Hi. I'm starting to feel a bit like a drama queen on this board, but this is a subject that's recently come up on my daughter's club team and I wondered how other people dealt with it. I'm going to preface this by saying I don't care about someone's orientation. And also that my DD is not gay or bi (or if she is, she's not told me that and I think she'd be open with me about it).
We're on a second year 16U team. Most of the girls drive. On a club team of 12, we have three players who are openly gay around the team (I don't know what, if anything, they've told their parents). A few times last year, they asked other girls on the team out on dates. One of them is now dating a teammate who calls herself bisexual, but they have been dating for a month or so. And that's all fine, except I know about their relationship (they aren't shy about PDA around me) and I don't know whether their parents do. But I do wonder about team dynamics when there's a romantic relationship. Our coach is out and married, so it's not like there's a stigma on the team about it, but it seems like it's all pretty new territory. But how do you protect against team damage from breakups and things like that? Or is it just another version of the friendship that girls and teammates have, where fights happen and they are just dealt with.
And then when you get to travel in teh spring, it opens up a lot of doors. I'm not suggesting that gay teenagers are any more predatory that hetero teenagers, but they are still teenagers and I don't know if they are any less predatory.. Are sleepovers all right? late night swims at the hotel pool followed by late-night hangouts in someone else's room? I wouldn't let my DD do that with boys, but is it all right to allow it with gay girls? My daughter responds to these kinds of questions like you'd expect a 16-year-old girl to respond to them -- saying I'm over reacting and being homophobic and no one is hitting on her and I'm sure that's true, but I feel like a parent ought to at least advise some restraint of their child's behavior.
I know that for years, softball has been joked about as a gateway into the gay community (really any women's sport, I guess. Which sucks but that's a different topic). A decade ago, it's not an issue. Everyone stayed closeted. But that's not the case with young people today, and while it's good that people are being open, I still think it's a topic coaches ought to address. How do they see romantic relationships on their team? Are they banned? Discouraged? Ignored? Has anyone had any experience with this kind of thing?
We're on a second year 16U team. Most of the girls drive. On a club team of 12, we have three players who are openly gay around the team (I don't know what, if anything, they've told their parents). A few times last year, they asked other girls on the team out on dates. One of them is now dating a teammate who calls herself bisexual, but they have been dating for a month or so. And that's all fine, except I know about their relationship (they aren't shy about PDA around me) and I don't know whether their parents do. But I do wonder about team dynamics when there's a romantic relationship. Our coach is out and married, so it's not like there's a stigma on the team about it, but it seems like it's all pretty new territory. But how do you protect against team damage from breakups and things like that? Or is it just another version of the friendship that girls and teammates have, where fights happen and they are just dealt with.
And then when you get to travel in teh spring, it opens up a lot of doors. I'm not suggesting that gay teenagers are any more predatory that hetero teenagers, but they are still teenagers and I don't know if they are any less predatory.. Are sleepovers all right? late night swims at the hotel pool followed by late-night hangouts in someone else's room? I wouldn't let my DD do that with boys, but is it all right to allow it with gay girls? My daughter responds to these kinds of questions like you'd expect a 16-year-old girl to respond to them -- saying I'm over reacting and being homophobic and no one is hitting on her and I'm sure that's true, but I feel like a parent ought to at least advise some restraint of their child's behavior.
I know that for years, softball has been joked about as a gateway into the gay community (really any women's sport, I guess. Which sucks but that's a different topic). A decade ago, it's not an issue. Everyone stayed closeted. But that's not the case with young people today, and while it's good that people are being open, I still think it's a topic coaches ought to address. How do they see romantic relationships on their team? Are they banned? Discouraged? Ignored? Has anyone had any experience with this kind of thing?