I'm starting a queer positive Ultimate team and I think it's going to go really well. I've been on my high school team and a junior national team, and my University team but I've never connected to my teammates that well. I don't what puts up that wall. Some how I just can't connect to straight men, not that they are idiots or anything but it's just that I can't relate in some strange way. Maybe it's the fear, you are always thinking "Who is actually OK with this? How gay is too gay? How much can they really handle? Are they going to understand or are they going to be a jerk about it?". I think there is just more of a base comfort with gays. I think this is the main reason why we need this kind of team. So that GLBTQ people who thought they could never play on a team because of homophobia and the fear of being found out can finally can.
Right now we have a plethora of lesbians that want to play but we have one gay guy (me) and a bi guy. The thing with ultimate is that it's a binary, meaning you have to have certain ratios of women to men on the field at the same time, this is just to keep it "fair". Some people think this is sexist but all PC stuff aside. Men and women will never compete in the same professional leagues. Guys genetically just have the potential to be stronger faster than women do. I mean don't get me wrong I'm not saying that a woman can never beat a guy. I'm sure there are a lot of women players that are better than me. For men it's just much much easier to pack on the muscle than it is for women. If we are just being real on the average men are stronger than women, women have to train much harder than men to be just as strong. You will never see a woman and a man boxing. I'm sorry if there was a team that was all men playing ultimate against a team of all women (depending on who they are) in general I would bet on the men to win. Men usually are taller and faster. The top woman's team in Ultimate could never beat the top men's team. There is just no way around it. Some people are giving me shit about this but really I don't think that I'm wrong to say that I want more men on the team. I was to stay competitive and that means more men. And plus what am I suppose to look at. I mean I like lesbians and all but I thought this was for me too and that means more gay men. Also in sports I think it's harder to be a gay man than it is to be a gay woman because a gay man is seen to be weaker and soft while a gay woman is seen to be tougher and stronger. And the world of sports tougher and stronger is usually a good thing. So I don't think it's bad to want to give more gay guys the chance to play even if it means I'm actively seeking them out and not doing the same for lesbians. I mean I'll still look for lesbians but I'll just try harder for the men's.
7 comments:
Lesbians will generally kick gay guy's butts at sports. You really shouldn't be having male/female quotas anyhow. It's kind of discriminatory and you can set an example for others by being more open to the females.
That's completely untrue! That's just a horrible stereotype, or maybe that's just true for your group of friends. And I don't think you know how Ultimate is played. In coed Ultimate teams put 7 on the line ( in the game) every point and the common and most widely ration is 4 men and 3 women on the line at one point. Not sure why it's 4 men and not 3 men and four women. Maybe it's because there are more men who play than there are women who play. Usually it's very hard to find women to play on your team. But your right I could just enter the coed league and just have a team full of lesbians if I really wanted to. The other team would not object, they would see it as an advantage because they would have their men marking women.
Actually the more I think about it, the more interesting the gender politics of it all becomes. Why the hell isn't 4 women and 3 men! Hmm I think I'll now start some shit the next time I play ultimate :D I mean people raised issues about it before but I just never thought about it like this before. Maybe I should start a campaign to make it 8 people on a line at one time and then you can have 4 men and 4 women or to make it 4 women and 3 men or somekind of alternating thing. Oh and another issue came up while I was advertising my team. Was that issue of transgendered players. What gender would the other perceive them to be? Could a pre-op and pre-hormons trans-woman play as a woman and mark other women? That would pretty much just be a man in drag. I wonder how that would go over. Because if I wanted to I could just get a whole bunch of pre-op and pre-hormone trans-women and gay men and make a team. I would basically have a team made up of all men. And then when we play we will say that we do have 3 girls on the line and that they need to have 3 girls on the line also. And then our "girl" would be marking girls and vice versa. Wow this is really interesting now. Hmm I should make a post about this.
good comment!
So, I did not have enough time to read the entire blog, but I too have had a problem getting a GLBTQ team together. I currently play club in Chicago and as I try to put a team together or look to do so, I know only one other guy (besides my partner - who is pretty much retired) that plays and millions of lesbians. I did meet one guy from DC that did put an open (gay) team together in a rec league. I also know a guy in NYC and another in LA. I was also told of one in Minneapolis and met a from Minneapolis (through softball)... but they did not keep in contact. I think that thought that I was picking them up. I agree with you that people in the ultimate community are rather open. I love them. I generally connect well with them. It is a little harder to do so on an open team, but not impossible. Generally, what I have discovered is that people really do not care about sexuality but they are more worried about what other people think.
Oh, and a final note, I think that you explained it to a posted comment made to your blog, yes there are gender requirements in ultmate. It is a 4/3, 3/4 ratio. Meaning that you need either 4 women 3 men or vise versa on the field to play a point. I think that the point that you were trying to make is that it is hard to find enough guys to fill up a usual 17 to 21 person roster.
One question... Did you ever get a co-ed GLBTQ team started? Where do you live?
Ryan: No I never did get one started, it always got sidetracked by more important things. I live in Canada. I'd tell you where but then you might skin me and wear me as a suit.
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