Caster Semenya will be allowed to run in races of all distances without taking testosterone-reducing medication until at least June 25, a Swiss court has ruled.
Semenya, 28, is appealing an International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) decision that required her to take medication to suppress her hormone levels for races between 400m and a mile, according to her lawyer.
As part of her appeal, her legal team asked for a suspension of the IAAF ruling while they appeal it.
The Swiss Federal Supreme Court granted this request and has temporarily suspended the IAFF regulation made on 1 May 2019 that limited the testosterone levels of female athletes. The suspension will remain in place until Semenya’s appeal has been finalised.
The Swiss court, in a statement to BBC Sport, said it had “super-provisionally instructed the IAAF to suspend the application of the ‘Eligibility Regulations for the Female Classification for athletes with differences of sex development’ with respect to the claimant, until the decision on the request for issuance of provisional measures.”
It added: “At present, it is not known when the Swiss Federal Supreme Courts will issue an interlocutory order concerning these provisional measures.”
Semenya’s lawyer, Dorothee Schramm, said, “The court has granted welcome temporary protection to Caster Semenya.”
“This is an important case that will have fundamental implications for the human rights of female athletes,” she said.
The IAAF now has until June 25 to respond to Semenya’s case.
Imposing testosterone treatment on Semenya is ‘humiliating,’ says UN
The landmark ruling on May 1 that said female athletes would have to undergo testosterone restrictions if their natural testosterone levels were higher than “female levels.”
The Olympic 800m champion had been challenging the implementation of rules that would limit the testosterone levels of female athletes.
An IAAF statement in February explained the proposals: “If a DSD athlete has testes and male levels of testosterone, they get the same increases in bone and muscle size and strength and increases in haemoglobin that a male gets when they go through puberty, which is what gives men such a performance advantage over women.
“Therefore, to preserve fair competition in the female category, it is necessary to require DSD athletes to reduce their testosterone down to female levels before they compete at international level.”
The first time JayCee Cooper walked out onto the platform at a women’s powerlifting competition, everything else fell away: her years-long internal struggle over her gender identity, her decision to leave men’s sports when she began transitioning, her doubts that she would ever feel safe if she returned to competitions.
When she stepped out in front of a hundred people in the gym in Fort Collins, Colorado, last September, all she focused on was the barbell, which she hoisted off the ground. And then she heard the cheers of the crowd: “Come on JayCee!” She had found not only a sport, but also a home.
“In a world that wants to take away our power and strength,” Cooper, 31, said recently by phone from her home in Minneapolis, “powerlifting is a way to gain that strength back and feel powerful and feel ownership of our own lives. It helps us find strength within ourselves and helps us find strength within our bodies.”
Cooper signed up for more competitions, but, to her astonishment, USA Powerlifting, the sport’s biggest federation, told her that she could not compete in the women’s division because of her gender identity.
In an email, USA Powerlifting said she was denied because she had a “direct competitive advantage” over the other women who were competing.
“It took me aback,” Cooper said. “I didn’t want to put myself into a situation where I obviously wasn’t welcome.”
Cooper says powerlifting makes her feel connected to her strength. Caroline Yang / for NBC News
It was just the latest in a growing number of battles over the place of transgender women athletes in competitive sports.
As transgender women have become more visible and sought to participate in women’s sports, athletic organizing bodies have grappled with how to respond, and critics of their inclusion have grown increasingly vocal, as well.
In March, tennis legend Martina Navratilova apologized for calling trans women “cheats” in a Sunday Times op-ed in which she wrote that “letting men compete as women simply if they change their name and take hormones is unfair.” Weeks later, marathoner Paula Radcliffe told BBC Sport that it would be “naive” not to institute rules. In an interview with Sky News in April, Radcliffe said that if trans people were permitted to compete without regulations, it would be “the death of women’s sport.”
For transgender people watching this issue play out, the debate — often based more in bias and assumptions than in science — is dehumanizing. Those who seek to exclude transgender women from sports sometimes imply that the athletes are adopting their identity to gain an edge in competition, a suggestion many find offensive.
“They don’t understand what it means to be a trans person,” Chris Mosier, a competitive runner and cycler and the first known transgender athlete to make a men’s U.S. national team, said.
“The folks who are improperly reporting on this are making it seem like cis men are pretending to be women to dominate sports,” he added, referring to people who are assigned male at birth and identify as men. “I can say that the amount of discrimination, harassment and challenges trans people face in their everyday lives would never be offset by glory.”
‘IT’S BEEN A ROLLER-COASTER’
Before becoming a powerlifter, Cooper lifted weights as part of her training for other sports. As a teenager growing up in Clarkston, Michigan, she was on the U.S. junior national curling team, competed in track and field in high school and rowed in college.
But she never felt fully comfortable on those all-boys teams.
“It’s been a roller-coaster,” Cooper said. “One of the reasons I stepped away from curling was that I wasn’t being my authentic self, and I was super depressed, and I needed some time away to figure out what that meant for me.”
Four years ago, she began hormone replacement therapy as part of her transition. She now identifies as transfeminine, which she sees as a more expansive identity than simply female.
Cooper first came across powerlifting in high school, but didn’t decide to compete until last year while recuperating from a broken ankle, and she was struck by the sport’s simplicity and supportive atmosphere. In powerlifting, athletes are divided into categories by sex, age and weight, and they compete in three types of lifts: squat, bench press and deadlift. Each movement is a test of static strength, force and focus.
Cooper holds a lifting medal. Caroline Yang / for NBC News
“The barbell for me has been a very empowering way to be in my body, which is politicized every waking second, connect with it, and feel like I’m achieving something,” Cooper said.
“It’s a very almost spiritual feeling in the sense that I’m carrying all of this trauma with me and I’m literally focusing all of that into the barbell. In that moment, I get to control what’s going on.”
To lower her testosterone levels, Cooper takes spironolactone, a drug that is also used to treat high blood pressure and can mask steroid use.
USA Powerlifting, which follows rules set by the World Anti-Doping Agency, requires athletes to apply for an exemption to compete while taking the drug. The group has granted exemptions to powerlifters who have taken spironolactone to treat acne or polycystic ovary syndrome, Larry Maile, USA Powerlifting’s president, said.
As part of her medication exemption application, Cooper provided documentation that her testosterone levels have remained under the International Olympic Committee’s accepted limit for two years. (USA Powerlifting falls under the International Powerlifting Federation, which adopted the IOC’s guidelines that allow transgender women to compete in women’s divisions provided their testosterone is below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months.)
But in December, Cooper’s exemption request was denied. She was told she could not compete in the women’s division of powerlifting because she had a “competitive advantage” as a transgender woman, according to an email exchange obtained by NBC News between Cooper and Dr. Kristopher Hunt, the chair of USA Powerlifting’s committee that reviews applications for medical exemptions.
“Male-to-female transgenders are not allowed to compete as females in our static strength sport as it is a direct competitive advantage,” Hunt said in one email to Cooper.
Pressed for clarification, he wrote a follow-up. “The fact that transgender male to female individuals having gone through male puberty confer an unfair competitive advantage over non-transgender females,” he said.
Cooper hopes to someday compete in powerlifting again. Caroline Yang / for NBC News
In a phone interview, Maile defended the decision and said the organization’s policy of barring transgender women — as well as transgender men who take testosterone — was not new, though it was not posted on USA Powerlifting’s website until this winter after Cooper applied for the exemption. Maile said that the IOC’s guidelines ultimately give organizations the discretion to make their own decisions about fair play. To reach the decision, he said USA Powerlifting researched the physical differences between men and women in terms of muscle density, connective tissue and frame shape.
“We’ve been referred to as bigoted and transphobic and a whole lot of less kind things, but it’s not an issue of that for us,” Maile said. “It’s an issue that we have to consider dispassionately and make our best judgment collectively about what the impact on fair play is for us, and that’s the basis on which we’ve proceeded.”
He added that powerlifting “is really unique, because we’re a high strength and low technique sport” — so the physiology of the competitors is particularly important.
Cooper doesn’t buy that argument, noting that women’s bodies come in all shapes and sizes, which may confer advantages for different sports.
“You look at a WNBA player, they’re pushing 6 feet versus someone doing gymnastics who’s 5 feet tall,” she said. “Their bodies are built completely differently. That’s what sports are about.”
‘THE SCIENCE IS IN ITS INFANCY’
The policies governing transgender athletes vary by sport.
The NCAA has policies similar to the International Olympic Committee and does not require athletes to undergo gender-confirming surgery, while USA Gymnastics does require it under some circumstances, according to research compiled by TransAthlete, a database of professional, recreational, college and K-12 sports’ policies on trans athletes.
Others aim to be more inclusive. USA Hockey, for example, offers options for nonbinary athletes who do not identify as male or female, as well as guidance for trans athletes.
While opponents of inclusion point to the “bigger, faster, stronger” argument as the basis of their fear that transgender women are taking over women’s sports, there are few examples of trans women who’ve excelled at a national or world level, according to Cyd Zeigler, co-founder of OutSports, an outlet that reports on LGBTQ athletes.
The scientific research on transgender athletes is in the early stages, and there is disagreement among experts about how to determine fair rules of competitions.
“There’s no simple or even complex biological test you can apply that tells you who’s a man and who’s a woman,” Roger Pielke Jr., director of the Sports Governance Center at the University of Colorado, said.
In the absence of such a test, testosterone levels are often used as a proxy to determine whether trans women are eligible to compete in women’s leagues. There is evidence that transgender women who are on hormone therapy have lower muscle mass and less aerobic ability than they did before, said Joanna Harper, a scientist who studies gender-diverse athletes and advises the International Olympic Committee. In a 2015 study she published on trans women who are distance runners, Harper, who is a trans woman and runner herself, found that after being on hormone therapy the women were running more than 10 percent slower.
But testosterone is an imperfect metric. Even among cisgender men and women, there is variance in the amount that is considered normal.
To deny Cooper “the right to compete based on ridiculous fear is completely unfounded,” Harper said.
‘TRANS LIFTERS BELONG HERE’
At the Minnesota State Championship in February — a USA Powerlifting meet where Cooper hoped to compete — almost a dozen athletes and 20 people in the audience protested her exclusion, according to Maxwell Poessnecker, a transmasculine-identified lifter from Saint Paul, Minnesota. Flanked by signs and wearing T-shirts that said, “I support trans lifters” and “trans lifters belong here,” the athletes stood on the lifting platform without competing to show their disapproval of the policy, Poessnecker said.
From little leagues to the Olympics, questions over transgender inclusion will continue to surface. Advocates who say concerns about “competitive fairness” are often rooted in gender stereotypes and scientific research is lacking believe policies should be as inclusive as possible.
“It’s hard to call anything model when it requires an individual to be tested and questioned,” said Breanna Diaz, a powerlifter and co-director of Pull for Pride, a charity deadlifting event that benefits homeless LGBTQ youth. If athletes “have a sincerely held gender identity, that should be sufficient,” she said.
Cooper, who co-directs Pull for Pride, hopes to use her experience with powerlifting as a way to drive the conversation about trans athletes.
On May 9, USA Powerlifting’s national governing body will meet to discuss its transgender inclusion policy.
“I really do love this sport,” Cooper said, “and it’s not fair to genetically eliminate an entire group of people.”
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has ruled against gold medallist Caster Semenya, who challenged the implementation of rules which would limit the testosterone levels of female athletes.
Under the regulations, the IAAF rule that female athletes with a so-called difference of sexual development (DSD), will have to undergo testosterone restrictions. The UN condemned such treatment as an “unnecessary, humiliating and harmful medical procedure.”
In reaction to the ruling, the athlete simply tweeted a graphic which read: “sometimes it’s better to react with no reaction.”
The CAS ruling stated: “DSD Regulations are discriminatory but the majority of the Panel found that… such discrimination is a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of achieving the IAAF’s aim of preserving the integrity of female athletics in the Restricted Events.”
In response to the decision, the IAAF said it was “grateful to the Court of Arbitration for Sport for its detailed and prompt response” and “pleased that the regulations were found to be a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of achieving the IAAF’s legitimate aim of preserving the integrity of female athletics.”
Caster Semenya to undergo hormone therapy before competitions due to high testosterone levels
Semenya, 28, who has naturally high testosterone levels, will now have to undergo hormone therapy for at least six months before competing in any competition. The rules stipulate those female runners with so-called DSD who compete in events between 400m and a mile will have to undergo the procedure.
Caster Semenya of South Africa celebrates wins gold in the Women’s 800 metres final during athletics on day nine of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)
An IAAF statement in February explained the proposals: “If a DSD athlete has testes and male levels of testosterone, they get the same increases in bone and muscle size and strength and increases in haemoglobin that a male gets when they go through puberty, which is what gives men such a performance advantage over women.
“Therefore, to preserve fair competition in the female category, it is necessary to require DSD athletes to reduce their testosterone down to female levels before they compete at international level.”
What if she won?
It was suggested that, if the verdict went against the IAAF, athletics might have introduced an ‘open’ category that men and women could, in theory, compete in side by side, and a ‘protected’ category based on hormone levels, rather than gender.
Her legal team argued her advantages are no different from other genetic variations celebrated in sport, and that “her genetic gift should be celebrated, not discriminated against.”
They also maintained: “Her case is about the rights of women who are born as women, reared and socialised as women—[to] be permitted to compete in the female category without discrimination.”
Finally, they said the IAAF’s requirement for DSDs to take hormone suppressants to reduce testosterone is ethically wrong and potentially poses a health risk.
A bitter dispute over DSD athletes
The Semenya case divided opinion across the athletic world. One of the people with the most outspoken opinions against the case was marathon runner Paula Radcliffe.
Radcliffe said that the ruling could hand intersex and transgender athletes an unfair advantage, and ultimately bring about the end of women’s sport.
The former marathon runner claimed that should Semenya’s appeal be successful, coaches could begin seeking out women with similarly high testosterone levels.
Caster Semenya and Paula Radcliffe (Getty; Sky News)
“It would be naive to think if this rule didn’t go through that there aren’t some people out there, managers or federations, who would actively seek out girls with this condition and say: ‘Right, you are going to do this sport and this event so that we can win,’” she told Sky News on Thursday (April 18).
While IAAF president Lord Sebastian Coe explained the decision to bring forward the proposals: “No individual athlete has been targeted in the creation of the regulations. We need to create competition categories within our sport that ensure that success is determined by talent, dedication and hard work, rather than by other factors that are not considered fair or meaningful, such as the enormous physical advantages that an adult has over a child, or a male athlete has over a female athlete,” he said.
Throughout the case, Semenya has said, “I just want to run naturally, the way I was born.”
What about trans athletes?
Critics of Semenya’s legal challenge, such as Radcliffe, argue that it would “open the door to cases for trans athletes,” who currently have to lower their testosterone levels to complete. Radcliffe has previously argued for trans athletes to be banned from competing in elite sports.
Joanna Harper, who advises the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on regulations for trans athletes, has toldThe Guardian that “the IOC is waiting to see what happens in the Semenya case” before announcing testosterone limits for trans athletes in the Tokyo 2020 games.
A singular experience can sometimes change your life path. One lone swimmer from Israel traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, to compete in the 2014 Gay Games. He was part of a group of eight Israeli athletes who made the trip halfway around the world to participate.
Exhilarated and wanting to share his experience, he returned to Tel Aviv and became involved in creating an organized LGBT sports community. When the Washington Blade caught up with Sagi Krispin in 2016, the TLV LGBT Sports Club was already a thriving entity.
Krispin wasn’t done though. In 2017, the Tel Aviv Games launched as a multisport biennial LGBT sports tournament. The first iteration included basketball, soccer, swimming and tennis.
The LGBT sports community in Tel Aviv has continued to grow and at the 2018 Paris Gay Games, 52 Israeli athletes competed in six sports including 22 participants in swimming.
The second edition of the Tel Aviv Games will be held from March 27-30 with road running, volleyball and same-sex dance being added to the previous roster of sports.
“This year’s TAG will be bigger, more visible and prouder,” says Krispin, head of the organizing committee. “There will also be more involvement from the local community outside of the sports community.”
With that in mind, they added venues around town and a Pride Run 5K/10K that will be open to anyone. Proceeds from the Pride Run will benefit a Tel Aviv youth organization, Israel Gay Youth.
“The people here are very committed to TAG,” Krispin says. “We have partnered with City Hall and will be hosting events there.”
Europe has a series of LGBT multisport events that are held in cities such as Vienna, Prague and Stuttgart. Most of the participants at the first Tel Aviv Games came from European countries.
“This time we are also expecting athletes from North America, Australia and Asia,” Krispin says. “We have a selling point that isn’t found in the other host cities. Europe will still be recovering from winter, but you can go to the beach in Tel Aviv in March. We are excited to welcome everyone.”
Never one to pass up an opportunity for sports and travel, the District of Columbia Aquatics Club is sending five swimmers to compete in the Tel Aviv Games.
John Tustin joined D.C. Aquatics in 2009 and has traveled extensively with the team. The competition in Tel Aviv will be a segue to stops in Jordan, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.
“I have always wanted to go to these places as a tourist and it is nice to have a structured activity to go along with travel,” Tustin says. “The competition along with the events and parties gives you the opportunity to eat and hangout with locals. It makes it much easier to experience how they live.”
Tustin will be stopping in Jordan on his own before the competition and then will be joined by his teammates for the trips to Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.
“I am fine traveling independent, but it is nice combining travel with friends and teammates,” Tustin says. “Our common interest in swimming will enrich the experience of my vacation. I am excited to see the history of the area along with modern Israel.”
South African Olympic gold medalist Caster Semenya.
South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya is fighting for her right to compete without reducing her testosterone levels.
The openly gay athlete appeared at the court of arbitration for sport (CAS) on 14 February. She is asking to compete without ‘unnecessary medical intervention’.
Lawyers for athletics’ governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), suggested that, if Semenya was successful in next week’s landmark case, it could lead to athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD) and transgender athletes ‘dominating the podiums and prize money in sport’.
‘Her case is about the rights of women such as Ms. Semenya who are born as women, reared and socialized as women, who have been legally recognized as women for their entire lives, who have always competed as women, and who should be permitted to compete in the female category without discrimination,’ her lawyers said in a statement.
The IAAF has previously asked Semenya to undertake gender testing by athletics chiefs, but no results have been made public.
Her lawyers repeated the statement the South African made when she announced she would fight the rules last year: ‘It is not fair. I just want to run naturally, the way I was born.’
She also added: ‘It is not fair that people question who I am.’T
Semenya has been competing without taking testosterone-suppressing medications ever since CAS changed the rule in 2015. They allowed intersex athletes with testes and higher levels of testosterone to compete freely.
Nonetheless, the IAAF intended to bring in new rules on 1 November 2018. They postponed a decision to 26 March to wait for the outcome of the legal challenge from Semenya and Athletics South Africa.
The rules will apply to women in track events from 400m up to the mile. According to the new rules, athletes will have to keep their testosterone levels below a prescribed amount ‘for at least six months prior to competing’.W
In a statement, Semenya’s lawyers added: ‘Women with differences in sexual development have genetic differences that are no different than other genetic variations that are celebrated in sport. She asks that she be respected and treated as any other athlete. Her genetic gift should be celebrated, not discriminated against.’
The IAAF rejected a report suggesting it regarded Semenya as a ‘biological male’.
‘The IAAF is not classifying any DSD athlete as male,’ it added. ‘To the contrary, we accept their legal sex without question, and permit them to compete in the female category.’
It pointed out that DSD athletes’ get the same increases in bone and muscle size and strength and increases in hemoglobin that a male gets when they go through puberty’.
This is ‘what gives men such a performance advantage over women,’ it added.
‘Therefore, to preserve fair competition in the female category, it is necessary to require DSD athletes to reduce their testosterone down to female levels before they compete at an international level.’
Jeff Rohrer (left) and Joshua Ross will marry one another this Sunday.Allen Zaki
With Jeff Rohrer, you have to expect the unexpected.
When the 6-foot-3, 235-pound former Dallas Cowboys linebacker approached our table in the corner of a dimly lit Beverly Hills restaurant a couple of weeks ago, he was dressed like a stereotypical straight guy, clothes on the baggy side, carrying an over-sized duffel bag… and a delicately clenched martini.
Sitting down, he quickly launched into some questions for me, as well as ground rules for our conversation. He was nervously hopeful about this entire public coming-out process and the small collection of writers he had to open up to with his story. He wanted to share his story, but not all of it. Not yet.
Still, as we tip-toed into some questions about the first 59-plus years of his life it was clear Rohrer had a lot to say. There was an understated excitement about him, giving long, detailed answers to simple questions, like he couldn’t share his story quickly or deeply enough.
He’d been lying to himself about his own life for so long that now, with the opportunity to finally tell himself and the rest of the world hid truth, he just couldn’t talk fast enough.
The appetizer had barely been cleared before there was suddenly a redness in Rohrer’s eyes as conversation turned to his revelations since meeting his fiancé. His pace of speaking slowed.
As he talked about the reaction to his private coming out to some of his Cowboys teammates, his ex-wife, his friends in Los Angeles’ beach communities, and almost everyone else in his life, Rohrer became emotionally present with something bubbling inside of him.
I asked him what that was.
“Oh boy,” he said, quickly covering his face with his black napkin, a moment of raw emotion he simply hadn’t yet let out. We sat in silence for the better part of a minute, him present with the last few months of his life. When he pulled the napkin away, his eyes were scorched and watery.
”The kindness of my friends and my family and my teammates” he said, his voice trembling, pausing between words, doing everything he could to express the sudden joy that enveloped his new gay life. “It’s just been fucking ridiculous how nice they have been, and how supportive. And how they don’t care about any of that. They just love me, they always have. Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s changed.”
It was like a fog had lifted from his sight, and he saw his own kindness — years of generosity with teammates and friends — coming back to him. When his friends and family and teammates had told him over the years that they loved him, they really meant it. Who he had been with them in that time was far more important to them than what he is.
”To know that at a time like this, that they have my back, it’s fucking amazing. I never expected it. I figured the world is fucked, but it’s not. It’s amazing. It’s fucking amazing.”
A Dallas Cowboy marrying the man he loves
This Sunday at a not-so-small ceremony in Southern California, Rohrer will marry his boyfriend of two-plus years, Joshua Ross.
This was inconceivable for Rohrer just a few years ago. He had never, while he was playing in the NFL for the Cowboys or at any point during his marriage to his wife, dated men, had a boyfriend or had any kind of gay experience. While he pursued a life he loved, with people he still loves very much, there was still something he knew was a secret bubbling inside of him, a secret he could never let out.
Jeff Rohrer is a man on a mission to open hearts and minds to gay people.Allen Zaki
“So many nights I cried myself to sleep, feeling like I was the Wolfman, or Jekyll and Hyde, or Frankenstein, some kind of monster that only comes out when it’s a full moon, always living in the shadows.”
It was an evening about three years ago that Rohrer let the Wolfman out, quietly making his way up Robertson Blvd. for an after-work cocktail at the popular gay West Hollywood watering hole, Tortilla Republic. Not out to anyone, he was simply “working in the area” and “wanted to avoid rush-hour traffic.” Like ya do.
It was there at the bar that he struck up a conversation with a young man named Josh. Sparks didn’t fly that night, but Rohrer said leaving the bar with the young man’s contact information, he knew he wanted to spend more time with Ross.
”I think we both knew where it was going.”
Where it was going was a place Rohrer had never been before. Still living with his ex-wife and with a career in the entertainment industry, he had built a story for his own life that revolved around family, film and football.
Yet he just had to see Ross again. It was a burning desire he had squelched in the past. All the while it had been there under the surface for years, something in his late 50s he simply couldn’t deny anymore.
“My experience is that people are born gay, and anyone who wants to dispute that I’d be happy to have a conversation with them, including Mike Pence. I’d love to sit down with him.”
Once a Cowboy, always a Cowboy
Rohrer played for the Dallas Cowboys for six seasons, spending his final 1988 season on the sideline with an injury. By the time Jimmy Johnson arrived in Dallas in 1989, ushering in an era of youth and renewed excitement, Rohrer was part of the old guard, and injured on top of that. Rohrer never played a down in the regular season for Johnson.
Before his NFL career was cut short, he was an integral part of America’s team. Over the course of those six seasons with the Cowboys he started 41 games for legendary coach Tom Landry, racking up 7.5 sacks and four fumble recoveries, all in his final four seasons.
When he was drafted in the second round out of Yale, some people scratched their heads — sports columnist Jim Lassiter called him “unheard of.” When Rohrer got the draft call from Cowboys player personnel guru Gil Brandt, he was studying for a final — He thought the call was a prank by friends.
Mind you, this was when the Ivy League was no slouch. His Yale Bulldogs won the Ivy League each of his last three seasons. While a second-round draft pick may have been a reach at the time, success surrounded Rohrer.
Jeff Rohrer played in the NFL for the Dallas Cowboys in the 1980s.Photo courtesy of Jeff Rohrer
In football, where he excelled wildly and crafted a professional career, Rohrer found a constant reason to keep his true feelings silent.
“Living with my family in that [Southern California] community, it was not acceptable. That was not part of the plan, and it wasn’t going to happen. When I went to Yale, it was the same thing there. And then I got drafted by the Cowboys. What am I going to do, come out then?”
The inertia of his life from youth to the NFL was unquestioned. He was just another red-blooded American boy playing football. “Straight” was simply assumed.
”Football is a gladiator sport. It’s very, very physical, very tough. At least at this point in our society, toughness is not associated with the gay community. It’s not a natural fit to a lot of people.”
Despite the perception, Rohrer isn’t sure he ever heard a gay slur in the Cowboys locker room.
“It was a football locker room, like every other locker room I’ve ever been in. Nothing was anti-gay.”
That reflects my interview with Cowboys Hall of Famer Michael Irvin several years ago. In that conversation The Playmaker said he believed that if a teammate had come out as gay to the rest of the Cowboys in the 1990s, they would have accepted him and moved on.
”I would agree with Michael,” Rohrer said. “The generation before him, I would say that’s true as well. I’m not sure about the Cowboy leadership, but the team, knowing the guys and especially how they have reacted to me so far, they wouldn’t have cared.”
Rohrer certainly would have never made that observation while he was in the middle of his Cowboys career. Whether or not there were gay slurs thrown around the locker room, there is a machismo in virtually every football locker room that seems to send an unspoken message exuding heterosexism.
Yet Rohrer now feels that aura is a lot of bluster. Yes, strength and power are admired in an NFL locker room. They are mandatory. But that doesn’t mean that strength and power must come from a straight guy.
“In professional football the game is so hard, and you have to be so good, and you have to be so spot on to make it, let alone to start, that there isn’t a lot of time to give much thought to somebody’s sexual orientation. It’s brutal. You get halfway through the season and half the guys are hurt. It’s a game of survival and courage, and there’s really not a lot of time for that kind of nonsense.”
Yet in the midst of his career, Rohrer couldn’t see the accepting forest through the trees.
60 going on 16
On Christmas Day, Rohrer will turn 60. He jokes that Ross, a skin-care expert who grew up in Texas not far from the very stadium in which Rohrer played, insisted they get married before then so he wasn’t marrying someone in his 60s. Despite approaching retirement age, Rohrer said he hasn’t felt younger in literally decades.
In part that’s due to dating. While he certainly dated young women in his teens, and eventually married, the dating scene lacked for him the level of excitement that his buddies seemed to experience in their younger years. Now he knows what it felt like for his straight teen friends all those decades ago.
”I feel like I’m 16,” Rohrer said. “I feel revived. Like I’m born again. Again.”
He joked that some of his straight friends today are jealous of his new lifestyle. When he describes his week-to-week life to them, they can’t believe how much fun he’s having. Plus, he’s even looking younger, slimming down to near his playing weight at an age when so many of his friends and former teammates are headed in the opposite direction.
”I am in better shape now than I’ve been in in 20 years. I’m healthier than I have been in 20 years. I’m very, very happy.”
Gay acceptance is present in football
While he was playing football, Rohrer felt that this secret feeling inside of him was a curse.
“I asked God all the time, What is this? Why am I this person?”
The answer to his questions is finally being returned to him all these years later. At a time when acceptance of gay people is at an all-time high, there are still corners of our culture where homophobia runs rampant. Beyond finding a happiness he never thought possible for himself, he now has the opportunity to break into the dark corners of that culture where anti-gay sentiment festers.
A big, tough former NFL player on America’s Team, he’s a “straight talker” who would – quite literally if need be – give someone the shirt off his back. It’s hard to not like a guy like that. When he was married to a woman, a lot of people in places like Texas liked him very much. If it was hard to not like him when he was straight and married to a woman, for those very same people it will now be hard to not like him now that he’s gay and marrying a man.
”I’m not going to change the world, but we can at least get the message out there that it’s OK and I’m proud of where I am. I’m not ashamed. I’m not the Wolfman anymore. My family and friends are 100% behind me. That kind of message can maybe move the ball forward a little bit.”
Truth is, he’s faced very little negative reaction. Rohrer said he has told a handful of former Cowboys teammates, but word has spread through the “Cowboys family” very quickly. The level of acceptance has been far beyond his imagination.
Until just this year he couldn’t get his head around the idea that this extended family would ever accept him as a gay man. Yet with Josh’s prodding and support, Rohrer has given the people around him the opportunity to know the real Jeff Rohrer.
“It’s given me a new view on life and society and people and our country. I would have never expected it. I have just as many right- and left-leaning friends, and it doesn’t matter, the support cuts right through all of them.”
The chance to come out publicly as gay
Rohrer is now a successful commercial producer in Los Angeles. His Hollywood career has taken him where his NFL playing days never did: the Super Bowl. In the last few years he’s produced three Super Bowl commercials, for Doritos, Heinz and the NFL.
Coming out publicly in a couple of media appearances wasn’t what Rohrer had in mind ahead of his wedding. For the last couple of years he and Josh have lived what Rohrer called an “unnoticed” life together. Last year they attended the wedding of a gay couple — Josh’s friends in New York. Rohrer was painfully nervous about attending, as he figured the entire world would recognize the former Cowboy with a young man on his arm and he’d be outed.
Yet there was no Page Six article. No rumors swirled around the Cowboys family. Rohrer learned then that he could live his life more openly and gradually ease into his new love. It’s a lesson various gay former professional athletes have learned.
The wedding has made it easier to tell the people around him that he’s gay. In fact, he used the wedding invitations to do just that. When he sent out invitations to hundreds of people earlier this year, some of them replied with “Oh you’re so funny,” thinking it was Rohrer’s joking way of inviting them to an early 60th birthday party for himself.
When he explained that it wasn’t a joke, and he was indeed marrying his boyfriend, that got some phone calls.
“People are floored. I guess I was a really good actor.”
Now his impending marriage is also making it easier to tell the world. When he and Ross talked about their wedding, they asked their friend, Camille Grammer, about sharing the story with the world on their own terms. Ross, founder of SkinLab, has had his business featured on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, in which Grammer has starred. Grammer introduced them to publicist Howard Bragman, who has taken dozens of athletes and celebrities out of the closet, including Michael Sam, Esera Tuaolo and John Amaechi. Now the couple gets to, as they hoped, tell their story in their own words.
Best of all, instead of some public announcement simply for the purpose of announcing his sexual orientation to the world, Rohrer and his fiancé Ross are featured in the New York Times and here on Outsports for their wedding.
Japanese-American professional golfer Tadd Fujikawa has come out as gay.
In 2006, Fujikawa became the youngest player every to qualify for the US Open at the age of 15. He is one of the first pro golfers to come out, and the first US Open player to do so.
On Tuesday (11 September), Fujikawa made an Instagram post to announce his coming out.
‘So… I’m gay,’ he begins the post simply. ‘My hope is this post will inspire each and every one of you to be more empathetic and loving towards one another.’
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnkdY3TlalW/
He reveals later in the post he wasn’t sure about whether or not he wanted to come out publicly.
‘I thought that I didn’t need to come out because it doesn’t matter if anyone knows,’ he explains. ‘But I remember how much other’s stories have helped me in my darkest times to have hope.
Fujikawa writes he used to hide and hate who he was because of what people would think or say, and it led to mental health problems.
‘Now I’m standing up for myself and the rest of the LGBTQ community in hopes of being an inspiration and making a difference in someone’s life,’ he continues. ‘Although it’s a lot more accepted in our society today, we still see children, teens, and adults being ridiculed and discriminated against for being the way we are. Some have even taken their lives because of it.’
While this continues to happen, he wants to do his best ‘bring more awareness to this issue and to fight for equality’.
The post ends:
‘I can’t wait for the day we all can live without feeling like we’re different and excluded. A time where we don’t have to come out, we can love the way we want to love and not be ashamed. We are all human and equal after all. So I dare you…spread love. Let’s do our part to make this world a better place.’
With the 10th Annual Gay Games celebration in Paris, France right around the corner, Southern California athletes in the LGBTQ+ community are gearing up to bring home the gold!
Most notable local participant, West Hollywood Councilmember John Heilman will be running a half marathon and two 10ks.
“While we’ve made significant progress in advancing equality for LGBTIQ people in the U.S., progress has been much slower in other parts of the world,” Heilman said on his GoFundMe fundraising page. “In fact, homosexuality is still a crime in over 70 countries, and in some places, it is punishable by death.”
Heilman set a personal fundraising goal of $20,000 in order to establish a Global Emergency Fund with OutRight Action International. Heilman serves on the board of directors for OutRight.
Gay Games, according to the website, is the world’s largest LGBTQ+ sporting and cultural event, spans over the course of a week, from Aug. 4–12 this year. Gay Games is bringing together over 10,000 athletes and about 300,000 spectators from all over the world in the name of “diversity, respect, equality, solidarity and sharing,” according to the Gay Games website.
Photo: Facebook.
For Team San Diego organizer and participant David Silva said that Gay Games is about “the opportunity to show yourself, your country and the world that you are an athlete, an equal opportunist and proud contributor to one of the strongest communities on the planet.”
Team San Diego has 83 competitors and volunteers going to Gay Games. Participants will be competing in various events including: Long Distance Running, Track and Field, Bowling, Swimming, Tennis, Softball, Triathlon, Dance sport, Cycling, Soccer, Mountain Biking, Basketball, Figure Skating, and Table Tennis.
Jerry Buckley, the other Team San Diego organizer and competitor said that he hopes that athletes and spectators leave with a deeper understanding of how to be inclusive, supportive and proud.
“In addition, I hope people leave knowing that can and should continue to dream dreams that will enrich their lives and help them embrace challenges and opportunities to personally grow and make our community more understanding of how we can improve the lives of LGBTQ people around the world,” Buckley said. “Especially those who face dangerous, hateful and discriminatory policies.”
In messages dating from 2011 to 2012, he wrote “I hate gay people” and “Gay people freak me out, this dude comes in with pony shirts and a pony mal bag #thefuck”.
Josh Hader #71 of the Milwaukee Brewers and the National League pitches in the eighth inning against the American League during the 89th MLB All-Star Game, at Nationals Park on July 17, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Patrick Smith/Getty)
Hader also repeatedly tweeted the N-word in racist messages and made allusions to the KKK. The messages were sent when he was 17 and 18.
The messages surfaced online partway through the July 17 All-Star Game, and the player attempted to apologiZe in a subsequent press conference.
Major League Baseball has since released a statement revealing that Hader will be required to undergo “sensitivity training”.
A MLB spokesperson said: “During last night’s game we became aware of Mr. Hader’s unacceptable social media comments in years past and have since been in communication with the Brewers regarding our shared concerns.
“After the game, Mr. Hader took the necessary step of expressing remorse for his highly offensive and hurtful language, which fails to represent the values of our game and our expectations for all those who are a part of it.
“The Office of the Commissioner will require sensitivity training for Mr. Hader and participation in MLB’s diversity and inclusion initiatives.”
The Milwaukee Brewers said: “We have been in contact with Josh and he is fully aware of the severity of the situation related to his social media comments, regardless of the timeline of his posts.
“His comments are inexcusable, and he is taking full responsibility for the consequences of his actions. In no way do these sentiments reflect the views of the Brewers organization or our community.
At least 80 percent of gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer teen athletes hide their sexuality from coaches, a report published last week by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) foundation and the University of Connecticut showed. The percentage of closeted student athletes increases to 82 percent among trans youth.
The study surveyed more than 12,000 teenagers in the US, aged between 13 and 17, who participated in HRC’s online 2017 LGBT+ Teen Survey. Researchers decided to focus specifically on the experience of LGBT+ youth in sports because of the positive social, psychological and physiological effects of engaging in physical activities that teen may miss out due to lack of acceptance.
Only 24 percent of the respondents say they play a school sport, compared to 68 percent of a national non-LGBT+ sample—that percentage of sports participation drops to 14 percent for non-binary youth and transgender boys and 12 percent for transgender girls.
“Sports are a transformative way for students to build social skills and community, but when too many LGBTQ student-athletes are blocked from being their true selves—we fail them. Coaches and administrators must do more to make every court, field, track and mat a welcoming place for all,” Ashland Johnson, HRC director of public education and research, said in a statement commenting on the study.
According to the survey, one of the main issues hindering LGBT+ teen athletes from fully expressing themselves is the locker room environment. “I don’t feel safe in the locker room” one respondent said, a feeling shared by 41 percent of transgender boys, 34 percent of transgender girls and 31 percent of the non-binary youth surveyed. “I was bullied for being transgender,” another anonymous respondent said.
Another issue hindering LGBT+ youth participation in sports is the widespread use of homophobic language, such as the use of the word “gay” in a derogatory manner. “The guys on sports team… call everything they don’t like ‘gay’,” one of the survey respondent was quoted as saying.
“When LGBTQ teens can be their true selves in athletics, it not only benefits that athlete, it benefits their team and community. This data is an important starting point to identifying ways schools can improve the experiences of their LGBTQ players,” Johnson said.
Jason Collins, a former NBA player who came out as a gay man in an article for Sports Illustrated in 2013, shared the research with his more than 100,000 Twitter followers. “Sports are for everyone, including #LGBTQ youth,” Collins, whose coming out represented a landmark moment in LGBT+ acceptance in sports as he was the first active male athlete in a major US professional team sport to do so, wrote in his tweet. “This data provides a unique opportunity to make sports more inclusive for all athlete,” he added.
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