When Graham Ford joined the Rideau Speedeaus swimming club this year, it was a liberating experience for him. He was thrust into an ideal world where as a coach, he did not feel obligated to always explain his sexual orientation.
Some of Graham’s other coaching jobs have been with kids, making his sexual orientation harder to discuss.
“It’s not like I can be extremely open about who I am,” he says. “I try to be open about it, because I think that in this day and age some of these kids need to be exposed and know that some of the people they know are gay.”
The mood feels different for Ford when he is with the Rideau Speedeaus.
“It is nice to have that freedom and atmosphere,” he says. “There is no stigma.”
Ford knows all too well the challenges of competing in sports as a gay man.
When he was in university he experienced some of the stigma involved with homosexuality. Most of it revolved around the changeroom.
“Being gay, especially in male sports, is not easily accepted because male sports usually have the macho-masculine attitude,” he says. “It’s funny because swimming is increasingly expanding as a gay sport. Some swimmers try to resist that and therefore it is becoming increasingly homophobic.”
The Ottawa Rideau Speedeaus d’Ottawa has been around for about 25 years. Although it is primarily a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered swim team; it welcomes members from the straight community also.
The Rainbow Rockers is Ottawa’s gay and lesbian curling league. It hosts an annual Bonspiel at the Ottawa Curling Club each spring.
The Ottawa-Gatineau Gay Hockey Association, known as the OG Capitals, operates out of Carleton Ice House and hosts an annual fundraising tournament.
Jennifer Birch-Jones, program officer for the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Disability, understands the challenge for gays in sports.
“I think if we were to judge how welcoming sports are to a GLBTQ person by the number of athletes, coaches and sports leaders who are out there, sports is not yet welcoming," she says.
However she has seen signs of progress. She has held talks with Athletics Canada, the Canadian Olympics Committee, the Canada Winter Games Mission, Sports British Columbia and the coaching Association of Ontario to address homophobia in sports. Some of these groups are starting to hold workshops to address the issue.
Groups like the Rideau Speedeaus, Rainbow Rockers and OG Capitals show this progress with accepting GLBTQ athletes in sport, but sporting culture has a long way to go.
“It is funny how you can’t use a racist epithet, but in sport you can certainly call someone a faggot and get away with it,” says Birch-Jones. “We need a culture where you cannot call someone a faggot and get away with it.”