‘Everything is said with a smile’: Homonegative speech acts in sport.

Froukje Smits*, Annelies Knoppers, agnes elling

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The acceptance of gay males in sport is growing in various western countries. However, research also suggests that young males, including athletes, tend to engage in homonegative speech acts, often called microaggressions, that make it difficult for them to navigate practices of masculinity. We used solicited diaries or diary logs written by (non-)heterosexual young male team sport athletes (aged 16–25) to investigate how they experienced and heard expressions of homonegative and heteronormative microaggressive speech acts. We drew on Foucault’s notion of discourse, Butler’s conceptualization of performativity of heteronormativity and Sue’s work on microaggressions to examine how microaggressive speech acts by young male athletes reflect current sexual and gender cultural norms. The results revealed how homonegative speech acts were embedded in a gay aesthetic and abject femininity and used to endorse a desirable heteronormative masculinity. We concluded that homonegative microaggressive speech acts contribute to the preservation of discursive heteronormativity in sport despite growing acceptance of non-heterosexual male athletes.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)343-360
Number of pages18
JournalInternational Review for the Sociology of Sport
Volume56
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This study was funded by the Department of Education, Culture & Science and the Department of Health, Welfare and Sport, the Netherlands.

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.

Keywords

  • gay aesthetic
  • homonegative
  • microaggressions
  • misogyny
  • performativity
  • speech acts
  • young male athletes

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