The Importance of Pride Month in MLB
June is Pride Month in the United States. By way of explanation:
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month (LGBT Pride Month) is currently celebrated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan. The Stonewall riots were a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States. In the United States the last Sunday in June was initially celebrated as “Gay Pride Day,” but the actual day was flexible. In major cities across the nation the “day” soon grew to encompass a month-long series of events. Today, celebrations include pride parades, picnics, parties, workshops, symposia and concerts, and LGBT Pride Month events attract millions of participants around the world. Memorials are held during this month for those members of the community who have been lost to hate crimes or HIV/AIDS. The purpose of the commemorative month is to recognize the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals have had on history locally, nationally, and internationally.
You can read more about the Stonewall riots here for greater context. Essentially, though, Pride Month is a time not just to celebrate gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer people in the United States, but also to highlight the current state of LGBTQ+ rights in the United States. For our purposes, it also represents an opportune moment to examine the current state of LGBTQ+ issues in baseball.
A couple of years ago, Gallup found that 4.1% of Americans overall, and 7.3% of millennials, identify as LGBT, although the demographer who published that data suspects that, after accounting for those respondents who are unwilling to disclose details regarding their sexuality, the overall figure is probably closer to 10%.
Britni de la Cretaz, who’s written a number of fascinating stories on the intersection of sport, gender, and sexuality, wrote an article last month exploring queer women in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, a facet ignored by A League of Their Own. And two major leaguers have come out as gay: Glenn Burke and Billy Bean.
But in another sense, baseball generally, and MLB specifically, has a lot of work to do when it comes to LGBT inclusion. Both Burke and Bean came out after their playing days were over. David Denson, the first openly gay player in affiliated ball to come out while still playing, has since retired. And while Denson said his retirement wasn’t related to his coming-out – and that his teammates were largely supportive – he nevertheless related to Bleacher Report some cringeworthy tales from his time in baseball clubhouses.
He was with the Brewers’ rookie-level team in Helena, Montana, last July, just another game day in another minor league town. When the rain swept in following batting practice and the team retreated into the clubhouse, the players did what players have been doing during rain delays since the invention of the tarp. They started teasing each other. In Denson walked and one of his teammates ribbed him, calling him a maricon. The word is a Spanish slang term for f—-t.
With Denson’s retirement, there are now no openly LGBT players anywhere in affiliated baseball. Given there are more than 3,500 affiliated players at any given time, we’d expect, using Gallup’s 4.1% figure, to find at least 140 LGBT players in affiliated baseball. And while it’s certainly possible that there are fewer LGBT people playing baseball than in the general population, the idea that there are none at all beggars belief. It is, of course, entirely possible that it’s not homophobia or transphobia at work here; after all, as Dan Avery wrote for NewNowNext, baseball presents obstacles unique to professional sports.
“The obvious reason is no one has had the courage to do it,” OutSports’ Cyd Zeigler tells NewNowNext. “One of the things that makes baseball unique is the minor league system. People are brought up and put back all the time. In baseball, your position is always less secure than other pro sports.”
To their credit, MLB has taken some steps to protect LGBT players. USA Baseball’s Amateur Resource Center includes information on LGBT inclusion, and MLB’s CBA actually contains language in Article XV, Section A, barring discrimination on, among other things, sexual orientation (though gender identity isn’t, regrettable, mentioned). And Attachment 50 to the CBA and MLB’s Code of Conduct both prohibit “bullying” or “[d]emeaning comments about someone’s race, gender, color, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation, including offensive names or phrases, or jokes about someone’s conformity with gender norms.” That language would seem to protect both gay and transgender baseball players, at least in part – so long as it’s enforced. MLB has made strides in that area, most notably suspending Yunel Escobar three games for a homophobic slur in his eye black.
But former Cardinals farmhand Tyler Dunnington, who is gay but was closeted while playing professionally, tells a far darker story of professional baseball’s attitudes towards LGBT people. Said Dunnington to Outsports’ Cyd Zeigler:
I was also one of the unfortunate closeted gay athletes who experienced years of homophobia in the sport I loved. I was able to take most of it with a grain of salt but towards the end of my career I could tell it was affecting my relationships with people, my performance, and my overall happiness.
I experienced both coaches and players make remarks on killing gay people during my time in baseball, and each comment felt like a knife to my heart. I was miserable in a sport that used to give me life, and ultimately I decided I needed to hang up my cleats for my own sanity.
At least publicly, there’s also been backlash against players like Daniel Murphy, who said of MLB’s Inclusion Ambassador, Billy Bean, that “I disagree with his lifestyle… I do disagree with the fact that Billy is a homosexual.” Sexual orientation and gender identity, it should be noted, are experienced as immutable characteristics of a person’s identity (and not mere lifestyle choices). Murphy’s comments, to be fair, do contain some level of nuance. “Just because I disagree with the lifestyle,” said the Nationals second baseman, “doesn’t mean I’m just never going to speak to Billy Bean every time he walks through the door. That’s not love. That’s not love at all.”
Baseball’s struggles with LGBT inclusion also aren’t limited to players. In honor of Pride Month, 23 teams are holding a Pride Night at their respective ballparks in 2018. Of the 30 MLB teams, two have still never held a Pride Night – the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels. The Yankees have evidently not yet held a Pride Night because they “sh[y] away from promotions with an ethnic or cultural flavor.” David Kilmnick, head of the LGBT Network, told the New York Times that although he pitched the Yankees on both a Pride Night and LGBT sensitivity training for employees, the team rejected those proposals. “I haven’t received any interest,” he told the Times. But when minor-league teams like the Lehigh Valley IronPigs have begun holding pride nights, the sustained holdout of the Yankees and Angels is increasingly conspicuous.
As MLB looks to find itself in this new millennium, the talk of pitch clocks and banning shifts might be overstated relative to broader demographic issues. MLB can retain its place as America’s pastime by ensuring it actually reflects America — which means, in part, including LGBT people. If 1-in-10 Americans is LGBT — and many more than that, presumably, are sympathetic to the experience of LGBT people — then we’re talking about a pretty large swath of the population. Hosting pride nights might, at some level, be a relevant as pursuing pace-of-play initiatives.
Sheryl Ring is a litigation attorney and General Counsel at Open Communities, a non-profit legal aid agency in the Chicago suburbs. You can reach her on twitter at @Ring_Sheryl. The opinions expressed here are solely the author's. This post is intended for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice.
Thanks Sheryl. This is probably outside the scope of your work, but it’d be really interesting to see how baseball is doing compared to (i) other American professional sports leagues, (ii) European soccer and basketball leagues and (iii) American individual sports associations (tennis and golf).
Agreed. Though I suspect MLB falls far behind the other major American sports.
MLB behind NFL? And all their hate of kneeling and stuff?
The NFL, at least if you define “NFL” as the league office, is shockingly reasonable on LGBTQ+ issues:
https://www.outsports.com/2017/8/18/16166114/nfl-pride-launch-lgbtq-roger-goodell
I’m sure it didn’t hurt that it’s a family issue for Roger Goodell:
https://www.outsports.com/2012/12/7/4054056/nfl-commissioner-roger-goodell-protected-his-gay-brother-from-bullies
A correction: using Gallop’s 4.1% figure, you’d expect to find *about* 140 gay baseball players, not *at least* 140 gay baseball players. Good article otherwise!
I think Sheryl may have said “at least” because of the fact that the person who did the poll suspects the number is actually higher than 4.1%.
Given the full context of the 4.1% figure, which states, “although the demographer who published that data suspects that, after accounting for those respondents who are unwilling to disclose details regarding their sexuality, the overall figure is probably closer to 10%,” I think her choice of the phrase “at least” is appropriate.
Maybe. But the sentence says “using the 4.1% Gallup figure” so it is worded incorrectly. It is a common error in reporting on survey data.
It doesn’t really matter, though. Maybe there are 50 gay players. Maybe there are 300. I don’t think worrying about the total number is productive.
I think the only real take-away is that we can agree the true number is non-zero, and that whoever those players are they don’t feel comfortable being a non-zero statistic.
This would have been a wonderful post for Notgraphs. Notgraphs is gone.
Go to bed.
Maybe what it will take is one openly gay player who is a superstar. The percentages noted in the article are high enough to suggest it’s only a matter of time before this community produces a future HOF-level player.
Baseball, as much as any profession in America, is driven by performance, by merit. African-Americans would have been accepted at some point no matter what, but it happened faster because it was so obvious that some of them were immensely talented, as good as if not better than the best whites, and baseball was the poorer for not including them.
Another factor I think worth pointing out is that some studies suggest that gays, like women, tend–as an overall average–to be more focussed on cooperation rather than competition. In any team sport, both cooperation and competitiveness are essential, so they could enhance the former, just as I believe the nascent trend of hiring women coaches for male pro sports has. While team chemistry probably is not nearly as important in baseball as it is in, say, football or basketball, it’s still desirable.
I would bet substantial sums of money that more than one living hall of famer is gay.
The issue is not whether the gay community will produce a player of great quality, but whether the baseball community will allow said players to express themselves without fear of harm.
I wonder what would happen in the event that a transgender man were good enough and had the interest to play organized baseball? I’m no expert on the matter, but there are hormone treatments and such that I would think might be covered under PED rules. I doubt this ever becomes an issue for physical reasons, among others. But I am still curious as to what MLB would do as far as their drug rules go.
They’d probably handle it the same way that schools, for example, are handling transpeople competing; it’s a medical exemption. The WNBA will probably get to set the pro-sports standard for such a policy.
You men handle it poorly? Now we have mediocre male athletes dominating women’s high school sports. Latest example was track & field state championship in Connecticut. I watched some of the races and the actual females look dejected. One of the worst and disgusting examples is Fallon Fox, a guy beating the tar out of women in MMA. Gender is not a social construct.
I assume you meant “You mean handle it poorly?” Unfortunate Freudian slip. Also prepare to be downvoted into oblivion.
The point you’re making is valid. There are two beliefs at work here that are incompatible, that gender is a social construct and that body does not determine ability. Because we’re digging ourselves out from under thousands of years of oppression, there’s a lot of emotion still in these arguments and not a lot of logic.
Fallon Fox is *not* a guy.
“She” most certainly has higher testosterone, which is banned for giving unfair advantages.
No, she actually most certainly doesn’t.
Fallon Fox is a male who fathered a daughter. He’s totally a guy.
Fallon Fox isn’t a male. She’s a woman. Period.
Whether or not “she’s a guy” is accurate, simply saying “She’s a woman. Period ” as if no clarification is needed is no help, either.
If you’re in the business of designing gloves, some of which are for people born with five fingers and some for people born with two, insisting that “a glove is a glove, period” is not useful to anybody.
There are massive physiological differences between women and transwomen (and men and transmen). That may not be relevant when discussing seating arrangements or hairstyles or other things, but it is massively and obviously relevant in discussing athletic competition. It does nobody any favors to pretend biology is a social construct.
I mean, this is all about the way you use words right? If you want to say that Fallon Fox wishes to be called ‘her’ and referred to as a woman, sure, I can get on board with the notion that these terms are defined by society and if society sees fit to change them to be tied to stated identity rather than biological gender, well ok, I get that it’s important to some and it’s really not asking much to respect that.
But there’s no amount of wishing (or even medical treatment) that will change Fox’ biological gender, which is male.. This is immutable too, and you can’t change reality by changing the language and wishing it so, nor do I think it’s a good road to go down for society in general to say that if we all change our language and pretend/deny something, it magically changes- or barring that, in the truly American pathology, that there must be a product or medical intervention that will make it so. Fallon Fox is a biological male who identifies as a woman.
IF the numbers say there’s a competitive disparity between biological genders in some sports, and IF society decides it has an interest in mitigating the effects of that competitive disparity by running separate events, then you’ve got to go by the medical science and not the words. The only logical alternative solution is to throw out gendered sports entirely.
Fallon is a genetic male. Genetics contributes a lot to biology, but it’s not identical to biology. Hormones matter more when it comes to gender (or sex, so as not to bring in social influences), and Fallon, as I understand the situation, has had extended hormone treatment..
I don’t agree with Sheryl when she says Fallon is a woman, period–not in the context of athletic potential–but I think it’s also misleading to say Fallon is a biological male. Biologically, Fallon has some characteristics of a male, and some of a female. Whether Fallon should be allowed to compete as a female is certainly up for debate, but that debate should proceed by evidence bearing on physical characteristics and performance. Maybe Fallon should be allowed to compete as a woman, I don’t know, but I think the evidence has to be there, not just an assertion that she is a woman or is a man.
She has the right to whatever pronouns she wants to use but it doesn’t change biology.
Same thing with the nonsense in high school athletics. At what point do we actually protect the girls who want to compete with biological females. It isn’t fair to them.
“Fallon Fox isn’t a male. She’s a woman. Period.”
That statement is utterly false. Fox was born male and fathered a child and no fantasy, no surgery, and no amount of political correctness can ever change that. He can IMAGINE that he is anything he wants, including a pizza or an attack helicopter, but that’s just being delusional.
“How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn’t make it a leg.” – President Abraham Lincoln
He’s a guy. He can’t ever, under any circumstances, ever be a woman, as it’s a biological impossibility. Any man can be as gay as he wants to be and crossdress as he wants to, and more power to him if that’s the way he wants to live his life, but it can never change his sex. As Honest Abe would phrase it, just saying that a man is a woman doesn’t make him a woman.
“Fox was born male and fathered a child and no fantasy, no surgery, and no amount of political correctness can ever change that.”
The issue is not what Fallon Fox once was or did or was capable of doing. It’s what Fox is right now. The physiology that determines whether someone is male or female is malleable. The statement that someone who was born male can’t ever be a woman is, at best, simplistic. Genetics determines male or female through downstream events–DNA into RNA, RNA into enzymes, enzymes catalyzing the synthesis of hormones. If these downstream events are changed, the genetics to a large extent–maybe not entirely, we can certainly debate that, but to a large extent–becomes irrelevant.
These arguments always bring me back to John Cleese yelling “Where’s the fetus going to gestate, are you going to keep it in a box?!”
You aren’t arguing that genetic males can become female (or vice versa) you’re arguing that medical intervention can reduce the secondary effects of biological gender to a meaningful degree. Essentially you’re saying: “if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”, the response to which is, strictly speaking, that in this case it’s still not actually a duck.
If the effects are reduced to a meaningful degree, then it’s irrelevant, or quibbling, to argue that it’s “really” a male or not a duck. If something that looks and quacks like a duck fits perfectly into its ecosystem, fulfilling all the relationships with other organisms that a “real” duck does, then what does it even mean to say it’s not a “real” duck? How is real defined? By DNA sequence? There are tons of studies showing how DNA sequence can be overridden by other processes.
Life happened to evolve so that genes determine, to some extent, various phenotypic characteristics. It’s the latter, not the former, that determine how organisms actually appear and behave. Just because in the natural world, certain appearances and forms of behavior have usually been associated with certain genes doesn’t mean that if that connection is broken, those appearances and behavior no longer mean what they meant before.
It used to be that communication between organisms could only occur through sensory signals such as movements or vocalizations. Now for us humans, the same information can be conveyed through printed words on a page, or on a computer screen. It’s the information that matters, not what originally generated it.
It all comes down to the requirements you’re enforcing upon your language. The condition for ‘meaningful’ might be met in terms of the standards for society or sporting events, and maybe that makes the question of ‘what gender were you originally born’ effectively irrelevant for daily social life. I support that peoples’ choices about labels should be respected (though even though there’s probably a ‘within reason’ that needs to be mentioned. Ex: I don’t feel obligated to play along with the cynical/childish word games of ‘Pastafarians’), and if you could make the argument that hormone treatment removes any competitive advantage one had, I don’t think there’s much of an issue in sports either. But it’s not quibbling to say that there’s an immutable difference between someone who biologically can function as, for example, a female, and someone who can’t (hence my reference to Life of Brian). You don’t have to dig into DNA to land on these distinctions.
Though I will recognize I can be a bit of an asshole in the degree to which I can be a stickler about precise language 🙂
I really don’t understand what you’re saying. Yes, there’s a difference between someone who can function as a female and someone who can’t. But Fallon can function as a female, so what’s the point?
This would be the perfect conversation for an image of Captain Picard yelling “There are four lights!”
She isn’t a biological woman, either, and women who’ve fought her discuss the experience as something very different.
What they may or may not discuss doesn’t change the fact that she’s a woman.
Ms. Ring, I’m sure that telling all those other women that it’s just tough luck and that maybe they should train harder if they don’t want to be beaten by a woman who merely spent much of her life naturally producing a performance enhancing substance is going to end well. Obviously there is no point in discussing that maybe, just maybe, in the field of competitive athletics, there is a reason to differentiate between those who were born female and those who transitioned to it from male. None at all.
“What they may or may not discuss doesn’t change the fact that she’s a woman.”
That a delusion, not a fact. He’s a man. Get over it.
I don’t think the issue that TKCD identified would be a problem for the reason that Tea_Wreck explained. Women are starting out at a significant disadvantage on account of innate physiological differences. I don’t think hormone therapy for women who transitioned into men would be enough to offset that, and you could just get a use exemption.
If there were a women’s league, however, is where you would run into problems. I agree with Rogan’s point re: Fallon Fox. I’ll try to cut this off at the head – it isn’t useful to bicker over terminology, we all agree that Ms. Fox should be afforded all the legal protections available to her and shouldn’t be discriminated against. However, she does presumably enjoy a significant physiological advantage by dint of her Y chromosome, and I don’t think it’s fair (or good policy) to allow her to compete against with with two X chromosomes. To that end, I certainly hope that it isn’t the WNBA who will be setting the standard. Women who used to be men should have to compete in the NBA, if they can.
As a trans woman myself, I can tell you that there’s a lot of misinformation floating around about whether or not trans people have physiological advantages. By and large, the data suggests that trans people don’t…Dr. Marci Bowers, who has done a ton of work on this, has found that there is no appreciable difference in terms of strength, stamina, etc, between your average trans woman and your average cis woman, and vice versa, after a certain period on HRT.
“After a certain period on HRT” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. And “average transwoman” and “average ciswoman” might not be applicable to the population of “participants in competitive sports”.
Obviously, a lot depends on the person, the doctor, and the cocktail. But let me put it a different way. Your normal trans woman will, after nine months to a year of HRT, have T levels no higher than an average ciswoman.
If all prospective athletes underwent verifiable multiple years of HRT prior to competing, with T levels checked out, etc. (e.g. the way the Olympics does it) that would be one thing.
But the reality we’re facing on the ground is people born male declaring themselves women, entering athletic competition under a female identity, but then also getting indignant when questions are asked about how much their declared identity corresponds to their biological reality. I don’t follow MMA, but my understanding of the Fallon Fox thing was that she didn’t want to undergo any testing or anything like that (someone tell me if I’m wrong).
That simply isn’t realistic. If a 5’10” kid shows up to a little league game claiming to be 12 years old, they’re gonna ask to see his birth certificate. It’s simply not fair to the other children to say “a kid is a kid, period” and that he’s 12 if he “identifies” that way.
I don’t know what you’re saying about Fallon Fox so I don’t know if you’re wrong. However she went through Gender Reassignment Surgery back in like 2005 and was competing in 2012. She’s not some random dude who showed up in a wig, claimed to be a woman, and competed for the glory that came from winning women’s MMA fights. Any issues she had with pre-fight testing are probably indistinguishable from the usual issues fighters have with testing because their training regimen skirts the rules of what is allowable.
HRT has to be kept up, or else some of the hormone levels, etc will “revert.” AIUI, the allegation/claim/etc was that Fox had stopped or reduced her hormones at some point after transitioning, and that MMA didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t do any testing.
I have no idea what the truth is; but when you’re talking six-figure prizes it’s obviously not implausible that someone would look for that edge.
I did not know this about you! I apologise for framing my previous comments in a way that didn’t acknowledge that this is a very personal issue for you, though I would still be interested in your thoughts
“data” LOL
out here in the real world of physical competition it is blindingly obvious trans females are changing the landscape of female athletics.
SEX is not a social construct. Gender most certainly is.
You beat me to it, Luy. I don’t know why this is so difficult to understand.
“SEX is not a social construct. Gender most certainly is.”
Gender is a grammatical concept; words have gender. People have sex.
It won’t be a transgender man playing. It will be a transgender woman and then we are going to hear how the first woman played in MLB.
If I had to guess what two teams had never had a “LGBT Pride” event I don’t think I’d have ever guessed “Angels and Yankees”.
Right? NYC and LA being like the two most civilized, cosmopolitan mega-metros in the country.
Also two of the gayer team names in MLB, amirite?
/ducks
Nah. Yankees is solid. Angels is a stretch. I think you’d have been better off with the Astros.
Cardinals and Padres would be good if you’re of a heretical bent.
How does a Pride Night do anything at all worthwhile, when 23 teams already are doing so and it isn’t helping? It would be just for one day, kind of like the “family Christian” days or even the Star Wars nights – just a promotion. Right? I haven’t looked at any promotional day to see attendance jump, so maybe that’s my issue off the bat.
Who says it isn’t helping?
When you’re talking about Group Days, the catch-all term for any kind of celebration of a specific sub-group of fans it’s about community outreach. It’s a large commercial enterprise saying “hey, you’re welcome here!” to whoever that group is (Christians, Puerto Ricans, the LGBTQ+ community, Veterans, etc).
For groups who doesn’t see themselves represented in the league, this can be instrumental for fostering good will and interest in the sport. Why do lesbians flock to WNBA games? Because the sport has shown inclusion and many of its stars are out. The sport embraces the community and the community returns their support.
MLB has always been a slow-to evolve “good ‘ol boys” sport but to say these events don’t help, even in some way, to get the LGBTQ demographic interested in the sport seems difficult. It wouldn’t have to be an attendance jump, because some groups may ONLY want to come on this day while others may move away because “reasons”. It’s hard to measure the success of events like this, but I can’t see any reason to oppose it, so why not do it and hope for the best?
Daniel Murphy doesn’t deserve the backlash he got for those comments. He was specifically asked about it in an interview, not like he just blurted it out. Can’t blame a person for being honest about their personal beliefs.
While I don’t agree with his beliefs (I’m 100% pro marriage and pro inclusion), I fail to see the issue with him having them. They do not seem particularly irrational, nor do they contain any statements opposing equality.
The Tyler Dunnington story though… that’s really depressing.
The issue with Murphy, at least for me, is he was quoted as saying he didn’t agree with the “fact” of Bean’s being a homosexual. If this quote is accurate, he seems to be saying that Bean is under an illusion, that he only thinks he’s a homosexual. How in the world can he claim that? In fact, unless he knows Bean very well, he would seem to be saying that all homosexuals are under an illusion.
That being the case, Murphy can hardly be said not to be opposing equality. If you think someone’s behavior results from an illusion, you’re not likely to think that behavior should be tolerated as completely as other forms of behavior. We see this problem with regard to religion all the time.
Isn’t that type of thinking basically prejudice in itself though? Just because some religious people are ignorant and fight against equality, doesn’t mean he is one of them. And not to harp on Murphy specifically, I just think such hostility is counter-productive.
Maybe I wasn’t clear. My reference to religion was that people of one religion (or of no religion) tend to be less tolerant of people of some other religion–because they think other religious beliefs are a form of illusion or delusion.. I wasn’t commenting at all on religious attitudes towards gays.
I agree with you that hostility is often (not always IMO) counter-productive, but being critical is not the same thing as being hostile.
You’re the one that brought up religion at all. If you aren’t drawing conclusions from his religion background then why did you bring it up?
I agree about criticism vs hostility. I don’t have a problem with anyone taking the position that his opinion is wrong or even stupid. But many people went way beyond that.
The stereotyping and discrimination of those that disagree is no better than the stereotyping and discrimination that we are trying to fight in the first place.
Believe it or not, athletes are not always the most articulate people, especially when speaking off the cuff. Digging down into the specifics of what he said to figure out what he might have meant is looking for a reason to be mad at someone.
Has Murphy said or done anything hateful or hostile? Called for any actions against anyone? No. Let it go.
Because it’s not okay to “disagree” with someone’s sexual orientation or to call it a lifestyle. Being straight or gay isn’t a lifestyle. Like, if someone has brown hair you can’t be like “I disagree with their brown hair lifestyle”. Anyway, I am not attacking you and I’m not trying to say Daniel Murphy is a monster, but it’s not okay to disagree with the very existence of people.
I agree to a point, however Murphy’s insistence that it is some sort of lifestyle choice is pure ignorance and it is right to call him out on that.
Apparently Messers. Bean and Murphy are now on rather friendly terms.
https://www.outsports.com/2018/3/6/17084216/billy-bean-daniel-murphy-mlb-gay-lifestyle
Thanks for sharing this. I think it speaks to the transformative power of experience. Murphy’s quote did not suggest that he was a bad person, or hateful, etc. It suggested he was poorly informed. It seems like actually getting to know an openly gay person has been a good learning experience for him. It also shows that Billy Bean is doing good work.
I disagree. Dating a man and marrying them are choices.
The implied idea is not that gay people choose to be attracted to men, but that they choose to act upon it. Billy Beane was not born already engaged to another male.
Again I strongly disagree with Daniel Murphy and I think it’s silly to suggest that people suppress their sexuality or w/e. More than anything I just have a problem with the tendency by some to throw pejoratives at every single nuanced opinion that comes their way unless it 100% matches theirs.
It’s possible to both desire equality and also respect that some people think differently. If you truly want harmony, be more harmonious.
The idea that gay people should not act on their sexual orientation is just unacceptable and it’s not a nuanced opinion and it’s not an opinion that deserves respect. I agree that the most productive thing is not always to shame people or hurl pejoratives at them for holding unacceptable opinions, but that doesn’t mean you have to actually accept their opinion as valid. The problem is thinking one gets to have an opinion about LGBTQ people’s lives.
“The problem is thinking one gets to have an opinion about LGBTQ people’s lives.”
Do you “get” to have an opinion about Daniel Murphy’s life?
“The idea that gay people should not act on their sexual orientation is just unacceptable and it’s not a nuanced opinion and it’s not an opinion that deserves respect.”
What about necrophiliacs? Beastiality practitioners? Pedophiles? Is the difference whether you personally think it is wrong?
Just to be clear, I am 100% in favor of LGBTQ equal rights and marriage equality. But, I also favor free speech, in more than just a “the Constitution requires this” sort of way.
Here’s what you obviously know about necrophiliacs, bestiality practitioners and pedophiles: they all hurt people and/or have sex with beings without consent. That’s just a really bad and offensive argument to make.
And no, I don’t get to have an opinion about Daniel Murphy’s life, unless he’s hurting other people. I believe in free speech too. And I believe that when you have an opinion that is unacceptable, other people get to tell you that. I didn’t say Daniel Murphy should be punished, or fired, or anything. I do think it was fine for people to be mad about what he said though.
When Murphy isn’t doing something to harm others…he can do whatever he wants.
When he says things that spread false information (that is verifiably false), yes I will judge him for being a liar.
In the civilized world lying is viewed and bad, homosexuality is not.
Also…why defend Murphy’s speech, but then try to silence me when I speak freely in opposition. A weird stance for an alleged fan of free speech to take.
I’m not saying you have to support the opinion. It’s a stupid opinion and people should not be required to suppress their sexual orientation. Absolutely feel free to criticize and dismantle that opinion over and over.
However, this article is about the LGBTQ+ community being accepted and treated as equal in baseball. It’s not about how the LGBTQ+ community is specifically seeking approval from Daniel Murphy. Why is that quote even on this article? That is a quote during an interview about a person’s opinion. That quote is presented right next to a quote about literally wanting to murder homosexual people. Clearly, the article serves to summarize all the repulsive anti-inclusion statements and events going on in MLB. The “look at all these horrible people” implication is pretty clear.
One of the stupider counterarguments that I know LGBTQ+ people get tired of hearing is that no one accepts bestiality or w/e either. Essentially, that counter-argument serves to put homosexuality in the same bucket as bestiality, which is of course absurd.
In the same vein, putting disagreement or differing beliefs in the same bucket as hatred and murder is also problematic. I fail to see substantial difference between the two generalizations (disagreement:murder — homosexuality:bestiality). In both cases, you are insulting a group of people without cause, and equating them to another, unrelated group of people that are actually supporting disgusting things.
Basically my point is that discrimination and prejudicial hatred are detrimental in all instances, not just some.
I JUST read your comment on how you can’t disagree with someones lifestyle. So that was all bs. OK.
Gay men should definitely refrain from finding a partner and stay celibate their whole lives so that complete strangers like you aren’t made slightly uncomfortable?
I am a single male. Using your logic I am not straight, because I am neither married to a woman or dating one.
Can you explain the nuance of Murphy’s comment? He literally said a man who identifies as gay is not gay. Murphy believes homosexuality literally does not exist, therefore no one can be homosexual. Where is the nuance there?
Also, there is no evidence whatsoever that Murphy supports equality.
If you want harmony, stop defending people who are against it.
He didn’t say that. We can’t discuss anything if you are going to make things up. Please read his actual quote. Thank you.
Saying he “disagrees” with “the fact that [a person] is homosexual” is pretty weird. It wasn’t like he was advancing a policy position, as if he was taking a position on the MasterPiece Cakes case. That’s like someone saying they disagree with the fact that someone is black or the fact that they’re christian. How do you even disagree with that, except if you feel like you have the authority to dictate whether someone is one of those things?
Disagreeing with someone being a “Christian” isn’t the same as disagreeing with someone being gay. Being “christian” is a choice and it’s highly debatable if a christian even behaves in a christian way.
Also, we need to stop with this “every opinion is valid” nonsense. They are not. If a person believes in a proven falsehood, especially a harmful one, we should not give them a platform or credibility. Im all for freedom of speech, but as soon as someone states such an ignorant opinion, they should be immediately and overwhelmingly ridiculed. Giving ignorance and bigotry a free pass at the expense of facts is detrimental to our society.
I am not the “every opinion is valid” person you’re seeking to argue with – Obi Wan Kenobi
I should have separated my paragraphs. First part was addressing you, second was a general statement.
Hear, hear. For example, Evolution Science and Creationism are not two valid opinions. If you’ve ever studied the bible then you know the Creation story, like the story of Noah and the Ark, is one of the biggest piles of absurdity ever heaped up. Evolution Science actually has 150 years of corroborating evidence behind it. And 99%+ of scientists.
Blurt or not…Why shouldn’t he be accountable for his opinion.
This isn’t a situation where a player gets asked about another player’s contract, and people are angry that s/he talked about another player’s contract.
People aren’t upset THAT Murphy spoke up. They’re upset because of the (anti-fact, hate-based) content of his comment. And, for most people, making statements that are anti-factual, like disagreeing that someone is homosexual, is irrational as fuck.
I’m fully on board with a more inclusive society (who is harmed by that?), but some of you more enlightened folks could stand to take it down a notch. Calling Murphy a “liar” and labeling his comments “hate-based” are pretty extreme when there’s no evidence that his viewpoint is anything worse than mere ignorance. Ignorance can be cured with patience and building a bridge to better understanding (as it sound like Billy Beane has done with Murphy).
Forming an angry mob is not the way.
I find it useful to remember that as recently as 2008 Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were to the right of Dick Cheney on the subject of SSM. Heck, Obama campaigned on a promise to keep marriage legally defined as between one woman and one man.
“accountable for his opinion”
What a creepy, Orwellian world we’re entering when people are going to be held “accountable” for their opinions. Next stop, apologizing for your incorrect emotions.
“why shouldn’t he be held accountable for his opinion”
man i see this language frequently and it send shudders down my spine every time. there are so many people who think just like you in the states. nobody thinks like that in a former soviet bloc.
“Can’t blame a person for being honest about their personal beliefs.”
Ah, no, you totally can.
Openly gay players have a combined WAR of -4.4 apparently
Make love not war
Maybe the pro-level isn’t the level where you want to look to get an idea how the representation of LGBT in baseball. How many HS or College players are out? If the culture of the MLB is toxic then why not look at the representation in a league where Daniel Murphy’s opinion would probably get him suspended if not kicked off the team?
A gay 10 year old in 2008 has lived through, probably, the most LGBT-positive era in modern history. It’s kind of boggling the imagination that there isn’t an out gay HS senior or college student being discussed as a draft target. I’m curious about, at what point, does a lack of professional athletes being “out” switch from “We need to do more to make a positive environment where all individuals are comfortable and shine” to “huh, maybe there just aren’t that many LGBT individuals who are interested/able to play at this level; that’s interesting, I wonder why?”
I would not be surprised if a major factor in the lack of out gay people in baseball is LGBT people self-selecting out of professional baseball long before they get to the elite level. If the culture is unwelcoming, most people aren’t going to stick with it long enough to become a professional athlete, because why would you do something that makes you feel bad?
Sure, most people won’t. But none of them? It’s not like the modern college campus is exclusionary towards LGBT individuals. So they’re not being filtered out at that point. And it’s not like the entire country is some unified, coherent anti-LGBT bend. Maybe the gay Texas HS players are being filtered out, but all of CA as well?
Oh I agree that self-selection must explain the whole story. I do think the self-selection process probably starts much earlier than college. But with the increasing progressive attitudes toward LGBT people, it does seem like we should start seeing more out athletes soon.
(I meant self-selection must NOT explain the whole story, in case anyone didn’t get that)
All people on college campuses all hold the same views towards LGBT people? There are no homophobic conservatives on college campuses, and especially not on college athletic teams? All coaches & managers hold the same beliefs on inclusion as history professors? The onus is on teams/organizations to be inclusive *before* the issue is forced by an LGBT player, rather than as a reaction to one, because failure to be inclusive may preclude an LGBT player from ever wanting to be included.
Don’t crap on Texas. The counties that make up our largest cities voted blue (mostly). The problem with Texas are the enormous amounts of rural counties.
If you look at a county-by-county map, it’s similar (city being liberal, rural being conservative).
I believe it’s a problem for sports in general. Too much “old school” mentality.
Houston also had a lesbian Mayor. I was just pulling two states of somewhat similar size but should be readily identifiable to the FG community as having some perception of their politics. Your example of Austin I think kind of goes to my point. A gay kid in Austin could, conceivably, go through primary, secondary, and then college in an environment where “being gay” isn’t the 10th most transgressive sexual orientation or gender identify in their class.
Well, with more and more people living in cities, cities being predominantly blue, and blue being predominantly accepting of the LGBTQ community, the problem will get cleared up eventually with time as, once again in one more area, bad old ideas of the past rot and are consumed in the dung-heap.
” The problem with Texas are the enormous amounts of rural counties.”
Don’t you wish you could just wish em away?! How do you think your comment reads on an agreeableness scale?
I think there also might be a difference between out and publicly out. Michael Sam was out to his entire team for an entire season before the general public knew. I think it would be pretty hard to be gay in baseball without it becoming at least an open secret. These guys are around each other a lot. That doesn’t mean it will be on Sports Center.
Gawker would have loved to out a pro athlete. Deadspin would probably have resisted the urge. Well, unless one of the writers thought the player had, at some point, enforced an “unwritten rule”. Then all bets would be off.
Left unsaid in this is that maybe, just maybe, a significant minority of professional baseball players coming from Latin American countries might be a hurdle towards acceptance.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-soccer-worldcup-fifa-homophobia/mexico-face-disciplinary-case-over-homophobic-chant-idUSKBN1JE1O2
In general, MLB’s efforts to support and advance inclusivity and diversity have been extremely disappointing. They are way behind on a ton of issues, but pride/awareness events for all 30 teams would be a great start.
Can you elaborate on this? Can you identify what they could do to not be extremely disappointing?
MLB is only the most racially and ethnically diverse of the major US pro sports. They have as many openly gay players as three of the four. Is the MLB sorely lacking in religious minority representation when compared to the other pro-sports?
When I was playing college ball, I heard some teammates talking — on the bench in a few idle minutes before the start of a game — about one of those vexing “this or that” scenarios. This one was whether they would prefer to have a daughter or a gay son (implication being that these are both bad things).
One player explained how a downside of having a gay son is that the gay son would get beat up at school. Another player responded saying that it would definitely would be a burden to have to constantly defend a kid from that stuff. Original player says no, there’s no way I’m defending a f—-t!
Great article, but a correction on the statement that Burke’s sexual orientation was not revealed until after he retired. Although it was never acknowledged publicly, It is known that teammates and team owners from both the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland A’s were aware of Glenn Burke’s sexuality during his tenure with said teams. Burke was well before his time, sports culture just wasn’t quite ready for a change.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/05/actually-jason-collins-isnt-the-first-openly-gay-man-in-a-major-pro-sport/275523/
When did fangraphs become about promoting what people do in their own privacy instead of showing fans graphs, advanced stats, and analysis about baseball?
Guess we have an anti-LGBTQer. I mean, what person supportive of the LGBTQ community and sympathetic of its cause would object to a thoughtful treatment of this important issue in baseball?
This article contains analysis about baseball and stats (whether they are advanced is debatable.) Also, people aren’t just LGBT “in their own privacy.”
I love how every time there’s an article not specifically about what happens during a baseball game, a handful of people flip out as if the site isn’t filled to the brim with other articles all about statistics.
“Flipping out?” Mildly annoyed at an article nothing to do with baseball is what you’re searching for.,
The article is literally about the sport of baseball and it’s relationship with LGBTQ athletes and fans. How does that have “nothing to do with baseball?”
I just want to point out dave t’s excellent use of quotes, turning “not specifically about what happens during a baseball game” to “nothing to do with baseball.” Keep on quoting dave t!
You seem to have missed that I was quoting evo34, whom my post was a direct reply to. Nice try, though.
Flip answer: since they got more inclusive.
More nuanced answer: the odd thing that commonly happens with inclusivity is that, in a pattern that seems to repeat everywhere, the outcome isn’t just about adding more people from Group X or Y, who might well be qualified to discuss a subject as fans and experts, but who also might have been historically overlooked because they’ve been outsiders.
But rather, when these people are hired, it seems to ALSO be on the basis of their political stance AS a member of Group X who can SPEAK as Group X; otherwise, the inclusivity isn’t “real.” So the analysis they bring is then slanted toward that, and site owners either encourage it, or aren’t willing to say “No, we’re just talking about stats here, not politics.”
That’s how a site that wants to do something ostensibly commendable (like say making sure that their stats-based baseball site isn’t just “straight white men”) winds up bringing politically-minded actors. This makes the site inevitably politicized as a result.
So the problem isn’t inclusivity per se. That part’s fine. The problem lies in the hiring and then editorial process that lets politics take over at the expense of the site’s original mission.
If that is the goal of the site owner, that’s fine, it’s their site. But it’s not at all strange for there to be a rebellion and sloughing of readership as the site’s goal shifts from its original purpose to its political one.
“So the problem isn’t inclusivity per se. That part’s fine. The problem lies in the hiring and then editorial process that lets politics take over at the expense of the site’s original mission.”
Spot-on. Fantastic comment.
The author makes a case that a victim group is under-represented, but does not prove if the under-representation is due to some form of exclusion or by how much, while leaving it to the reader to infer. This is pretty standard fare and one could almost take this article and remove the current victim group with another like swapping variables in your web template.
So you could look at this a couple of ways. One question the author might be asking is, can we as a society be nicer and more accepting of people different than us? Now, nearly everyone is going to answer yes. Those who don’t answer yes are generally as socially outcast as the victim group (if not as easily identifiable or persecuted). That’s not much for click-bait however.
Another way is to assume victimization has led to under-representation. But no one can prove that with any sense of accuracy and no one ever will, so again it’s just solid click-bait, and people can argue and posture about how much or little we should care about said victim group.
Finally, if we really wanted to try to discover something of interest we could ask: if the victim group was allowed to sort themselves into activities without any coercion from either side of the aisle (both sides coerce), what would their representation in MLB look like?
Well I don’t know and nor do you and nor does Ms. Ring. All we have is this statistic about how many people identify with this victim group. That tells us nothing about how many would become MLB players, ceteris paribus, if they felt more free to chose their own paths.
Be nicer and more accepting about people different than you. Always good advice. Anything else is conjecture based on anecdotal incidents. And maybe, just maybe, consider the possibility that victim group representation in the cause of the day has a little bit to do with how they sort themselves into societal paths, in addition to any pressure they may feel to be included or excluded.
So, what’s your complaint? That this is not a journal-length psychological study that uses scientific methodology to try to definitively determine the cause of under representation of LGBTQ+ people in baseball? Or is that you think the cause of under representation is not provable and therefore not worth talking about? LOLz at your use of Latin to talk down at people while not really addressing anything.
Don, I’m going to gloss over the fact that you just proved my point.
My point is that it should be considered how people sort themselves. If you’re not doing that, you are only telling a part of the story – a part that leads to lots of posturing and people getting worked up over issues rather then engaging in productive discussion. You don’t need a journal-length psychological study to include that possibility.
There’s only one type of person getting “worked up” about this article.
I don’t know Luv, a couple of folks seem really hung up on how intelligent I am pretending to be.
One of my character traits (flaw?) is that I don’t back down to being bullied. I kind of enjoy the banter.
I think the point you seem to be intentionally missing is that most pro sports outside of the WNBA seem to be at best ambivalent, and often openly hostile to the idea of openly gay athletes. Your point seems to be that what if there were no external pressure, what would the distribution of gay athletes look like? Well that pressure is there, and has been there for decades on the side of anti-openly gay athletes. Now the article is about the importance of pride month for MLB. Well, there it is. Opening up baseball, trying (successfully or not) to tear down that stigma, to show that baseball is for anyone good enough to play. That leads into your point of the “victim group” sorting themselves. Whether or not you want to believe it, the status quo in baseball is not friendly to openly gay athletes.
Thank you Art for reading my comment.
Where did I deny that there was anti-gay pressure or that MLB should be more open to gay athletes or that the status quo in baseball is not friendly? Of course there is a degree of truth in all of those claims.
(Side note, i happen to be optimistic that there is less anti-gay sentiment in baseball than we are led to believe. I might be wrong and I can’t prove that. I am an optimist in general.)
I questioned the approach of the author to imply that the entirety of the lack of gay MLB players was due to these factors. It’s a misleading, albeit very common approach.
Nowhere does the author state or imply that the “entirety of the lack of gay MLB players” was due to MLB’s lack of inclusion initiatives.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman
You’re right Don. I misread where she stated that having no players in MLB that are openly gay beggars belief. She did follow on by saying that it’s possible that is not entirely due to bigotry.
I tried to make the point that we don’t know how much is due to bigotry and how much is due to self sorting. Sorry I missed that she made that caveat. I’ll be more careful next time.
This is a dumb comment wearing a homemade smart costume.
Maggie, I’m sure you mean well even though you wrote “This is a dumb comment”, I know you didn’t mean your own comment is dumb. You meant “That is a dumb comment,” referring to my comment.
In which case, I refer you back to Point 2 in my “dumb comment” in which I pointed out that articles like this lead to a lot of posturing.
I see you’ve lost the costume.
Again, see point 2
It’s pretty clear at this point that miniditkamaddon is just trolling.
Maggie, I know you really care. And if you don’t agree with me that’s fine. You insulted my intelligence in your first reply and questioned my intentions with your second reply. (Yet I am the troll, heh.)
I just can’t let you off the hook that easily.
Ms. Ring claims that a “large swath of the population” might not be playing baseball due to bigotry.
From the article: “MLB can retain its place as America’s pastime by ensuring it actually reflects America — which means, in part, including LGBT people. If 1-in-10 Americans is LGBT — and many more than that, presumably, are sympathetic to the experience of LGBT people — then we’re talking about a pretty large swath of the population.”
Do you believe that if there was no bigotry at all in this world, the distribution of LGBT in baseball would match or exceed the rate of LGBT in the general population?
@mini Stop asking sincere questions. They only wrote the article to complain about the comments. Logical comments are not welcome in non-baseball articles.
“Do you believe that if there was no bigotry at all in this world, the distribution of LGBT in baseball would match or exceed the rate of LGBT in the general population?“
That’s the Null hypothesis. Yes.
It obviously wouldn’t be the same even if there were no bigotry. Different groups are different. This is freakish analysis based on nothing.
As bookbook correctly pointed out, the null hypothesis is that baseball players are drawn from the same distribution as the rest of the population with respect to sexual preference. There is no reason to believe otherwise that I am aware of. If you think the null hypothesis is wrong for some reason (and apparently you do), then it is incumbent upon you to back that up with some evidence.
100% accurate objection that’s downvoted for some reason. This is solid criticism, yet there it is down in the red because…. why?
I suspect people are down voting it because the commenter is suggests that we throw out the null hypothesis without any data justifying the position.
Sheryl Ring is correct to expect that baseball players are drawn from the same distribution as the regular population with respect to sexual orientation in the absence of any evidence to the contrary. This is standard scientific procedure.
I would disagree that that should be the null hypothesis in this situation.
For instance, it does seem very plausible that hostility/discrimination within the sports/baseball culture is one cause of lessened participation. But it also seems plausible that differences in both culture and biology within the various queer (trying to use the best umbrella term) groups, each of whom are different from each other as well, could easily explain part or even a big chunk of the gaps, too.
The real null hypothesis should be that we have no idea why there are differences in participation between different groups and so we should be open to all possible answers until we have better data.
The null hypothesis is always that there is no dependent relationship between the variables. The variables in this case are LGBT status and MLB participation. The null hypothesis is that MLB participation is independent of LGBT status. Thus, the null expectation is that the proportion of LGBT in MLB will reflect the proportion in the general population.
Both of the things you are describing are alternative hypotheses (e.g. that discrimination lowers the numbers, or that cultural or biological reasons make LGBT worse at baseball than the general population).
It is general practice in science to accept the null hypothesis until there are sufficient data to support rejecting it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_hypothesis
I read FanGraphs because I am a baseball fan.
This article is gender and sexual ideology. Gender and sexual ideology insists that in order to treat people with kindness and respect, we must accept and promote and instill gender and sexual ideology itself. But that is not so. Gender and sexual ideology doesn’t actually represent many on whose behalf it alleges to speak for, especially those who don’t agree with its claims and goals.
I think it interesting that the two franchises Ms. Ring identifies are not cited for mistreating anyone or for anything at all for that matter. That, however, is insufficient. What’s “problematic” isn’t how they deal with people, but their not complying with her demands. What the writer is implicitly advocating is an evening dedicated to promoting her ideology.
I imagine that FanGraphs might justify the publication of this advocacy as no different from recognizing Jackie Robinson’s historic achievement. The problems with such a claim, the kind of which has been at the heart of the gender and sexual ideology movement, is that it is false. Race and sexuality are two very different aspects of our humanity. One simply has to do with a person’s physical appearance. The other has to do with desires and behaviors, of which there are an untold number, sexual and otherwise, sometimes conflicting within the same person.
In her piece, Ms. Ring promotes transgender ideology. The claim of this particular belief is that if, for example, an anatomical and chromosomal male identifies as woman, that makes this person so. This raises the question, “what is a woman?” What does the word, “woman,” mean? What is this being that this person is claiming that he is and that it is now incumbent upon us to agree that this person is? In order for a word to have meaning, it must have a referent outside itself to which it points that we can look to to see if something conforms to it. Transgender ideology renders the words “man” and “woman” meaningless.
I reject sexual and gender ideology. I am persuaded it is unreasonable and false and unworkable and unjust. I do not adhere to what has effectively become a public religion. Of course, I wouldn’t ordinarily express my views here at FanGraphs. Why would I do such a thing? However, apparently, today, FanGraphs decided that this is what they want to be about.
The politicization of everything everywhere is toxic.
wut
I don’t even understand what some of these individual sentences is trying to say…let alone the comment as a hole.
We get, dude. Non-straight people make you feel icky. Thanks for sharing these deep thoughts.
The dual sports gods of militarism and diversity.
I make it into a game now: how many times can I not stand to recognize something or someone during a baseball game? It’s usually 5 times a game I get to refuse to participate.
I don’t believe you that you’re a baseball fan.
Why not?
Prove it
I’m not trying to prove anything. I simply stated why I read this website. It seems to me that there’s something about what I’ve written that leads you to accuse me of being dishonest about that. I’m just wondering what that might be.
I don’t believe a hateful bigot can truly be honest about anything, and you’ve failed to prove me wrong.
What great examples of how open minded everyone is. When someone challenges Maggie25’s viewpoint zhe assume trolling.
Moltar feels empowered to bully. Luy says zhe doesn’t even understand what was said but assumes it must be bad. Righteous, narcissistic, and emboldened by your silo of like-minded righteous and narcissistic people.
“I, the person with my boot on the neck of another, am just fine with the way things are. Why is this other person complaining?”
Reality has and will continue to prove you wrong. Each decade, more of your beliefs re: LGBTQ community are buried in the dung-heap of bad opinions. Soon the whole thing will be over and you really won’t have anyone left to talk to. Well, except other cave people.
The concept of race IS ideological. Rejecting other people’s sexual identity IS politicizing sexual identity. Trans people existing doesn’t make the words man and woman meaningless unless you are being wilfully ignorant.
well put
TL;DR you don’t think you should have to hear about gay people. Cool.
This is a well written, thoughtful response.
” I do disagree with the fact…”
Ah, life in the 21st century!
Could a mlb player decide to become a female, then decide to transition back to a male and be given medical exemption to testosterone, etc?
No, because males don’t “decide” to become females. Women who have always been women transition so their exteriors match their identities.
Ok. Could a female in the MLB who was born with male parts transition to match their identities and then decide to transition to male and therefore be allowed to use testosterone?
I get that people think I’m joking, but it’s an honest question.
Yes, if someone wanted to do that they could get a medical exemption. And if anyone put barriers in their way it would be a PR nightmare for that team, for baseball, and anyone who spoke up on the wrong side of the issue would likely be fired and ostracized.
Sheryl, if someone who’s a physical male is a woman by virtue of identifying as such, what is the meaning of “woman”? What is it he’s identifying as that correlates with the group of letters spelling out “woman”? Other than spelling, what is the difference between a woman and a man?
(too many targets for the translation treatment today…can’t make up my mind. sigh – Serb)
I find myself sorting through these comments, unsure how to proceed, but wanting to say something that is productive. i wonder if that’s possible. I occasionally read these articles that are related to baseball, but are obviously an attempt to inject political ideology into the discussion. For the record, I think there are times when sports and politics are tied together. I actually enjoy Ms. Ring’s articles – she has good skill in clearly articulating legal issues, so i gave this article a read through.
Normally when the politically charged article comes out, my first reaction is to react like RagsandPigs. i don’t come here to read about politics. But wonder if my reaction would be the same if the political ideology was ever one that I agreed with. You see, as a center-right thinker, I’ve never actually read an article here at Fangraphs that was politically charged that agreed with my own point of view. Honestly, I wonder if I would still feel the same way. Maybe I wouldn’t have an issue at that point. I don’t know. It does make me uneasy the personal beat down that any thinker that is right of center gets on the comments when they articulate their point of view – sometimes well, sometimes not so well. My dad, who was a sportswriter himself, always told me that in debate, attack the idea, and not the person – that is the true way of tolerance. He told me that to be tolerant actually requires that I disagree with the person, yet treat that person with respect and kindness. I’ve always remembered that., though I haven’t always done that as well as I should.
I think we can all agree that love and kindness are the way forward. All I care about is that my beloved Mariners have excellent players. I couldn’t care less if they were all LGTBQ, as long as they win. I think it is probably naive to think that some day it will be easy for those who are LGBTQ to navigate the ridicule, hate, and bigotry that will be present. I DO hope and pray that it does get easier. I am not however dreaming of the day of equal representation of LGBTQ in MLB, as perhaps Ms. Ring is. I am dreaming of the day that excellence is the ONLY indicator of success. That it doesn’t matter because we all stopped caring about people’s gender and sexual orientation, and stopped beating each other up enough to engage in conversation that can enlighten each other. I don’t know if Pride Month gets us closer to that, but if it starts the right conversations, then that would be a good thing.
That’s the thing, we can’t “all agree that love and kindness are the way forward.” I do but most center right folks I know consider that stuff kumbaya nonsense and want no part of it.
Well, the center-right position on most topics is usually the perpetuation of the status quo, whether or not you think that is a good thing, it doesn’t make for good article fodder. They are not going to write a “politically charged” article about reversing integration or banning Muslims from baseball. I don’t know what you would want, honestly. Every time there is *not* an article on a socially relevant issue, I am not going to complain that Fangraphs doesn’t cater to my needs. However, there have been articles on Fangraphs about Christian faith: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/josh-fields-and-the-value-of-faith-and-positive-thinking/
Honestly I didn’t read the article but I sincerely hope Sheryl and other writers here continue to publish woke takes if only so that the deplorables infesting these comments feel as aggrieved and unwelcome as possible. (I understand that’s not the purpose of these posts but that’s just the dark place I’m in these days.) Also I’m quite dismayed that misgendering transphobic trash comments have been left up unmoderated, unless this was Sheryl’s call, in which case, you do you girl.
You’re doing a great job furthering our understanding of the analysis of baseball.
Seriously, take a bow. The sabermetric community wouldn’t be here without such valuable input as yours.
Why don’t you loudly fill your diaper about it–never mind, I see you’re way ahead of me.
OF COURSE……the token female on this site. Instead of writing about interesting topics relating to the game, she chooses to write about the virtue of degenerates having butt sex and other forms of hedonism. Go back to tumblr sweetie, we know who you are and what you represent and your not welcome here.
Go back to your cave, troll. It is you who are not welcome. Sheryl, on the other hand, is very much welcome.
Everybody has the right to go to Hell in their own way. My best friend is a self-described bull dyke (and a former NCAA female athlete). I’m good friends with my married lesbian neighbors. I work with a gay guy. That’s all fine; whatever consenting adults do in private is their own business. Sometimes the gay guy puts on a dress; that’s fine, too. When I was in Asia the streets were full of gay male crossdressers. That’s all fine. No problem. You want a Pride Parade? Sure. A Pride Night? Why not? No problem. Tolerance is good. Fallon wants to try to forget that he was born and raised a male and that he’s a biological father and now wear a dress and makeup? That’s fine, too. It makes me sad, but it’s his life and his call. Tolerance is a good thing.
But…don’t try to tell me Fallon’s a woman, because that’s a flat, bald-faced lie. He will get all of the tolerance for what he is choosing to do with his life that I can possibly give him, and I wish him well, but don’t expect to tell a lie like that and get away with it. He’s not a woman. He can impersonate a woman but he can never, ever be a woman. Biology says no: not now, not ever. End of story.
Don’t expect to say “I have gay friends” to get away with being transphobic
“Don’t expect to say “I have gay friends” to get away with being transphobic.”
That’s both and a slur and a lie. I’m not afraid – “phobic” – of gay men wearing dresses and claiming to be women. I’ve seen hundreds of them. Bangkok is full of them.
They do not scare me a bit. But they are not, and never can be, women.
Hahahahahahahaha, “I’ve seen transgender people in Bangkok” is an even funnier form of “I have gay friends.” Tell me more about the instances in which you’ve observed LGBTQ+ individuals and how that makes your comments that trans people are “impersonating” other genders and that it, for some odd reason, makes you personally sad that another individual identifies as transgender, less transphobic.
Speaking of those gay male crossdressers in Bangkok, there’s something interesting about them: they don’t want to have sex with other gay men, only with straight men. The reason is that they also suffer under the delusion that they are women.
Let me reiterate: it’s fine for a man to be gay. It’s fine for him to dress up as a woman. It’s fine if he wants to get a boob job and take hormones or even have further surgery. But that does not and cannot ever make him a woman. It just makes him a gay man in women’s clothing.
Which is also fine. We live in a sad world with not very much happiness in it, and if that’s what it takes for a given man to be happy, then good luck to him. But he is still, always, a man.
You seem to be laboring under the *very* mistaken beliefs that drag = trans (it doesn’t), all trans women are attracted to men (trust me on this one – definitely not true), and that trans men and non-binary people don’t exist (they do). Plus, your I’m sure very comprehensive study of members of the Thai LGBT community doesn’t speak for all LGBT people. Sorry to burst your bubble.
A man in women’s clothes is a man in women’s clothes; as Mr. Lincoln said, you can call a dog’s tail a leg, but it’s still a tail – sorry to burst *your* bubble. I do wish you the very best of luck with it, though. Happiness is scarce in this life. I hope you find all of it you can.
Feel free to disagree with me all you like – but don’t call me a man in woman’s clothes. I’m a woman, and expect to be treated and respected as such. If you can’t, feel free not to read my posts. My womanhood isn’t dependent upon your approval.
4.1% of mlb players are not in the closest and never will be. I count zero at the moment. Baseball just doesn’t interest teh gay, face it. Shame! If Carl Lewis could hit he’d have been something to watch. A few NFL offensive linemen go that way. But the sprinkling of great athletes who are the gay are always teh black.
10% of millennials have no idea what they are, thanks to Boomer bullshit. Wretched article.
There is no biological test of whether someone is a man or a woman, since these are socially determined categories that vary between cultures. The proper test of whether someone is a man or a woman is to ask them. If you have no reason to doubt their sincerity (and generally you shouldn’t), then accept them at their word. That is the test.
People have been using pseudoscience to justify bigotry for centuries.
Come on though. While there are a few in-between cases that are legitimately difficult to adjudicate, there’s a clear difference between respecting someone’s identity and recognizing that there is significant sexual dimorphism within the human species.
This is the very reason we have women’s sports leagues. If you disagree with this premise, you’re arguing that places like the WNBA should be open to men. That would benefit no one except the men who would then repopulate the entire league.
Humans are sexualyl dimorphic for a variety of phenotypes. I am a research scientist who focuses on human evolution. Indeed part of my research requires me to quantify these phenotypes.
Sexual dimorphism is a population level statistic. There is no reason to evaluate an individual with a population level statistic if you can measure that individual directly. On average shortstops hit fewer home runs than do first basemen. This is useful information, however if we want to know whether Manny Machado has hit more home runs than Chris Davis, we don’t ask what positions they play and what the average player at those positions does, we just look at their individual home run output directly.
Whether someone is a man or a woman is an individual identity that is partially, but not entirely predicted by biological sex. If you want to know whether someone is a man or a woman you could measure their biological sex in a number of ways and then apply the population level statistic to them, in which case you’d be right most of the time and wrong some of the time (for example if 90% of biological males identify as men you’d be right 90% of the time and wrong 10%). Alternatively, you could just ask them and be right 100% of the time .
Sheryl Ring posted information above that suggests that trans women who have completed their transition fall within the normal range for biological females. Given this information it is difficult to see where the problem lies. Even in cases where individual trans women have phenotypes well into the range of biological males on some traits it isn’t actually a problem if they have undergone their transition, since many biological females also have phenotypes in the biological male range. The distribution of sexually dimorphic traits overlaps tremendously. Most individuals will have some phenotype that is more common in the opposite biological sex. Nobody claims that tall women are actually male, or short men are actually female. We accept that there is overlap in these distributions.
If the distribution of trans women is indistinguishable from the distribution of cis women, then individual trans women who fall outside this are just that: individuals who happen to be population outliers. Every elite athlete is a population outlier.
A bold choice for someone who actually knows what they’re talking about to wade into the cesspool of this discussion. I salute you.
Disappointed to see so many otherwise-erudite commenters spreading misinformation about trans people and biology that they clearly have no knowledge of. Thank you Sheryl for your persistence in writing well about topics that can result in a degree of ignorant backlash.
I know. How can they call it a choice when they aren’t in the shoes of an LGBTQ person? Jaw-dropping arrogance.
FG comments are depressingly regressive on many topics once you get outside the narrow confines of “baseball statistics.”
I am extremely frustrated at this site, for what used to be a good baseball website has become heavily politicicized with a very aggressive Leftist agenda.
It needs to stop. As the NFL recently found out, pissing off half of your fan base with aggressive Leftism is a very bad idea.
Please leave all of the politics – and especially all of the sexual politics – alone.
Baseball is wonderful. We all agree about that. Let’s stick to baseball. I have been here a long time, and I don’t want to depart, but if the Leftist propaganda nonsense articles keep up, I will.
The article is about baseball. It is about encouraging and enabling inclusive participation in the sport irregardless of orientation. There is nothing aggressive about an appeal to inclusion.
On the other hand, some might consider your suggestion that you are better able to know people’s gender identity than they themselves are as bizarrely aggressive.
“The article is about baseball.”
Nope. It’s agenda-driven propaganda.
Go back to Fox sports
“Go back to Fox sports.”
Wrong, troll, I was never there.
Trust me, if you leave you will not be missed. Your opinions about almost everything are terrible.
“Your opinions about almost everything are terrible.”
Glad that you think so. I feel the same way about you and your ilk.
It might be time to start thinking about the non-bigoted reasons Sheryl’s pieces always have such lengthy comment sections.
I read Fangraphs to know which players to pick up for my team rather than which players I need to pick up.
Go back to Fox sports
I’m curious, in reference to the comments on Daniel Murphy, what support there is for the statement that “sexual orientation and gender identity are… immutable characteristics”? One of the sites linked there by the author (American Psychological Association) states that ” There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay or lesbian orientation”. How do we know that these characteristics are immutable if we don’t know the reasons that they are developed? Further, does biology determine morality? If one is genetically predisposed to a certain action, does that make the action moral?
I do respect that the author otherwise did fairly represent Murphy and included his full quote.
I could have sworn Holt and Benintendi were openly dating.
“Sports fandom is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. It is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”