Gladiators grumble

[Tarmacadamia]

I can't tell if I'm just being a grumpy cow. Was anyone watching Gladiators last night, and did anyone else feel a bit irritated by Ash's "I'm doing this for all the LGBTQ+ kids out there" speech? He clearly failed to notice that the winning woman was a lesbian! He's absolutely right that gay men are underrepresented in sport, but actually there are a fair few high profile lesbian elite sportswomen - several women footballers, for starters. He clearly doesn't feel represented by them, so he shouldn't presume to represent them either, iyswim. I suspect he just hasn't bloody noticed them at all, because who notices women in sport. Grr.

@Tinysoxxx Brilliant 😂

Tarmacadamia I totally agree. I said exactly the same to my OH. It was as if he thought he was the only gay in the village and gay women couldn't possibly count.

So then really he should have taken out the L? There isn't much BGTQ+ representation, especially in men's sport.

I thought it was just a bit pointless. I didn’t even know he was gay, so it was a bit odd to drop it in at the end. I don’t get the need to specifically mention it, rather than just ensuring they are represented.
maybe I’m just oblivious though because I don’t recall clocking the sexuality of either of the female contestants either. Was that including in the video but about them at the beginning?

Kerry was one of the contestants on the first (I think?) week the show started and when Barney asked her who was in the arena supporting her she said "my wife and my friends". She didn't mention anything in her bio video intro (I remember her because shes from Scotland and Iliked her amd was rooting for her the first week), whereas 'LGBT Community' dude made most of his video bio about it (a few weeks ago - I missed the videos yesterday).

That's the op's point. It's men's sport that's the issue. There's an absolute dearth of representation in many men's sports - whether it's because gay/bi men don't feel safe to come out, or whether they don't participate at all.

T rep is complicated. Transmen generally compete in female sport. TW self-exclude from male sport, and there are safety and fairness reasons that women's sport needs to be categorised by sex not gender.

Female athletes who identify as trans and non-binary also seem fairly well represented in female sport (not surprisingly).

It is only the gay men who are underrepresented.

Where is the representation for bi men?

Yes, I think so. Bi women as well of course.

Good for her! You're obviously doing a good job with her. We need more girls & women to notice and speak up!

What in blue blazes has sexuality got to do with sport? It's irrelevant. Why are we so obsessed with who you are attracted to?

gay men are definitely under-represented in sport, borderline criminally so in e.g. football, so it was very reasonable of him to bring up his sexuality. such a shame though to conflate the letters since the L is vastly over-represented in women's sport and the T (including non-binary and TW/TM, all in women's sport naturally) seems to be at least modestly well represented, even in the obvious cases were it shouldn't be - ditto so called 'intersex', again only people with y chromosomes trying to sneak into women's sport, not many eg women with turners syndrome chancing their arm with the men.