Ian Roberts has been playing Australian rugby league for over ten years. In September he came out as the first openly gay rugby player to the Australian press. The only place I saw it reported was in a national gay and lesbian magazine called The Advocate. Well, rugby isn't that well known here in the states so I guess that's nothing out of the ordinary. Still, I wonder.

A few years ago a friend of mine was mugged in New York City. Two men beat him up. He tried to give them his wallet but they wouldn't take it. They dropped it beside him on the ground. He had fifty dollars in it. They didn't take his money. They never even opened the wallet.

"Fucking faggot," one man said as they walked away.

Maybe I shouldn't have called it a mugging.

I've done AIDS work for over six years now and I've heard those words spoken many times in many different contexts.

"Fucking faggot."

I've even had people say it to me. I worked at Gay Men's Health Crisis for four and a half years so I put that label on the day I agreed to work there. They're the oldest and largest AIDS response agency in the world. We used to get bomb threats there every month - sometimes every week.

"Fucking Faggot."

My friend told me that getting beaten up wasn't the worst part. He said the worst part was when the man dropped his wallet next to him with his money still inside. My friend came out to his parents when he was nineteen and he has been called a faggot many times since then. He said he was surprised at how much it hurt. He thought he was over that kind of thing.

"Fucking faggot."

I've heard it used on the pitch, at practice, at the bar after games, by people I call my friends, by people I care about, by people I've broken bones for - my own bones. Faggot, queer, homo. I wonder. Would you call me these things if I told you I was gay?

It's rugby and the age of enlightenment. It's a gentleman's sport. We wear collared shirts. We call the referee sir. We have to or we can get thrown off the field for opening our mouths. "Don't talk back to the referee," is the player's motto. "Let your captain do it."

"Fucking faggot."

"I was just making a joke. It was just a joke." That's what I've been told when I ask people why they say it. "It doesn't hurt anyone," does it? No... it just strips away dignity like paint remover burns the skin. Hell, even kids in grade school say it. Right? I guess we have to learn from somewhere.

There are gay rugby players. There must be. Of course there are. God help them. It's a sport that doesn't tolerate any form of perceived weakness. It's a man's game - as if sexual orientation had anything to do with being a man.

Playing rugby league in Australia, I'm sure Ian Roberts has been called a few names in his time.

"Fucking faggot."

But then anybody who called him a name was probably buried in the pitch according to the laws of the game.

The End