Journalists Frankie de la Cretaz and Lindsay Darkangelo, and Semi-Pro Hall of Fame player Holly Costis discuss women’s soccer as a safe space for gays.
Heterosexual men fought to keep football reserved for men, justifying gender exclusion with everything from quack medical theories about female anatomy to a disingenuous provision in Title IX that still prevents young girls from playing the game.
But saying “no” didn’t stop men from organizing and supporting women’s teams in the 1970s, nor did it stop women from playing. Intentionally or unintentionally, women who embraced soccer committed a revolutionary act, one that defies gender expectations versus the supposed ideal of American masculinity.
Hail Maryam authors contextualize homosexuality in the NFL era
For lesbian women, the revolution was nothing new. Neither of them were gathering and organizing in safe places. Perhaps that’s why the NWFL’s Dallas Bluebonnets became a natural extension of the Dallas lesbian bar scene, where women met, drank, and flirted. They played football, tackled, brutalized, and ran fast, all against heterosexual female expectations. according to “Peace be upon you, MaryA comprehensive account of the NFL era, when a Bluebonnets manager once asked his players to wear dresses, they mocked him outside their locker room.
But these pioneers lived in a dangerous time, as policemen cracked down on LGBT individuals. “Peace be upon you, Mary. Authors Frankie de la Cretaz and Lindsay Darkangelo recall how the Dallas lesbian scene in the 1970s became ground zero for women’s professional football in the region. In chapter six of their book, “Dallas Enters The Fold,” de la Cretaz and Darkangelo delve into first-person accounts of gay women who played football during the 1970s, weaving them into the story of how the Dallas Bluebonnets got their start.
Speaking with FanSided, Frankie de la Cretaz shared what football means for lesbian women in Dallas and across the country.
“I think for Lindsey and I, we knew that some women might have been gay, because people are gay. I think the question for us was whether or not they wanted to talk about it, and specifically, whether they saw it related to their time in this league And a lot of them actually did. And I think that’s because, as I mentioned, there were lesbian bars at the time, there were a lot of gay bars. And that’s because in the ’70s, it wasn’t really safe to be openly gay.
Thus, a lot of the women who experimented on these teams, and as we detailed in the chapter on the Dallas BluePonets team, the women who were on this team in particular, many of them got to know each other from the Dallas lesbian scene, and they met in those bars. They organized other sports tournaments outside of those bars. And so you know, marginalized people are really good at creating safe spaces and a hostile world, and so these teams, for gay players, were an extension of those bars, and they were safe places where they could be as openly as they are. “
But the fact that many of the Bluebonnets were anomalies provided a complex reality – they were, as the authors describe them, “important and unimportant”.
“The fact that they were gay was an important and unimportant thing for the lesbian women of the Bluebonnets. They were there first and foremost to play football. Having so many of their friends there too, and their sheer number – plus the way sports teams can feel in a lot of Sometimes it’s like families – coming together to make Bluebonnets a place where any woman, gay or straight, can be herself.” [Hail Mary, p. 82-83]
Focusing on the community is critical to the women’s game, even to this day. With much of the world either oblivious, disapproving, or unconcerned with what they’re doing, the women huddled with their teammates. The word “family” appears frequently when past and present players describe their team’s environment. Women having sex were central to creating that safe space that gave people of every gender and direction the freedom to do what they loved: playing what many considered a game for men.
Holly Costis: Women’s soccer teaches men how to support gay players
Although the NWFL dispersed in the late 1980s, the community the game created for lesbian women never really disappeared. To this day, women’s soccer is synonymous not only with acceptance, but also embracing women and peoples who differ in race, size, class, religion and every identity one can imagine.
In her 16 years of playing professional women’s football, Semi-Pro Hall of Fame linebacker Holly Costis spoke to FanSided about what women’s football means to her as a gay woman.
“I think it was kind of a safe place.
And I think, on a basic level, you need all kinds of bodies in football, right? Another thing I’ve noticed in women’s soccer is that bigger guys learn that it’s okay to be big because we need your size. Larger women are not taught that. So I noticed that football gave bigger women an outlet they didn’t have before, and that’s beautiful.
The flip side we talk about with lesbian women: Yeah, I think having that safe space to be yourself is important in just about anything in life. And I think football, of course, because of the bonds you make, becomes a community or as a family. And because it’s a safer space, you find people learning about themselves and learning about other people in a really healthy environment, I think, because no one is going to judge you for being gay or straight or bisexual or whatever you are. It doesn’t really matter as long as you’re a member of my team, and we block the same direction and come together to address it. I don’t really care as long as you’re my teammate, do I?
I think men’s football can actually learn from women’s football in this field. And they’re starting – it’s a little slower – that it doesn’t really matter, right? As long as you can play together, and your goal is to be the best soccer player that you can be, it doesn’t really matter who you like or don’t like.
I think having this safe space, for lesbian women in particular, has been very helpful. I’ve heard a lot of stories about people when they come to football, maybe they’re younger, maybe they’re starting to look a little bit, maybe their family isn’t supportive, now they have a supportive community, and how important it is to be like them emotionally and psychologically, ‘Hey, I’ll be fine. ” Because there are other people like me who understand, or even people who aren’t like me – just kind, compassionate people.”
Costis expects to retire from professional football soon, but she has been one of the pillars of women’s football throughout the millennium. In all that has changed, and all that hasn’t, one constant has remained the same: Women’s soccer has created an integrated community of gay folk across generations, something the men’s game can certainly embrace.
To learn more about the history of women’s soccer and explore the rise and fall of the NFL, read »Hello Mary: The Rise and Fall of the Women’s National Football LeagueWritten by de la Critaz and Darkangelo.
Custis, who comments on the game’s past and present from the player’s perspective, blogs under the Relentless21 moniker on WordPress And the Youtube. Custis is also a co-host of Gridiron beauties Audio notation.
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