Yesterday on The Roar (which I read regularly and follow on Twitter, being a sports-loving lesbian), Expert contributor Ryan O’Connell (who I also follow) wrote about an incident in the NRL Under-20s State of Origin match the previous Saturday.
Blues player Mitchell Moses was caught calling opposition player Luke Bateman “a f*cking gay c**t”. Even though Bateman did not wish to make an official complaint, the NRL review investigated and the outcome was a two-match suspension for Moses. He was also ordered to undergo an anti-vilification education and awareness program.
Great, right? The NRL (not historically known for its progressive politics) acting swiftly to show young players that homophobic language is unacceptable, and attempting to educate them to be better in the future.
Not according to Ryan. He went on to say:
Don’t get me wrong, what he said was unacceptable and he should be punished for it. As the NRL had recently held a press conference with other major Australian sporting organisations to announce they were committed to ensuring homophobic slurs were not part of their sports, they most definitely needed to act upon the incident.
But the context in which the comment was made suggests Moses should really be punished under the category of being a neanderthal and using unacceptable language, rather than being anti-gay. If you want evidence of this, read the slur again and notice which words are censored. It will give you an indication of the truly offensive part of the comment.
I asked a gay friend if the sledge offended him, and though only a sample of one, his response was, “Not really. Not in that context. He’s basically just calling the other player a girl, isn’t he?
That response should help add a little perspective to the incident. While there should be no room in the game for homophobic slurs, and the battle for equality starts by making such comments unacceptable, let’s not overreact either.
Oh Ryan. Firstly, I am quite confused as to what he is even arguing here. The NRL had to act because of their anti-homophobia stance, but it wasn’t homophobic, it was just bad language. In any case, I do know what he is saying below, and it is way off base:
Well, this could just not be more wrong. Language does not work like that, and as a writer, I am surprised Ryan is so confused about this. Homophobic language does not only exist when it is directed at a gay person’s gay ears.
Moses was not calling his opponent foul names and then dropped the word ‘gay’ in there as something unrelated and positive. He meant to insult Bateman. He used the word gay, the word that I identify with, as an insult. To tear someone else down.
That is homophobic. 100 per cent, case closed; blow the whistle, game over, and other sports things.
If you still don’t quite get it, let me tell you a little story about a terrified closeted 17-year-old Rebecca.
I was staying at my favourite aunt and uncle’s house for the weekend. I loved them, and felt comfortable with them. They were young and cool and accepting and progressive. We had a great night, and at the end of the night I planned on having them be the first people I came out to, hopefully giving me the courage to then come out to everyone.
I remember the exact moment. I was sitting on the stairs with my Aunty when my Uncle (who was inside drunk) started talking about bands and music and performers. I was laughing and excited and dying of nerves and happy and then I heard my Uncle say the word ‘faggot’.
Now Ryan, he wasn’t saying it to me. He wasn’t saying it at any gay person. It was just a throwaway word that I assume he didn’t think anything of, and probably doesn’t remember that night, let alone that moment.
And yet 14 years later, I remember it clearly. My stomach dropped, my face flushed, I felt cold run through my veins. My excited nerves turned to dread. I completely shut down. And do you know what happened? I didn’t come out to anyone until I was 20 years old.
That moment stopped me feeling safe to come out for three years. That throwaway line, that Ryan would argue was not homophobic, made me feel like my Uncle hated people like me. That I couldn’t even trust that the people I thought would be totally okay with me being a lesbian to accept me when I told them.
It made me feel I didn’t belong anywhere. Extend that to closeted men. Extend that to closeted young men in macho environments. Extend that to closeted young men who love NRL. Imagine the repercussions something like that could have.
Language is power. That is why I took Ryan’s response so seriously and am responding here. He is someone who gets to use language to influence people, to make a difference.
It does not matter what Ryan’s gay friend thinks. It especially doesn’t matter what they think if their opinion is that it isn’t offensive because it’s just like Moses calling Bateman a girl. That is a whole new problem. Comparing someone to a woman should not be an insult. It is sexist. Again, I don’t see how this confuses anyone.
I am glad that Ryan’s gay friend wasn’t personally offended, I am glad they are so comfortable and secure. But that isn’t the point. The point is that the NRL is trying to stamp out homophobic language, and what Moses said was absolutely homophobic.
He might not hate gay people, but what he said was homophobic. He might think gay people should have equal rights, but what he said was homophobic. I can keep saying it all day, and it will keep being true.
I can’t take Ryan’s word for it that Moses is not a homophobe. The only thing I have to base my opinion on is that Moses uses gay slurs to insult people. I hope that this is a learning experience for him and that he is more careful about what he says in the future, because this is not about if Ryan is offended, or Ryan’s gay friend is offended, or if I am offended.
This is about a wider issue, and making sure everyone feels safe and included to be involved with the sport they love.
Perhaps next time The Roar should consider having a few more perspectives on their website, instead of a straight male lecturing the rest of us on what we should find offensive.
fishes
Guest
Excellent article. Unfortunately Rebecca you are forgetting one thing- straight, Anglo men are always right and they always need to be defended.
Bondy
Guest
Christo I did try to respond but it didn't get through, I'll just simply say my take on the word Condone is an acceptance though dislike of . And I think I should leave it at that. Thanks Mod's ..
BA Sports
Guest
Why is someone in Coober Pedy any more or less likely to be gay? Sure there are communities in parts of inner cites which have shown more tolerance and hence more people relocate to those centres, but rugby league players come from West End, Coober Pedy, Broken Hill, Cronulla, Townsville, Auckland, Paddington, Rockhampton, Cabramatta etc, etc.. Rugby League players make up a reasonable cross section of the male community in this country. I agree now that there would be a lot of pressure placed on a player, but we have had one player (to my knowledge) do it ever. one of the thousands, including all those who played before social media and the prevalence of the internet. Why? its as much to do with attitudes of team mates in the locker room, be they open discrimination or disrespect for sexual orientation, or just poor language, and people using sexuality based words in their day to day language, like Mitchel did.
Statler and Waldorf
Roar Guru
you think he was stating that the other player was happy?
Statler and Waldorf
Roar Guru
if he is not a homophobe he wouldn't see his comment as a slur and wouldn't have said it. the fact that he said is as a slur proves Rebecca right
Statler and Waldorf
Roar Guru
maybe we are just starting to realise that everyone deserves to be treated with repsect
Statler and Waldorf
Roar Guru
Smithy
Roar Rookie
Great piece Rebecca, written from the heart. I think it's important to remember that you can never really be 100% sure there is no-one who is gay within earshot of a comment - even if everyone in the room outwardly says they are straight. Lots of people are still in the closet even in this day and age. As someone who has also taken a deep breath and submitted an article for publication on The Roar on this issue, I've been pleasantly surprised by the comments on this article! It's great to see people approaching this in the spirit of trying to better understand the perspectives of gay people and keeping an open mind.
Jd
Guest
I think it is ironic that during a lecture on what we should find offensive you would tell off this site for allowing a straight male to tell us what is offensive, seems kind of hypocritical. Ryan was just as entitled to his opinion as you are to yours. I saw somewhere that he had replied and said that articles and opinions like this had swayed his opinion and that is fantastic. But that last paragraph here just really rubbed me the wrong way.
Jd
Guest
If offence was in the eye of the beholder wouldn't this not be offensive because Batemen wasn't offended? Incorrect or not I personally tend to lean more towards Ryan's perspective from yesterday and nothing in this changed my mind. I think the true embarrasment here is that the NRL put the players in the position that their words were picked up by the mics on the field. Because their are plenty of nasty things said in the heat of the game that should just sort of be left there and I personally think this is one of them, I also imagine he wasn't the only person that used that exact slur during the game. So I agree that what he said was reprehensible but the NRL has to know that stuff like this gets said and I think they owe it to the brand and to the players (their employees and their product) to try and protect this from happening to them. Correct or not this also screams PR move to me. Say what you like but do you think if somehow the NRL knew about this without the media and public knowing he would have received a 2 game suspension? I just really don't know what to make of it all. I think under the circumstances NRL handled it as we'll as they could have. But I think it really was more just foul language and a general slur than a specifically homophobic slur. And I think anyone who took it as such needs to try and understand it from his perspective. If you have ever played sport at any time after the age of like 11 you almost are guaranteed to have said that or something similarly vulgar at so e point. I am really trying to understand Rebecca's point and I just can't. I do respect her opinion though.Guess it just must be the straight males perspective.
JayBob
Guest
The good thing to come out of this is that it has brought this issue to light. I will admit when I was younger I used to say "gay" in a derogatory way, everyone else did and I guess we didn't really think about who it was hurting. I had a gay cousin and one night at dinner someone said something and I responded "That's gay" basically meaning "That's bad". My Cousin or no one else reacted but I remember how ashamed I felt at the time, after that day I never used it in a derogatory way again, and it made me think about the issue a lot. The term gay may have evolved from "Happy" to "Homosexual" to "Bad" and I see some people using this as an argument, they say that it no longer means homosexual, when people say it they are not meaning to call someone a homosexual. This is true but the only reason they see it as meaning Bad is because when it originated, it was calling someone Gay because "being homosexual is bad"! That is the issue, and that is why it is offensive. Moses probably didn't even think about Bateman's sexuality at any point(and he;s not gay anyway) but that is the problem, that society has come to accept the word for it's new meaning.
Floyd Calhoun
Guest
True. Nobody mentions either the use of the last word in the insult. The one that gives it it's real impact. Been used for centuries I realise, but still carries more offensive weight than 'gay' I reckon.
JayBob
Guest
Seriously? Calling someone a girl on the footy field is basically calling them soft and not hard enough to play Rugby League. Physically, not mentally.. obviously!! It's a physical game. Put a women out there with all them and see how they go, most men wouldn't handle it. No matter how much everyone wants to believe it(for some reason) Boys and Girls are different, we learnt the basics in school remember. And it's pretty clear Women physically aren't as strong or athletic as Men are, that's why they have different events at the Olympics, maybe that's sexist too and they should combine them all.
jameswm
Guest
No Geoff - I don't think kids use the word "gay" as an insult to be bad. It's more being soft. Or sometimes it's just something that seems what a gay person would do, based on the kid's preconceptions, which in turn are affected by characters like Mitchell and Cameron. It's more of a stereotype for them than something they particularly dislike.
Daws
Guest
Well done to Bec for taking the time to issue a passionate, yet civilised response, well done ROC for accepting the enlightened view and well done the roar for running it. We ought to have more of these discussions.
Christo the Daddyo
Guest
I think people whose religious convictions lead them to hold this view are ok - as long as they choose their words VERY carefully. Saying something like, "I don't agree with xyz's position on homosexuality" is very different to saying "xyz is an effing gay c&$nt". The first is simply a statement of disagreement, while the second is obviously intended to denigrate, insult and humiliate.
Christo the Daddyo
Guest
Well done Ryan. Gutsy response. The great learning experience of life...:)
Adsa
Guest
On ya Johnno, don't ever change, if we can't laugh at times then we are all stuffed.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
Could be automatic, Nick. Some key words send the comment direct to the moderation queue. I cop it time to time with the selective usage of non-judicious terms
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
There is an alternative way of saying it? :D