Editor’s Note: This is not strictly a hockey story, but I needed a place to put these thoughts together and this place is the best place for them.
As a bisexual man in sports with a bit of a cynical streak, I’ve come to accept what Pride nights are and given up some on what I think they should be.
Queer people, queer men especially, are still not entirely welcome in the world of sports. Therefore, Pride nights are largely performative until teams and leagues do the dirty work of improving access and acceptance for queer people in this space. Very few, if any, sports teams understand that Pride nights should be part of something larger and not just a one off experience to give away rainbow t-shirts. But grudgingly, I’ve begun to accept that these teams have their heart in the right place even if they don’t have the tools or knowledge to make Pride nights what they ought to be. Acknowledgements from the world of sports that the LGBTQ+ community exists and should be brought into the tent are not good enough in a vacuum, but the fact that wider culture has shifted so much that teams and leagues feel it necessary to hold Pride nights at all shows that something meaningful has still moved in the right direction, even if there is much more work to be done.
Pride nights in sports are often performative, perfunctory and predictable, but at least there are good intentions behind the largely empty actions, so long as the quiet part isn’t said out loud. They come and go like Bark in the Park Night, or Star Wars Night at worst and can bring real hope that the culture of sports can move forward at best. However, the Tampa Bay Rays’ recent Pride night was not normal or predictable in any way. The Rays decided to modify their normal uniforms by coloring some logos in rainbow. It’s a recent invention, and it’s fairly blatant pandering, but rainbow tinged uniforms should be harmless. Except here, they were not. At least five Rays decided they couldn’t bear wearing uniforms with rainbow logos on them, and that absence was conspicuous. Naturally, smart journalists noticed this and were prepared to ask questions about this absence, and yet the Rays were one step ahead of the enterprise and asked Jason Adam, one of the feckless (at least) five to speak publicly about his decision.
I will not dignify that man by posting his quotes here since they are easily accessible elsewhere and there can be no dignifying bigoted, insensitive, mindless, ignorant and hateful comments like those. And yet, these comments aren’t the biggest issue with this fiasco. As disgusting and vapid as these comments are, and they certainly are, they are sadly common. Every LGBTQ+ community member has heard some variation of those tropes before. These people have the deluded self-assurance that only a very willingly ignorant type of bigot can have, and they’ll let you know about it too. Trying to reason with them is worthless, because it’s impossible to talk to irrational people rationally.
It is certainly insulting to have to hear these comments from someone who “opted out” of Pride night, but this exercise shouldn’t have reached this point in the first place. This was apparently the Rays 16th annual Pride night, but watching this fiasco unfold made it seem like they’re holding their first and have no clue what holding a bog standard Pride night is even about.
“Our Pride Nights continue to grow both in terms of visibility and participation,” Rays president Matt Silverman said. “By doing this, we extend an invitation not just for this game but for all of our games that the LGBTQ+ community is invited, welcomed and celebrated.”
I don’t know how queer people can feel all that welcome when the Rays view Pride night as an “opt-in” exercise. No one would ever talk about Military Appreciation night as an “opt-in” exercise, and it would be the height of comedy to see someone not wear Star Wars themed gear because they viscerally hate Jar Jar Binks or Rian Johnson. Whenever someone “opts-out” of being present for the National Anthem, for instance, there’s a massive (if unreasonable) uproar. Plenty of teams don’t wear rainbow themed uniforms on Pride night; they’re nice but not necessary. For a group of people that would likely view a queer teammate as a “distraction”, they created a large one of their own by doing something so obvious that even the average straight fan and journalist would notice. Rays management is likely less willing to give opt-outs in player contracts than they were in allowing some players to “opt-out” of Pride night, which says everything.
At their core, Pride nights are supposed to simply say that the LGBTQ+ community is welcome with open arms at the ballpark, stadium or rink. Even the most cynical capitalist understands that there is money to be made by growing a long neglected demographic and simply making them feel welcome. This is why most companies now feel it necessary to have their social media logos in rainbow colors during Pride month, even when doing so is the height of that cynical strain of capitalism. No queer person wants preferential treatment at a game or in life, they just wanted to be treated like their straight neighbors, and Pride nights, performative as they are, are supposed to be a step in that direction. For a few hours, queer people want to turn their brains off and live in a different world to the one we all live in where we are not accepted for who we are because of widespread hatred and ignorance.
The Rays forgot all about that. If they view Pride night as an “opt in” exercise where they need consensus to do anything, then don’t hold a Pride night at all, because the Rays proved that said consensus isn’t possible to achieve. Most of us in this community would prefer an insincere display of charity to a genuine display of apathy (or antipathy in this case), and won’t overthink the insincerity all that much. We’ve learned the hard way that progress isn’t linear. But with the Rays, they said the quiet part about Pride nights out loud, and showed just why sports are a place that for all their growth are still not widely accepting of the LGBTQ+ community.
And for a team in the state of Florida in 2022 to botch a Pride night as badly as this is an extra kick in the teeth, especially after the Governor of the state denied that same team funding for a practice facility because they simply made the bold statement of saying that gun violence is a major societal problem.
Pride nights, as empty and hollow as they often are, are now a part of the sports firmament, and that is a sign of progress. However in 2022, just clearing that low bar isn’t acceptable anymore. Bigots will still be bigots, but in a society where they’re clearly a shrinking minority, they shouldn’t be given a megaphone that makes them seem more important and numerous than they are. Sports teams are sadly still full of bigots, but many of them understand that outing themselves as a bigot does more harm than good. The Rays created an environment where not only did those bigots feel emboldened, they tanked the otherwise warm intentions of a night they have nothing to do with and means more to its target audience. If that is the environment you created, then you cannot reasonably say that queer people are welcome with a Pride night, because clearly, those queer people aren’t welcome and wouldn’t want to be there in the first place.
Pride nights aren’t going to change the culture of sports in the way I and many others would want it them too on their own, but it shouldn’t be that difficult to avoid tripping up as badly as the Rays did here. If these teams need any inspiration to show some courage with their events, take it from the queer people who had to show immense courage just to be out at a Pride night in the first place.
Pride is about queer people celebrating their identity with no fear of the blowback that stalks us the rest of the year. If you can’t hold a Pride night without keeping that hidden for just three hours, then don’t hold one at all.
If these teams are willing to learn and grow, then we may be willing to forgive.