Bay Windows - February 26, 2004
Ethan Jacobs, ejacobs@baywindows.com.

Last year's event, which GLAF said drew an estimated 200-300 attendees, featured only one full day of programming, with a few events the evening before and the day after. O. Mac Chinsomboon, GLAF executive director, said after the success of last year's event organizers have expanded this year's International Gay and Lesbian Athletics Conference to include three full days of programming.

"The first conference last year was basically to put a stake in the ground," said Chinsomboon. "... This year we are filling out the program."

One of the confirmed keynote speakers is former University of Florida softball player Andrea Zimbardi, who alleged that she was removed from the university's softball team after coaches discovered she was a lesbian. The school recently settled with Zimbardi and has begun implementing diversity training around GLBT issues for its coaches and athletic staff.

Zimbardi said she would speak from the perspective of student athletes and discuss the details of her own case and the eventual settlement. In her complaint to the university she alleged that prior to being removed from the team coaches frequently made disparaging comments about lesbians, and in some cases they directly attacked Zimbardi herself for being open about her sexual orientation. She had been out to her teammates without encountering any problems, and despite a strong record on the field coaches gradually reduced her playing time and finally removed her last March.

Zimbardi still attends the University of Florida, where she is pursuing her Masters in engineering management. She said she has spoken with some of the diversity trainers who taught the first GLBT issues seminars for university athletic staff, who told her that the athletic staff seemed genuinely engaged and motivated to address homophobia in their programs. Ultimately, Zimbardi believes college athletic programs need to codify their commitment to ending homophobia in college sports in order to provide full support for GLBT student athletes.

"I think it really needs to start with having a [GLBT nondiscrimination] policy written," said Zimbardi. "Having it written somewhere and showing that to athletes is a step forward to making anything better in athletics."

She said that while coaches and staff play a central role in determining how gay friendly their programs are, GLBT athletes often place much of the pressure on themselves, working to prove that they are valuable teammates regardless of their sexual orientation.

"There is so much pressure to separate your sexuality from your athletic ability," said Zimbardi.

She said if coaches and teammates work together to create an atmosphere that is welcoming to GLBT athletes, ultimately they will help take some of this self-imposed pressure off of athletes like herself.

"All they'll have to worry about is whether they can hit a ball today," said Zimbardi.

GLAF spokesperson Monica VanBuskirk said that many of this year's panels will take up topics discussed at the 2003 conference. For many attendees, said VanBuskirk, last year marked the first time that GLBT athletes gathered as a community and to discuss common issues around homophobia in sports. This year GLAF hopes people will use the panel discussions to develop a concrete approach to combating homophobia.

"Now that we have that background knowledge [from last year's conference] we're giving a lot more discussion time to set up an action plan," said VanBuskirk. She said she hopes that by the end of the conference attendees will be able to write up plans for addressing issues of discrimination within their own athletic clubs and communities.

Helen Carroll, coordinator of the Homophobia in Sports project for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, is organizing a panel on the legal issues around coming out as an athlete. She said potential topics for discussion include Zimbardi's case and the case of Matthew Cusick, a gymnast who was fired by Cirque du Soleil for being HIV positive. In the face of legal action, Cirque has changed its policy about hiring HIV positive performers and offered to rehire Cusick.

"I think that what we want to have happen... is for people at the conference to realize that there is recourse for discrimination at all levels," said Carroll.

Judy Van Handle, a copy editor and freelance writer for the Boston Globe and a member of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), is organizing a panel on media issues involving GLBT athletes. She expects the panel will address the media's role in the absence of openly gay male athletes in any of the major sports leagues.

"Sports is really the last bastion where people haven't come out," said Van Handle. "There's more soldiers that have come out than athletes."

The first day of the conference will feature a day-long Sports Leadership Congress where leaders of GLBT sports leagues can network and share ideas for improving their own leagues. Throughout the conference a Health and Wellness Expo will feature programs addressing health and wellness issues for athletes at every skill level.

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