Connect with us

Sports

Aussie tennis legend under fire for anti-LGBT comments

Unclear if calls to rename Margaret Court Arena gaining traction

Published

7 years ago

on

Margaret Court, gay news, Washington Blade

Margaret Court, left, in her ‘70s heyday on the international tennis scene. (Photo by Eric Koch of ANEFO; courtesy of the Dutch National Archives)

Tennis players, rock bands, activists and others in Australia and beyond are calling for the Margaret Court Arena, a tennis and entertainment venue in Melbourne, Victoria, to be renamed because of the controversial, anti-gay views of its namesake.

The arena, built in 1987 (it holds 7,500), is part of the National Tennis Centre at Melbourne Park, itself part of the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct. It opened in 1988 as Show Court One but was renamed in 2003 after Court, the country’s most successful female tennis player of all time.

Court, 75, was the first woman in the open era (pros/amateurs competing jointly) to win the singles Grand Slam (all four major tennis tournaments in the same calendar year); she was only the second woman in history to do it. With 24 solo wins, 19 women’s doubles wins and 21 mixed doubles titles, she holds a record 64 major titles overall. Several of her records still stand. In 2010, Aussie newspaper the Herald Sun called her “the greatest female tennis player of all time.”

Raised Catholic, Court became a Pentecostal after retiring from tennis in 1977. She was ordained an independent Pentecostal minister in 1991. After founding Margaret Court Ministries, she founded the Victory Life Centre, a Perth-based Pentecostal church, in 1995. She is its senior pastor and broadcasts of her preaching are aired on Australian TV.

She has been an anti-LGBT crusader for years inspiring an effort that began in 2012 for the arena bearing her name to be renamed. Although the issue has been percolating, it reached a boil in May when Court wrote a letter to the West Australian (a Perth newspaper) criticizing Qantas, Australia’s largest domestic airline, for being a corporate supporter of same-sex marriage (currently illegal; a national mail-in vote is in the works) and claiming she would boycott the airline.

In a follow-up interview with Vision Christian Radio, she said lesbian tennis players try to lead young players “into parties,” implying they recruit using tactics similar to Hitler and communism. Of trans issues, she said, “That’s all the devil.”

Out tennis legend Martina Navratilova wrote an open letter to arena owners calling for the change. Navratilova called Court an “amazing tennis player” but also “a racist and a homophobe.”

“How much blood will be on Margaret’s hands because kids will continue to get beaten for being different,” Navratilova wrote. “Too many will die by suicide because of this kind of intolerance, this kind of bashing and yes, this kind of bullying. This is not OK.”

Sigur Ros closed its “Splendour in the Grass 2017” tour in July at the Margaret Court Arena with a light show projection supporting same-sex marriage. The band sold limited edition T-shirts at the concert to raise funds for the marriage effort there. Other acts such as LCD Soundsystem, Grinspoon and Ryan Adams who’ve played there have spoken out against Court.

“I’m not one to get in old people’s faces for being ignorant, but when you come after my family, my friends … you can go fuck yourself,” said LCD Soundsystem singer James Murphy, according to a Junkee concert review.

Tennis Australia praised Court for her “unmatched playing record” but said her “personal views are her own and do not align with Tennis Australia’s values of equality, inclusion and diversity.”

Arena owners have not said if the proposed renaming is being seriously considered but said on Twitter they’re committed to equality.

LGBT Australian activists say the issue has died down some since it broke in May but differ on how significant it is.

Sally Goldner, an activist on trans and bi issues who works with three such agencies, says anti-LGBT rhetoric such as Court’s does have consequences.

“Her trans comments, which didn’t get as much coverage, were pretty extreme,” Goldner said in a Skype interview with the Blade. “To imply that trans people are possessed by the devil, that’s pretty extreme. … She gave several long interviews in mainstream media, yet to my knowledge, at no point were any trans people or families given the same amount of attention. … There’s a lot of issues below the surface beyond just the naming of the arena.”

Anthony Venn-Brown, a former Pentecostal Australian minister who left that ilk of Christianity after coming out at age 40, says that branch of the Christian faith is flourishing in Australia. Though Branch is independent, Venn-Brown says the internationally known Hillsong movement is theologically similar and “has become the largest, fastest-growing branch of Christianity in Australia.”

Venn-Brown says LGBT activists should have simply ignored Court.

“If we would have just let it go, it would have been of no consequence. … She doesn’t have a huge following, she’s not incredibly popular, her church is not huge and she’s getting to be quite old,” he said via Skype. “People are so quick to call for boycotts and names to be changed. It seems to me at times to be playground behavior. … Can’t we just take a deep breath and chill?”

Others disagree.

Filmmaker and clinical psychologist Dee Mosbacher, whose 2009 documentary “Training Rules” exposed the anti-gay policies of former Pennsylvania State University women’s basketball head coach Rene Portland, says homophobia exacts a toll.

“I know well the pain that’s caused by touting someone who is an out and proud homophobe like Rene Portland,” Mossbacher, a lesbian, says. “Some of her players thought about suicide, some felt like their whole lives were wrecked, they had symptoms of PTSD. It had a visceral effect on these women. Some of them hadn’t seen or heard anything about her for decades but it still had a tremendous effect on them. … It’s like a counter to the It Gets Better program. Holding up someone like Margaret Court as a hero is like saying it gets worse. If you allow these people to be out there with their homophobia, you’re saying it’s OK and you’re colluding with them and enabling it.”

Goldner says calls to LGBT support services “skyrocket” when anti-gay views are heavily covered in the news.

“We’ve got plenty of evidence of that,” says Goldner, who’s transgender.

She says the issue needs to be kept in perspective, though.

“We need to keep our eyes on the prize, which is full equality legally and socially,” she says. “Is renaming an arena going to do that? I’m not so sure. It can send a message, but I think there might be some more effective things we could be doing in my honest opinion.”

Venn-Brown, who runs an LGBT outreach program called Ambassadors & Bridge Builders International, also says there are “bigger fish we should be frying.”

“Renaming an arena is not gonna change anything except maybe to make some LGBT people feel they’ve beaten somebody,” he says. “There are more important things for us to focus on.”

Navratilova, Court and management of the Margaret Court Arena did not respond to requests for comment.

Mossbacher understands the perspective, but says Court’s “homophobia and bullying should be called out.”

“It’s not like this is a historical thing where she’s some homophobe from the past,” she says. “They’d never hold her up as some kind of hero if she’d made these comments about aboriginal people or people of color or whatever, so I don’t think it’s OK for her to get away with it when it’s against LGBT people.”

The Margaret Court Arena is used for a wide spate of sports and entertainment events. (Photo  by DestinationAlan; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Related Topics:
Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

Sports

Brittney Griner, wife expecting first child

WNBA star released from Russian gulag in December 2022

Published

1 week ago

on

April 16, 2024

By

Cherelle and Brittney Griner are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news on Instagram. (Photo courtesy of Brittney Griner's Instagram page)

One year after returning to the WNBA after her release from a Russian gulag and declaring, “I’m never playing overseas again,” Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner and her wife announced they have something even bigger coming up this summer. 

Cherelle, 31, and Brittney, 33, are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news with their 715,000 followers on Instagram. 

“Can’t believe we’re less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,” the caption read, with the hashtag, #BabyGrinerComingSoon and #July2024.

Griner returned to the U.S. in December 2022 in a prisoner swap, more than nine months after being arrested in Moscow for possession of vape cartridges containing prescription cannabis.

In April 2023, at her first news conference following her release, the two-time Olympic gold medalist made only one exception to her vow to never play overseas again: To return to the Summer Olympic Games, which will be played in Paris starting in July, the same month “Baby Griner” is due. “The only time I would want to would be to represent the USA,” she said last year. 

Given that the unrestricted free agent is on the roster of both Team USA and her WNBA team, it’s not immediately clear where Griner will be when their first child arrives. 

The Griners purchased their “forever home” in Phoenix just last year.

“Phoenix is home,” Griner said at the Mercury’s end-of-season media day, according to ESPN. “Me and my wife literally just got a place. This is it.”

As the Los Angeles Blade reported last December, Griner is working with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts — like Griner, a married lesbian — on an ESPN television documentary as well as a television series for ABC about her life story. Cherelle is executive producer of these projects. 

Next month, Griner’s tell-all memoir of her Russian incarceration will be published by Penguin Random House. It’s titled “Coming Home” and the hardcover hits bookstores on May 7.

Continue Reading

Sports

Applause and criticism for Staley’s trans-inclusive stance

South Carolina Gamecocks women’s coach made comments on Sunday

Published

2 weeks ago

on

April 9, 2024

By

South Carolina Gamecocks women's basketball head coach Dawn Staley. (NBC News Today YouTube screenshot)

If not for a conservative transphobic blogger, this moment should be a celebration of NCAA women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley and the women of the South Carolina Gamecocks.

On Sunday, they concluded their undefeated season with a decisive win and a championship title. But when Staley faced reporters before that big game, Outkick’s Dan Zakheske asked her an irrelevant, clickbait question about transgender women in sports, referring to them as “biological males.” 

Staley could have ignored the question, or stated she had no opinion, but instead the legendary coach offered a crystal clear endorsement of trans women competing in women’s sports, something outlawed in her home state of South Carolina for girls in kindergarten through college. 

“I’m of the opinion,” said Staley, “If you’re a woman, you should play. If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion.”

Zakheske clearly wasn’t satisfied with that declaration of allyship and Staley swiftly cut him off. 

“You want me to go deeper?” she asked. 

“Do you think transgender women should be able to participate,” he started to say, when the coach stole the ball and took it downtown on a fastbreak. “That’s the question you want to ask? I’ll give you that. Yes. Yes. So, now the barnstormer people are going to flood my timeline and be a distraction to me on one of the biggest days of our game, and I’m okay with that. I really am.” 

Staley is herself a Hall of Fame player a leading voice for diversity. 

Reaction to her comments were swift, from LGBTQ rights organizations, athletes and inclusion opponents. 

“Coach Staley simply spoke the truth that trans women are women and should play if they want,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, in a post on Instagram. “All of us can take a page from Coach Staley’s playbook as a sports leader and as a person of high integrity guided by faith, compassion and common sense.” 

A White House pool reporter revealed President Joe Biden called Staley Sunday evening to congratulate her and the Gamecocks on their championship win. But it’s not clear if she and the president, an outspoken supporter of trans rights, discussed her remarks on trans athletes. 

A number of Black leaders in the LGBTQ movement applauded Staley for taking a stand. 

“Coach Staley has always been a trailblazer, but she’s also shown that true leadership is about advancing justice and equality for everyone,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. “By expressing her full-throated support for transgender athletes’ inclusion in sports, she’s sending an important message — our shared humanity matters. 

“Coach Staley showed courage and vulnerability, in choosing to answer the question and make a powerful statement of support for trans people on one of the biggest days and biggest stages in sports history,” said Kierra Johnson, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, in a statement. “Not only does that make her a leader we can all aspire to like, it makes her a class act. She has etched her legacy in the history books with her play, her coaching, her heart and her smarts.”

In congratulating Staley on her championship title victory, Dr. David J. Johns, the CEO and executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, also commended her for “her unwavering advocacy and support for transgender people in sports.” 

“In a time when transgender athetes face unjust scrutiny, discrimination and exclusion from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, her courage to speak truth to power and in support of inclusion and fairness sets a powerful example for us all, and is a testament to her integrity and compassion.”

The NBJC leader was referring to Monday’s announcement by the NAIA, the governing body of athletic programs at small colleges nationwide, voting 20-0 to essentially ban trans women from competing with other women beginning Aug. 1, as ESPN reported.

“It is a shocking and devastating development that the NAIA, an organization that has done so much to open doors, is now slamming those doors shut on transgender athletes,” said Sasha Buchert, Lambda Legal’s senior attorney and director of the organization’s nonbinary and trans rights project. 

“Instead of standing up in support of transgender young people, the NAIA has simply turned its back on them — permanently depriving them of the benefits of competition. Would that they had the courage of victorious University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley, who didn’t miss a beat in clarifying that transgender women should be able to play.” 

However, praise for Staley’s stance was not universal. 

Riley Gaines, failed former college swimmer and paid shill for the anti-inclusion organization, Independent Women’s Forum, called Staley “entirely incompetent or a sell-out” on Fox News. “Personally, I don’t think she believes what she said.” 

Gaines has turned her fifth-place tie with out trans NCAA champion Lia Thomas into a career as a crusader against inclusion and a former advisor to the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Val Whiting, a former Stanford University and professional women’s basketball player, tweeted her strong disagreement with Staley. “A lot of my basketball sisters feel differently but trans women do not belong in women’s sports. It’s not fair nor safe for biological women. There has to be another solution for trans women to be able to compete athletically besides having them compete against biological women.” 

Zaksheske’s Outkick colleague, anti-trans pundit David Hookstead, also went all-in with a transphobic post. 

“Dawn Staley says she supports men who identify as women competing against real women in sports. Her view could literally destroy women’s basketball forever. Why won’t more people stand up for women?”

Hookstead then boasted that Staley blocked his account. 

Republican South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace retweeted Zaksheske’s account of his interaction with Staley, calling her support of trans athletes “absolute lunacy.” That in turn won praise from Caitlyn Jenner, who retweeted Whiting and posted her thanks to Mace, along with this comment: “There is nothing complicated about this issue!” 

What is complicated is that Jenner has never explained why she has competed with cisgender women in golf ever since her transition almost a decade ago. 

Continue Reading

Sports

Caitlyn Jenner backs NY county transgender athletes ban

‘Let’s stop it now while we can’

Published

1 month ago

on

March 21, 2024

By

Caitlyn Jenner endorses Nassau County's transgender athlete ban during a press conference. (YouTube screenshot)

Caitlyn Jenner flew from Malibu to New York this week to join her fellow Republicans in their nationwide quest to keep transgender girls and women from competing in sports with other women. 

“Let’s stop it now while we can,” said the Olympic gold medalist, at a news conference carried live by Fox News Channel. 

Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman organized the event so that Jenner could speak in support of his February executive order banning trans athletes at more than 100 county-owned facilities. 

“Trans women are competing against women, taking valuable opportunities for the long-protected class under Title IX and causing physical harm,” said Jenner without providing supportive evidence of her claim. Jenner said the ban would defeat “the woke agenda.” 

Her comments drew praise from former NCAA swimmer and paid shill Riley Gaines, who represents the Independent Women’s Forum and has also worked with the failed presidential campaign of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on his anti-trans athlete platform.

“If the left wants to fight this battle on this hill, it’s a losing battle,” said Jenner. “We will win the battle.” She claimed she spoke on behalf of women and girls, contradicting her past statements in support of trans girls competing according to their gender identity and despite the fact she herself still competes in women’s sports.

Shortly after the ban was announced last month, New York State Attorney General Letitia James and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, denounced it and accused Blakeman of “bullying trans kids.” 

James called the order “transphobic and deeply dangerous,” and argued that it violates the state’s anti-discrimination laws. The state attorney general challenged it in court March 1 with a “cease and desist letter,” demanding that Blakeman rescind the order, saying it subjects women’s and girls’ sports teams to “invasive questioning.”

As the Los Angeles Blade reported, Blakeman’s legal team countered with its own lawsuit on March 5, claiming her cease and desist letter violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

“Not only was the executive order legal, but we had an obligation to defend it,” Blakeman said Monday. 

The order has also been challenged by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit last week on behalf of a women’s roller derby league based in Nassau County that welcomes trans women and would be barred from using the county’s facilities by Blakeman’s executive order.

Just days before the Long Island news conference, Jenner joined Olympian Sharron Davies, who also campaigns against trans inclusion in sports, for an conversation with a British newspaper, the Telegraph, which has been outspoken against trans inclusion. 

They recalled that in their day, tests to determine sex were mandatory in order to compete, and Jenner said she has been “pushing” for sex tests to return to sports, decades after sports organizations around the world abandoned the practice because they were unreliable. “If they continue down this road, it will be pretty much the end of women’s sport as we know it.”

“I can still hit a golf ball 280 yards,” Jenner continued, not mentioning she plays from the ladies’ tee. She did however opine about not being “a real woman,” acknowledging that many trans women disagree with her view. 

“They keep saying, ‘Oh, I’m a real woman, I’m a real woman,’ and I’m going, ‘No, you’re not,’” said Jenner. “I will use your preferred pronouns, I will treat you as a female, you can run and dress and do whatever you want, I have nothing against that, it’s fine, but biologically you’re still male.”

She added: “​Let me explain — I am biologically male, OK? I’m XY. There’s nothing I can do to change that. If you believe in gender dysphoria, and I think most people do realize it’s not a disease, it’s a mental condition, just like some people are left-handed and some people are right-handed, it’s kind of the way you’re born and I’ve dealt with it my entire life.“

“I consider myself a trans person, I am still genetically male, I changed all of my ID right down to my birth certificate so technically yes, I am female, but on the other hand I know I’m not.”

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Advertisement

Sign Up for Weekly E-Blast

Follow Us @washblade

Advertisement

Popular