Bisexual Erasure in the British Print Media: Representation of Tom Daley's Coming Out

Abstract

In December 2013, British Olympic diver Tom Daley announced that he had begun dating a man, but was still attracted to women. In doing so he became the highest profile male athlete to disclose that he has bisexual attractions. This article provides a textual analysis of the British print media's reaction in the week after Daley's 'coming out' announcement, and examines whether the portrayal of him is consistent with the inclusive response to gay male athletes who have come out of the closet in recent years. Results indicate almost unanimous support for Daley's decision to come out. However, highlighting the processes of bisexual erasure, much of the print media labelled Daley as gay-rather than bisexual. This article thus highlights that the print media is ostensibly supportive of male sexual minority athletes; but the evidence we present suggests that the media are simultaneously significant in erasing bisexuality as a legitimate sexual orientation.

Representation Matters: Progressing Research in Plurisexuality and Bisexuality in Sport

“…After announcing he was in a relationship with a man, Daley highlighted he had multiple-gender attractions by stating, "of course I still fancy girls" (Daley, 2013). At the time, he did not publicly use a label regarding his sexual orientation (Magrath, Cleland, & Anderson, 2017). Consequently, he may not have wanted to be associated with any label, as his actions at that time seemingly implied, or may have preferred a different plurisexual identity than bisexual during this periodeven though he did not express this to the public.…”

“…According to Magrath et al (2017), Daley was the "highest profile male athlete" (p. 300) to admit to having multiple-gender attractions. While there were discriminatory social media posts aimed at Daley, he received an enormous volume of support and positivity in print and online media.…”

Coming out and normative shifts

“…In media and communication studies, one also finds some recent work on celebrities publicly coming out (for example, Benozzo 2013 studies the coming out of an Italian pop star), with most studies investigating the coming out of gay male athletes (e.g. Kian, Anderson and Shipka 2015, King 2017, Magrath, Cleland and Anderson 2017, Schallhorn and Hempel 2015, maybe because professional sport (and especially male team sports) is a context in which traditional hegemonic masculinities are still highly valued and same-sex affection is viewed as a threat (see Nylund 2004). Popular culture and the pop music industry, by contrast, are associated with a longer tradition of exploring gender and sexuality more progressively (Kian, Anderson and Shipka 2015: 621-622).…”

Discursive shifts associated with coming out: A corpus‐based analysis of news reports about Ricky Martin

“…In media and communication studies, there has been recent work on the coming out of gay male sport celebrities (e.g. Kian, Anderson, & Shipka, 2015;King, 2017;Magrath, Cleland, & Anderson, 2017), maybe because professional sports (especially male team sports) is a context in which traditional hegemonic masculinities are still highly valued and same-sex affection is viewed as a threat (see Nylund, 2004). Research in the realm of pop music is less well represented (see Benozzo, 2013).…”