“You're a Cog in a System that Needs to Work”: Conditional Acceptance of LGBTQ College Athletes

Abstract

Abstract A thematic analysis of interviews with lesbian, gay, and transgender US athletes who were out while playing varsity collegiate sports is examined for LGBTQ and athletic identifications. Conceptualizing being out as an ongoing process, we asked participants to describe their experiences over the years they were playing. Participants described athletic identifications as superordinate to and predating LGBTQ identifications. Although they initially anticipated overt conflict while out, they experienced more implicit than explicit homo/transnegativity. We draw upon theoretical perspectives of common in-group identity model and superordinate identity to analyze their descriptions. However, given that such models treat identities as separate, interacting things, they lack the dynamism and fluidity of contemporary queer perspectives, we add the concept of entanglement. Identifications were described as entangled in supportive ways but conditioned upon prioritizing athletic identifications as superordinate. We conclude urging scholarship on LGBTQ athletes to move past conflict-based expectations of explicit homophobia.