Fair Play: How LGBT Athletes Are Claiming Their Rightful Place in Sports
By Cyd Zeigler
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Cyd Zeigler
Cyd Zeigler is one of the world's foremost experts on LGBT issues in sports. Along with his Outsports cofounder Jim Buzinski, Zeigler has written more coming-out stories of LGBT people--in sports or any other arena--than any journalist in America. These stories have included former NBA player John Amaechi, former NFL prospect Wade Davis, NFL hopeful Michael Sam, and NCAA basketball player Derrick Gordon, in addition to countless other athletes and coaches in high school, college, and pro sports. Zeigler also cofounded the Sports Equality Foundation, which helps fund the cycle of LGBT people coming out and being out in sports. He appears regularly on ESPN, and in the New York Times and USA Today, and provides expertise on LGBT sports issues for countless other media outlets including Sports Illustrated, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and NPR. He is a former high school athlete, still holding school track-and-field records twenty-five years later. A graduate of Stanford University, Zeigler lives in Los Angeles with his husband and two cats.
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Reviews for Fair Play
11 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Overall I liked this book. It shows how even when fears are of fans, teammates etc are brought up its proven mostly untrue by lgbt people being embraced. Sometimes I think the author is a little to "happy-go-lucky" a nd doesn't realize that yes some language may change once a teammate comes out but there's still that language and fear driving people away from coming out. I also get the point of writing down "faggot" as an emphasis but the author uses the word so much it became uncomfortable heck there's an entire chapter called "he may be a faggot but he's our faggot" again I get it for emphasis but damn. Overall I still think the book presented history of sports and coming out in a very good way and would still overall recommend this book
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I won an early review copy of this, putting my name in for one due to my interest in LGBT* issues. The author is a gay journalist at OutSports and the book focusses mostly on the NFL, with occasional mentions of lesbian basketball or tennis players, so I didn't find it very balanced, but still interesting despite my complete lack of football knowledge. He does include a lot of slurs when listing things that gay players are exposed to, and the first half of the book was a bit of a downer to get through, though things got better as the book progressed - more focus on acceptance and what comes next rather than the trials of coming out - or being outed, though he says that journalists haven't done this since that one time - they speculate, they ask questions, he encourages athletes to come out, but if there's a lot of first and second hand accounts of an alternative sexuality, they respect that it's much better for someone to come out than to be outed. He details a lot of push back from the administration, lack of real support at the organisation level, and push back against group coming outs. There's some coverage of transgender issues, with some interesting explanations and clarifications on policies - the Olympic committie says if someone transitioned pre-puberty, no problem competing as the gender presented, [pause to look up details], huh, and FTM can go on right away, otherwise MTF have to have been declared female for 4 years and have tested testosterone levels below a limit for 12 months with ongoing monitoring. Yikes. On transathelete's site the International Quidditch Association policy right below is much more lenient. :-) I did like envisioning a world like he suggested where every sport is divided by something other than gender - make the divisions based on the key thing that gives advantage in that sport, height, weight, strength, whatever and ignore gender.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I like non-fiction, but I'm mostly a fiction reader. I rarely find a non-fiction book that pulls me in (I can probably count them all on one hand), or a non-fiction book that only takes me a couple of sittings to read because I'm so engrossed.This book was one of those rare books.I wish I could explain exactly why, but unfortunately, I can't.I do know that Zeigler mixed the 'historical' with the more current quite a lot, which I thought made it flow really well, and while it seems as though he knows and has helped some people from comments in the narrative, it didn't seem to me like he was name dropping to me. Those statements seemed matter of fact in the narrative.I did have a small problem with it mostly being about the guys. I do understand the reasons why it was focused on the men. For one thing, Zeigler is a guy, and as with so many other parts of life, the world is different for men vs. women. But, still, I wish that there had been more about the sports women and their stories, not simply one chapter.Still, I liked the book, and there was so much delightful Massachusetts/New England goodness too. Heh.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Well-meaning, but unfortunately not well-written. Given the hostility that some people still harbor toward members of the LGBT community, I was hoping this would be a strong defense of the principle that everyone should be equal under the law, in the locker room and on the field/court/etc. At the minimum, I was hoping for athletes' stories and specific details about how their actions changed the attitudes of their family, friends and wider communities. Instead, Zeigler makes one grand claim after another, starting with the assertion that the murder of Matthew Shepard directly resulted in greater approval of same-sex marriage. (Yes, seriously.) Similarly, he seems to believe that anytime an athlete comes out, it always has this huge ripple effect across all of society, even as he concedes that people tend to only remember Michael Sam, Jason Collins and other big names. Given that writing about LBGT athletes (and encouraging them to come out) is the whole premise of Outsports.com, the site he co-founded, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but the book was still so disappointing that I just couldn't finish it. (If you want a book that does make the case for equality, "Then Comes Marriage" by Roberta Kaplan does a fantastic job and is a great read for Pride Month!)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I won a copy of this book as part of the LibraryThing early reviewer giveaway. Overall, this book presents a very good overview of some of the major issues LGBT athletes face in sports, especially college and professional leagues. I don’t really know a lot about professional sports leagues, so I was happy to find that this book was written in a way that’s very accessible to everyone. Zeigler has written a great addition to the growing number of titles out there that explore LGBT history and civil rights issues. One of the more interesting discussions posed by Zeigler is how transgender athletes are treated in the world of professional sports, especially mixed martial arts. Zeigler wonders if it’s time to stop separating athletes by gender and start considering separating them by ability, skill, height, weight, etc. Working in a school setting, I would recommend this book to any coach or adult that works with youth sports to help them better understand how to promote inclusive teams that are welcoming, safe havens for all athletes.