Tackling a sports world that
The LGBTI community is coming out to ensure that it enjoys the rewards sport can bring
From the stands at the Wanderers sports grounds, Ronald Esbach watches with measured nervousness as his partner, George Groenewald, tries for a position in the Jozi Cats, a gay rugby team.
Although the couple has been in a civil union for eight years, seven of them have been spent hiding the true nature of their relationship from the cricket club Groenewald is part of.
“He is in his element when he plays sport. And he is taking getting into this team pretty seriously,” Esbach says. “This is a safe space where he can be himself. He can enjoy it — not so much to be free but to really enjoy. He’s no longer forced to laugh at really offensive jokes.”
Having decided that “enough is enough”, Groenewald says he has finally decided to end his yearslong stay at the cricket club and switch to playing for the inclusive rugby club.
“I have been playing club cricket for seven years now and most of those guys don’t know I am gay. They think that Ronald is just my friend.
“Because a lot of them are very conservative, I can’t really be myself. You constantly have to pretend you’re someone you’re not.”
According to Jozi Cats’ Chris Verrijdt, the club was established in 2015 because of the need for a safe and inclusive space “where guys who enjoy rugby could play and enjoy the sport and be themselves”.
“We have had a lot of people ask us why, as a gay man, you can’t just go to a regular rugby club. But, if you chat to a lot of the guys here, you’ll see that they never felt they could be who they really are and play rugby at the same time. Here, they get the opportunity to do both.”
The first international, large-scale, quantitative research conducted into homophobic attitudes and behaviour in sport, Out on the Fields, was released in 2015.
The report found that “only 1% of participants believed LGB [lesbian, gay, bisexual] people were completely accepted in sport” and that “a high percentage of participants of all sexualities (80%) reported witnessing or experiencing homophobia in a sporting environment”.
The report, which drew together research conducted in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, also noted: “Without exception, higher-than-expected rates of homophobic behaviour were reported in all English-speaking countries and by all participants.
“There were few signs … that LGB people are, or feel, welcome and safe to play or engage with team sports without fear of discrimination. The majority of LGB participants reported hiding their sexuality from team-mates, with fear of homophobic discrimination cited as a main reason.”
Sports commentator and former Springbok Gcobani Bobo says that, although he has “never met anyone who has been discriminated against”, he adds: “I can see how the environment could be intimidating, though.
“At rugby games, there is this emphasis on creating a family-type atmosphere; people with their children and also having lots of girls coming to the games. I think that, in order to avoid any kind of discrimination, there needs to be more education around the need for tolerance.”
Doing its bit to educate others about the need for tolerance, the Jozi Cats set out on its national Blow the Whistle tour in December.
“It was incredible for what it was,” says Verrijdt, adding: “In Bloemfontein, for example, we put together a flash mob, where we came up with a chant. It wasn’t easy trying to come up with words rhyming with homophobia but we did it,” he laughs.
“We did our thing, blew our whistles and people came up to us and said they loved what we are doing. And this, of course, gave us a sense of purpose.”
Added validation came when Exclusive Books came on board as the tour’s lead sponsor. Sponsorship helped the Jozi Cats realise its “passion project”, the formation of an inclusive rugby team in Khayelitsha, in partnership with Grassroot Soccer and the Treatment Action Campaign.
Although the fledgling Khayelitsha-based team could benefit from having a large retailer such as Exclusive Books buying into this vision of inclusivity in sport, another team has had to shut its doors because of a funding shortage.
Dikeledi Sibanda was the manager of South Africa’s first lesbian football team, The Chosen Few, which was established in 2006 and folded in 2013.
“We would ask people for donations, and many would give, but you really need proper money to do what we were doing, which, because we were conducting workshops around issues LGBTI [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, intersex] people faced with various communities, was essentially activism through sport.”
Describing the team as a “home for lesbians who were victims of sexual and physical violence”, Sibanda adds: “It was like a support group, but with sport. It empowered us and developed our characters in the best way. There was real healing in that.”
Although participation in the team might have offered its members some healing, Sibanda says playing football was also dangerous for many women, particularly those who live in townships.
“There is this perception that, if you play soccer and you are a woman, you are lesbian. So you are more vulnerable. But we were radical like that. We had this attitude of ‘fuck society; we are doing what we want to do; this is our passion and nobody’s going to stop us’.”
Mandisa Sithole, who preferred to use a pseudonym, was a successful football player. After performing well