Brisbane Stadium, AU.
16,989 Perth Rectangular Stadium.
18,317 Wellington Regional Stadium.
But, hey, they say nobody wants to watch women’s sports (whoever “they” are).

America’s talk-a-lot forward, the blue-haired Megan Rapinoe, plans to hang up her futbol boots and live happily ever after with the lady in her life, Sue Bird, after the World Cup and National Women’s Soccer League season. Does that mean she’ll finally shut the hell up?

Actually, I’ve usually found myself nodding in agreement with much of Rapinoe’s blah, blah, blah over the years, so I’d rather she doesn’t take a vow of silence once the cheering has stopped.

Marnie McBean and Kathleen Heddle

Here’s Damien Cox of the Toronto Star on our soccer side reaching the top step of the medal podium at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo: “It was the first time a Canadian women’s team had won gold at the Summer Games in any sport.” D’oh! Our female rowers (eights) struck gold seven days before our female footballers, and it wasn’t a “first.” Here’s a list of earlier gold medal-winning outfits:

2020: Susanne Grainger, Lisa Roman, Chrstine Roper, Sydney Payne, Madison Mailey, Kasia Gruchalla-Wesierski, Avalon Wasteneys, Andrea Proskie and Kristen Kit (cox) – rowing, women’s eight.
1996:  Marnie McBean and Kathleen Heddle – rowing, women’s double sculls.
1992: Kathleen Heddle and Marnie McBean – rowing, women’s pairs.
Kay Worthington, Kirsten Barnes, Jessica Monroe and Brenda Taylor – rowing, women’s coxless fours.
Marnie McBean, Kathleen Heddle, Kirsten Barnes, Brenda Taylor, Jessica Montroe, Kay Worthington, Megan Delehanty, Shannon Crawford and Lesley Thompson – rowing, women’s eights with coxswain.
1988: Carolyn Waldo and Michelle Cameron – synchronized swimming, women’s duet.
1928: Ethel Smith, Bobbie Rosenfeld, Myrtle Cook, Jane Bell – athletics, women’s 4×100 metre relay.

I’m not sure what part of “team” Cox fails to understand, but apparently he would have us believe that two-to-eight women pulling oars in unison doesn’t qualify as a “team.” Ditto two women sync swimming or four women foot racing. It boggles the mind.

On the subject of teams, Ryan Dixon of Sportsnet has delivered a Dog Days of Summer power rankings list for National Hockey League outfits, and he rates the Winnipeg Jets No. 24. “It’s almost easy to forget Winnipeg made the post-season this past year because it struggled for so long down the stretch and got bounced in five games by Vegas,” he writes. “Clearly it’s time to turn over a new leaf in Manitoba and while GM Kevin Cheveldayoff did well in the Dubois deal, it’s still seems like some tough days are ahead for this club.” The Jets won’t know tough until they no longer have Connor Hellebuyck in the blue paint to bail them out.

Interesting, also odd, that Dixon has the Toronto Maple Leafs listed at No. 4. I mean, don’t news snoops in the Republic of Tranna normally have the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup at this time of year?

Rory McIlroy says he’ll quit golf if LIV becomes the only tour available. Ya, and Joey Chestnut will stop pigging out on hot dogs if they aren’t Nathan’s.

Wasn’t it thoughtful of O.J. Simpson to take a break from his life’s mission of finding the real killers to explain what should be done with transgender athletes? I mean, what would the discussion be without input from a convicted felon whose rap sheet includes kidnapping, armed robbery and, oh ya, the murder of a woman? “It just isn’t fair,” is Simpson’s take on the transgender/female athlete issue. I’d say his concern for women is touching, if not admirable, except there’s that small matter of double homicide, one of the victims being his ex-wife, Nicole Brown. I fail to see what’s “fair” about murder, but perhaps the real killers can explain it to us once Simpson finds them on a golf course.

The Hypocrite and The Cheat

Let’s see, which notables have recently joined the “fairness” discussion as it relates to transgender females competing against biological females? Well, there’s Simpson, a convicted felon. There’s Lance Armstrong, a disgraced cyclist under a lifetime ban for being the biggest cheat in the history of pedal-pushing. And there’s Caitlyn Jenner, a transgender female full-score against the inclusion of transgender females in female sports, yet she competes in female golf tournaments. So we have a convict, a cheat and a hypocritical attention hog. It’s like getting Larry, Curly and Moe together for a panel chin-wag on quantum physics.

On the other side of that discussion is Charles Barkley, the NBA great who teed it up in a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe last week and popped into a pub to share some suds and thoughts with locals. If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that the anti-transgender mob has boycotted Bud Light because Anheuser-Busch used Dylan Mulvaney to pitch its product. Well, Sir Charles is having none of that. “If you’re gay, God bless you. If you’re trans, God bless you. And if you have a problem with them (f–k) you. If you are gay, lesbian, transgender, live your f—–g life,” Sir Charles told patrons. He also bought them pints. Bud Light, naturally.

And, finally, Tony Bennett is dead. Damn. I love the man’s voice, his singing style, the joy he expressed when the band began to play. It would be a total bummer if not for the fact his voice and music play on. Tony Bennett is dead, long live Tony Bennett.

What are athletes like Anthony Bass afraid of and how does anti-gay speech impact LGBT(etc.) youth?

Every time I hear an athlete, coach, manager, owner, broadcaster or sports scribe spew anti-LGBT(etc.) bile, or post it on social media, I ask myself the same questions.

To wit:

“Really? They still don’t get it?”

“Why do they care who gay people date?”

“Would they say these things if they discovered one of their children was gay?”

“What are they afraid of?”

Then a wave of weariness washes over me, because hearing the vitriol has become tiresome.

I imagine it’s much the same feeling Blacks or Jews or Indigenous, or any marginalized peoples, experience when they’re the targets of hate speech and/or actions. But I don’t know that with certainty. I can only speak for myself.

And I just cannot understand why being gay/bi/transgender(etc.) is so damn damnable.

Anthony Bass

Why does it matter to Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Anthony Bass that Target has put LGBT(etc.) merchandise on its shelves? Don’t like it? Then spend your money at Walmart. Why does he care that Anheuser-Busch used a transgender person to peddle Bud Light? Don’t like it? Then pop a top on a Coors Light.

But no.

Rather than make those simple choices (as so many have), Bass felt obliged to traffic in hate and cruelty by sharing a post advocating boycotts of Target and Bud Light for “evil” and “demonic” marketing campaigns.

Evil and demonic. Sigh.

I wonder how many LGBT(etc.) youth saw, or heard about, the Bass post and retreated into themselves to wrestle with the worst kind of thoughts. Like suicide. And, no, that’s not being alarmist. It’s reality according to findings from The Trevor Project’s most recent studies (2021/22):

• LGBTQ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers.
• 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth.
• The Trevor Project estimates that more than 1.8 million LGBTQ youth (13-24) seriously consider suicide each year in the U.S.—and at least one attempts suicide every 45 seconds.

“LGBTQ youth are not inherently prone to suicide risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity but rather placed at higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized in society,” reads the intro to one of the studies.

“We must recognize that LGBTQ young people face stressors simply for being who they are that their peers never have to worry about,” writes Amit Paley, CEO/executive director of The Trevor Project. “The fact that very simple things—like support from family and friends, seeing LGBTQ representation in media, and having your gender expression and pronouns respected—can have such a positive impact on the mental health of an LGBTQ young person is inspiring, and it should command more attention in conversations around suicide prevention and public debates around LGBTQ inclusion.”

Support from a professional athlete (a role model, if you will) seems like a simple thing, too, but here we have Bass, a marginal pitcher demonizing a marginalized community. And his employers, who have a Pride Weekend planned for June 9-10, permit him to play on.

The Blue Jays chucker, it should be pointed out, delivered a mea culpa on Tuesday, but it was noteworthy more for its brevity than its content.

“I’ll make this quick,” is how he began his 31 seconds of “my bad,” which was sincere like a Louisville Slugger is a toothpick.

But, hey, he managed to squeeze in a token mention of his “friends and close family members” who are part of the LGBT(etc.) community, so if he has gay friends and family he can’t possibly be anti-gay. As if.

This is part of the reason anti-LGBT(etc.) language has become so tiresome and weighty, like trying to push an ATM up a steep hill. If the apologists aren’t propping up their gay friends and family as unimpeachable proof of their accepting ways, they’re telling us that the dreadful thing they said “isn’t really who I am,” as if we don’t know prime rib from a Happy Meal. Their words and actions tell us exactly who they are.

I don’t know how many innings I have left, but I’d like to think Bass and those of his ilk are a vanishing breed, and they might even be gone by the time I sack my bats. I won’t make book on it, though.

This week it’s Bass. Before him it was University of West Virginia hoops coach Bob Huggins calling Catholics a bunch of “f–s.” Before him it was Cam Thomas of the Brooklyn Nets. Before him it was seven National Hockey League players balking on Pride night initiatives. Before them it was Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Before him it was football hall-of-fame coach Tony Dungy. Before him it was Jon Gruden. Tomorrow it will be (fill in the blank).

They’re seemingly everywhere and they’ve worn me out, to the point where some days I hesitate to step out of doors. I’ve heard every slight and slur imaginable, and I really don’t care to hear it anymore.

Which takes me back to one of the questions I posed at the top of this essay: What are they afraid of? I’d really like to know the answer so I can pass it on to our LGBT(etc.) youth.