I dagens Expressen kommer Jessica Landström officiellt ut ur den malätna heteronormgarderoben. Men hon väljer inte vägen som så många andra ickeheterosar gör, det vill säga QX. Och inte heller i en artikel som bara måste avhandla vad, när och hur. Nä, här handlar artikeln om Landströms mål igår, som tog LFC vidare i svenska cupen och vart anfallaren ska spela nästa säsong. Och i förbifarten nämner hon att hon och sambon Sara precis köpt en ny lägenhet i Stockholm och att hon därför håller alla dörrar öppna för vilket lag som kommer att toppa med stjärnans namn nästa säsong. Snyggt Landström.
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I am posting a question a posted on another Swedish blog, because your angle seems to be about the media and culture in Sweden, so perhaps you can better answer:
don't you think it's quite unusual that suddenly in 2008, so many players in gay relationships are out?
One cannot ignore this social issue because it reflects both such an age-old, diehard, ignorant bias targeted (rather obsessively) by the straight world on female athletes ('all you unladylike freaks must be queer!!') and at the same time, evidence that the athletes were feeling much pressure to stay quiet.
In 2003, after the world cup, there was an outburst of scrutiny from the Swedish press (well, I didn't follow the game before that, so maybe the press was always nosing in on sexuality issues) for gay players to come out, and yet no one did come out, not even Svensson (when asked about love in her life, she only named her cat) - which was all fine. They definitely had/have no obligation to talk about anything to anybody.
However, that did not stop the press from piling on and reporting even more (often silly) stories, like that some coaches pressured players to stay closeted and that old tale about the public not being ready to deal with gay players, and how it would hurt the league etc. Even when Hanna Ljungberg was asked about "all the" lesbians in the sport, she seemed dumbfounded and embarrassed and would not answer the question directly, saying something like, I think, "women's soccer is a serious sport and it will continue to be."
Which seemed like her way of saying either that that was not a serious line of questioning, or that if she answered honestly, no one would take the sport seriously again.
She clearly had the same homo-nervousness that prevented her from saying something simple like, "who cares who is straight and who is gay? I get along with gay players just fine." If the press asked her about all the foreign players, I doubt she would have answered so cryptically.
To an American this all seemed to say that, even though Scandinavia has very progressive partnership laws and the populations as a whole are able to tolerate legal rights for gays (but who knows to what extent since it was pushed through without a vote) but they are still uncomfortable with gay people being out.
Since you are in Sweden, can you explain what exactly changed in the last 4-5 years? Players are suddenly, right and left, volunteering that they have partners - which is great! But it is also very much ... well, news.
I answer in swedish since you seemed to be able to read my blog I assume you can read swedish. =)
Det är en dubbel fråga. Varför både offentliga och ickeoffentliga personer i dag kan komma ut i större utsträckning, är för att samhällsklimatet blivit mer accepterande till att man lever i samkönade relationer. Samtidigt är det så klart under all kritik ATT man behöver göra det. Ingen frågar Hanna Ljungberg om hur det känns med alla heterosar inom damfotbollen. Men just den frågan är symbolisk för att vi fortfarande har lång väg att gå innan hbt-personer har samma rättigheter som ges heterosexuella. Och att det inte längre då är en "grej".
Att offentliga personer berättar att de är tillsammans med en person av samma kön hjälper många i samma sits som av någon anledning inte kan eller vågar visa sin läggning öppet. Det är viktigt att som förebild kunna visa att man bryter de negativa normer som präglar vårt samhälle.
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