She really worried that his siblings might not accept him, I worried that he might be destroyed

[oddmonster]

#42: Jocks: True Stories of America's Gay Male Athletes by Dan Woog:

“There are a lot of bad things about athletics everywhere,” Patrick says. “Starting with Little League or Pop Warner, there’s this concept that to be a man is to be an athlete, to be an athlete is to be strong, and to be strong you have to have a certain attitude.” …Still, he

Comments

[little_tristan]

Wow, this does sound interesting. I know it's best to have a good mix of experiences, but I think that loading it with positive stories is good for two closely related reasons: we all know about the evil things that happen to gays, in and out of athletics, when they're discovered and/or come out, so there should be a book or two that offers hope. And, as you pointed out, this is directed toward students, and they need the hope more than anyone else. Also, by showing how accepting other people are, it might help the straight students to see that it's okay to be that way themselves. That they don't have to hate gay kids if they don't want to.

Altogether, a very good idea. Now if they could just get schools to teach from the book.

[oddmonster]

Man, what I wouldn't give to have this book in schools. It does come with that study guide in the back to help coaches and teachers integrate it in their lesson plans, too

[little_tristan]

I always figured sports would be a hotbed of homophobia, like the military, for one reason if no other: any environment where the worst insult one man can use against another is to call him a "girl" just isn't going to be good. And how much do you hate that, btw? Anytime someone calls a group of men "ladies", I just want to kill.

I thought the guys' families were mostly supportive. I must have misread that. It would be interesting to know how big an impact they had.