Swimmer fights for gay rights
Tongan Olympian wants to highlight that homosexuality is illegal in his home country and the struggles of LGBTQ athletes. Ian Anderson reports.
Amini Fonua doesn’t want to just make a splash in the pool at this year’s Tokyo Olympics. The Tongan breaststroker hopes to make up for his 2016 Rio Games flop, but it’s his more wide-reaching goals that have pushed him to somewhat reluctantly start a personal fundraising campaign to help him get to Tokyo.
Fonua is aiming to highlight that homosexuality is illegal in his home country and the struggles LGBTQ athletes have.
The gay 30-year-old has become increasingly aware of the influence he could have outside the pool. ‘‘I definitely want to redeem myself after the whole 2016 fiasco – I just didn’t have a good preparation,’’ Fonua said, reflecting on finishing 45th out of 46 entries.
‘‘And the second one is definitely wider – I want to bring the spotlight to queer issues in the Pacific.
‘‘It is still tough – there are moments when we’re making progress, then we don’t. I still think it ties perfectly into the Olympic movement of advancing humanity through sport.’’
In Tonga, homosexuality is illegal with a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment, and Fonua said the plight of the LGBTQ community throughout the Pacific Islands needed highlighting: ‘‘Not just Tonga – the Cook Islands, Samoa’s a bit more tolerant, but Fiji’s also struggling. Whatever I can do to advance the cause.’’
Fonua knows he also has to advance his own cause to ensure he has the biggest platform to raise awareness.
The two-time Olympian is seeking to achieve a B-standard qualifying time in the 100m breaststroke and his major opportunity is likely to come at the Oceania championships in Fiji at the end of June.
‘‘My best time is a 1 minute 2 seconds, qualifying time is a 1min 1 sec – definitely doable.’’
Now based in New Jersey in the United States, Fonua was born and raised in Auckland, but also spent time in Tonga during his youth.
‘‘The culture was very machismo, quite alienating at times — a lot of bullying, because I wasn’t your typical rough-andtumble rugby player or boxer.
‘‘Thankfully, I had two parents that were very encouraging of me to be who I was,’’ Fonua told an Outsports podcast recently. ‘‘There is a strange athletic privilege – if I was successful at my sport it kinda transcended my sexuality – which I think is a beautiful thing about sport; it can bring people together and change people’s minds.
‘‘There are still moments when there’s been a bit of physical intimidation — thankfully I can run as fast as I can swim.’’
Fonua said while some people knew he was gay when he made his Olympics debut in London in 2012, he felt ‘‘much more comfortable in my own skin’’ when fully out at Rio. ‘‘It’s one less thing to worry about when you’re training. To be able to share that story and let people know it gets better is really important.’’
That comfort allowed him to shift his focus from just his own sporting ambitions to hopefully making a difference.
‘‘For me, it’s always been about broadening people’s minds and trying to progress equality and human rights through the spirit of sport. If people find merit in that, or think that it’s important, then I’ll continue to do it.
‘‘I believe it’s important and that others still do.
‘‘It’s so tough out there already for an LGBTQ athlete but I hope this [Tokyo 2020] is going to be the most diverse Olympics in terms of all the sexualities represented.
Fonua is hoping to raise $46,000 to help him get to Tokyo.
He has a bachelor’s degree in Telecommunication and Multimedia from Texas A&M University, but has worked as a Starbucks barista since before Rio because the flexible schedule allows him to train.
‘‘I’m not travelling much at all – it’s for things like my food budget, acupuncturist, masseuse once a week, access to great coaching.
‘‘I used to get really upset because I felt ‘my god, how can I compete with these people’ because they have structured Government bodies, structured national federations, they’ve got funding, they’ve got all these different mechanisms in place to allow their swimmers to just do what they need to do to be successful.
‘‘I got quite resentful of that and get quite down on myself, but ... a winner finds a way, and a loser makes excuses.
‘‘What I’m asking for is not nearly as much as what the others have access to – but it would still allow me to feel a lot more confident in my process of training, that I’ve got a real good shot, I’m not going to ... feel 5 metres behind everyone else from the blocks.
‘‘Time’s running out – I’m 30, swimming’s not an older man’s sport – this is the last go-around.’’
Fonua eyes his standing as a gay Pasifika athlete as ‘‘being part of that normalisation process – particularly in the Pacific, it’s still very important: ‘‘As a swimmer, it can be a very lonely journey. You’ve got to swim for more than just yourself.’’ Fonua said the Tonga Leitis Association (TLA) was doing excellent work to try and progress human rights. ‘‘The antisodomy laws were brought in because we just adopted the Commonwealth Rule of Law in Tonga – the rest of the countries in the British Empire have repealed those laws, but they’ve stayed on the books in Tonga.
‘‘After Rio, I went back to Tonga and sat on a Government consultation panel to try and talk to legislators in conjunction with TLA to repeal those 18th/19th century laws – there’s no use for them any more.
‘‘It’s a slow process – we have one person championing it in Government – but I do think the mentality is beginning to change. We were making progress with the last Government – we had a Tonga Sports Council, the last Pacific Games we were quite successful and that was a testament to changes in the Government bodies to support the athletes a little bit more.
‘‘But our Prime Minister passed away, things went on the backburner, the Tonga Sports Council has stepped down – we’re kind of back to square one.’’
Does Fonua believe things will change? ‘‘Every generation gets a bit more tolerant.
‘‘We definitely have our allies in the Government that are looking to progress and repeal very antiquated laws that we didn’t even create ourselves – that we inherited from the Commonwealth.
‘‘I do feel like within my lifetime, for sure. But it takes a lot of grassroots campaigning and luckily we have those organisations that are still fighting, still making our presence known.’’
Fonua said he’s met a lot of gay men who are completely rejecting sport. ‘‘They’re not comfortable with the toxic masculinity, the machismo of sport.
‘‘But I’ve also met a lot of Tongans here in the US that told me that my story, my journey, made it a lot easier for them to come out to their families and live in the authentic truth.
‘‘There are times when I feel – what is this all for, why do I do this? – then I hear those stories and it makes me feel like it’s not all for nothing.’’
‘‘For me, it’s always been about broadening people’s minds and trying to progress equality . . .’’ Amini Fonua