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(New York City) Houston Comets forward Sheryl Swoopes is opening up about being a lesbian, telling a magazine that she's "tired of having to hide my feelings about the person I care about."

Swoopes, honored last month as the WNBA's Most Valuable Player, told ESPN The Magazine for a story on newsstands Wednesday that she didn't always know she was gay and fears that coming out could jeopardize her status as a role model.

"Do I think I was born this way? No," Swoopes said. "And that's probably confusing to some, because I know a lot of people believe that you are."

Swoopes, who was married and has an 8-year-old son, said her 1999 divorce "wasn't because I'm gay."

She said her reason for coming out now is merely because she wants to be honest.

"It's not something that I want to throw in people's faces. I'm just at a point in my life where I'm tired of having to pretend to be somebody I'm not," the 34-year-old Swoopes said. "I'm tired of having to hide my feelings about the person I care about. About the person I love."

[...]

She said it "irritates" her that no one talks about gays playing in men's sports, but that it's become an issue in the WNBA.

"Sexuality and gender don't change anyone's performance on the court," she said. "Women play just as hard as guys do. We're just as competitive."

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[ 27 October 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]

Good for her and welcome to the wide open spaces.

[ 27 October 2005: Message edited by: JimmyBrogan ]

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Originally posted by JimmyBrogan:
Let's cut her some slack. She's just now out, breathing the fresh uncloseted air for the first time.

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That's not necessarily true. Celebrity coming out is not the same thing as private citizen coming out.

Take someone like Svend Robinson or Rick Mercer in their so-called closeted days. Everyone who knew them, their friends, families and co-workers already knew they were gay. The only difference is, Meg in Moose Jaw, who only knew them from TV, didn't.

[ 27 October 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]

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Speaking personally, though, I've never met *anyone* who "turned gay" or "chose to be gay" -- not saying it's impossible (I guess), but I've never met one. I *do* know many, many who tried desperately to "be straight", though. Didn't work. Not in a single, solitary case that I am aware of. Even a dirtbag like the guy running that "Love in Action" stalag admits that he "still has homoerotic dreams". All I'm saying is that even with all the incentives to "be straight", I'm not aware of anyone managing to do it successfully, so what would make anyone think that "turning gay" would be any more successful?

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On the surface, the coming-out announcements of LPGA golfer Rosie Jones and WNBA superstar Sheryl Swoopes might seem like two separate events.

Think again.

Each of their high-profile declarations of their gay lifestyle has been accompanied by the news that they are now endorsers of a lesbian travel service called Olivia.

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I know what you're saying Heph, I just think it could be more complicated than that - she may be solely attracted to women now and therefore identify as lesbian, but recognize she didn't always feel that way (and wasn't just hiding in the closet) and so she also doesn't recognize she was 'born' a lesbian.

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With WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes coming out, everybody's talking, including the NBA. What if a male basketball player came out? Boston Celtics captain Paul Pierce says, "I probably wouldn't want to guard him," seemingly only half joking. "It would be tough out in public, too. Our faces are seen more than baseball, where they have a hat, or football with helmets." So he should hide his face in public?

Celtics coach Doc Rivers says, "The jabs wouldn't stop. And the guy would have to take it. He'd have to understand that it wasn't personal. ... for a day no one would say anything, but then right after that they would kill him. And it would be in a team way."

Equally scary views from Celtics Hall of famer Robert Parish who says he would fear for a gay player - "Nothing's taboo in a pro locker room, except family members. Everything else is free game. ... A player like that could even suffer some bodily harm if he wasn't careful." Greg Stoda wants to know why they'd punish a gay teammate, while others say the world is ready. All I can say is when an NBA player comes out, let's hope he's not a Boston Celtic. Let's hope they're not representing the same feeling throughout the sport nationwide.

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[ 02 November 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]

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Originally posted by Hephaestion:
All I can say is when an NBA player comes out, let's hope he's not a Boston Celtic.

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Oh, I hope he is a Celtic... and that he's built like Shaquille O'Neal: 7 & 1/2 feet tall and 325 pounds.

Go ahead... thrown an elbow... I dare ya.

[ 02 November 2005: Message edited by: Tape_342 ]

Interesting, that no NBA player, to my knowledge, has ever come out because both the NFL and MLB have had a few players openly do so--both after and during their careers.

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Originally posted by jcappy:
Interesting, that no NBA player, to my knowledge, has ever come out because both the NFL and MLB have had a few players openly do so--both after and during their careers.

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Tuaolo is 6'3" and 300 pounds. He's the latest to come out.

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Billy Bean is another.

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Yeah I saw his name mentioned in the Glenn Burke story but I'd never heard of him. With the Jays and the Dodgers both perennial non-contenders lately, I don't follow pro ball like I used to.

[ 03 November 2005: Message edited by: JimmyBrogan ]

If that is the case, perhaps she will eventually let that idea go as she becomes more and more comfortable with her sexuality and herself.

I have to say, it's kind of troubling the way many people are so determined to refuse others the right to determine and describe their sexual identities, or to impose their own definitions where, in this case for example, she has given a perfectly reasonable one of her own. I start to understand why those black men who identify as 'same-gender loving' find themselves frustrated by the gay mainstream when I read sexual categories being so vigorously enforced to fit a binary formula. I'm damn sick of men who seem to think the variously queer identities of others are some sort of imposition on their right to declare everyone on earth either definitely gay or definitely straight. This just in: the Kinsey Scale. Coming soon to a decade over half a century into our past. Get used to it.

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(QD) Outsports has an interview with Sheryl Swoopes, the WNBA basketball star who recently came out. They asked her, "Why has it been worth it?" Swoopes explained, "Because I feel very free. I'm sitting outside doing thisinterview. I'm looking up into the sky. I'm watching birds fly. And that's what I feel like right now. I feel like a beautiful black bird that's just soaring across the sky. Just very free. Very happy. And the fact of me not having to lie anymore is so refreshing and so relaxing.

She continued, "The African-American community is not as open to the issue as a lot of other races are. And I think that goes back to our childhood and the way we were brought up and what our beliefs were. Not to say that other people didn't have those things, but it was just different for us. Going through slavery, we've always had struggles and battles and things we've had to overcome. And the way we overcame those things were family and falling back on the Bible. That's why I think it's really hard for the African-American community to accept it. And I know I'm going to have some battles, not only in the African-American community but also the world. But, the possibility of me opening up doors, not just for African-American men and women, but for all people, is a great feeling to me. When I did it, I didn't think about what this would possibly mean in the African-American community, I just thought about Sheryl and me being able to be happy." Read the full interview.

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[ 03 November 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]

[ 03 November 2005: Message edited by: jcappy ]

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It really shouldn't matter by now, but apparently it still does. For two very different reasons it matters greatly to Sheryl Swoopes and Laila Ali. And, even though we live in politically correct times, it seems to matter to a lot of America's sports fans, too.

[...]

"There is this fascination with the sexuality of women athletes," said Todd Crosset, an associate professor of sports management at the University of Massachusetts. "If a woman is really good at her sport, people will question her sexuality."

That fascination has been fueled in recent weeks, most notably by Swoopes when she came out of the closet and announced not only that she was a lesbian but also that she was involved with one of her now former coaches.

[...]

Ali had an announcement to make last week, too. She announced that she wasn't a lesbian, debunking Internet rumours to the contrary.

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There's a big difference, though, between the sexes when it comes to same sex attraction.

Any male athlete who came out - and so far no current player in a major sport ever has - would likely be ostracized by teammates and mocked by fans.

NBA commissioner David Stern recently said a gay player would be a non-issue because his teammates would simply judge him on his production. That was the PC thing to say, but the real answer came later from Celtics coach Doc Rivers.

"They would kill him," Rivers told the Boston Herald.

On the other hand there are already women like Swoopes and golfer Rosie Jones who not only feel liberated by declaring their sexual preference, but are profiting from it. Both have endorsement deals with a cruise line that caters to lesbians.

"It says volumes that Swoopes came out and she came out with a sponsor," Crosset said. "Why not use your body to sell products?"

[...]

"There used to be such a stigma about lesbians in sports that you really have to give credit to the lesbian community for keeping women's sports, particularly collegiate sports, alive in this country," said Crosset, who wrote a book on the LPGA Tour.

The stigma, though, is still there. A former Penn State player recently claimed that she was tossed from the team because the coach mistakenly thought she was a lesbian. She, like many female athletes, must defend their sexuality on a continuing basis.

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She is presumably not exclusively gay, seeing as she asserts that her earlier divorce was not the result of homosexual identity. I'll take her word for it over the words of others who would like to define her sexuality for her.
I have to say, it's kind of troubling the way many people are so determined to refuse others the right to determine and describe their sexual identities, or to impose their own definitions where, in this case for example, she has given a perfectly reasonable one of her own. I start to understand why those black men who identify as 'same-gender loving' find themselves frustrated by the gay mainstream when I read sexual categories being so vigorously enforced to fit a binary formula. I'm damn sick of men who seem to think the variously queer identities of others are some sort of imposition on their right to declare everyone on earth either definitely gay or definitely straight. This just in: the Kinsey Scale. Coming soon to a decade over half a century into our past. Get used to it.

She's coming out as loving another woman. Of course, the media (and I think this is fairly universal from the right end of the spectrum to the left) wants this to be 'coming out as a lesbian' because it makes for a better headline. But I think I'll take her word for it, and instead of putting words in her mouth by saying she's coming out as a lesbian, just accept that she's coming out as loving another woman.

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Exactly what I was thinking.

It seems as though some poster's are concerned that Ms. Swopes (Swoopes?) does not meet the "correct" definition of lesbian. To me, this sounds just as bad (well, not really) as those who would say gays etc can be straightened. It's all very political and not what Ms. Swopes is saying is personal. Does every LGBT person have to identify with the terminology deemed to be "politically correct" by whichever community? Is there a manual?