Abstract
In this essay, building on previous scholarship on race, gender, and sexuality in sports, we look at the public coming-out process of the first openly gay male boxer, Puerto Rican Orlando Cruz. Influenced by women-of-color feminism, performance studies, Latina media criticism, and sociology of sports, we analyze media interviews in both English-and Spanish-language media, using critical discourse analysis and queer-of-color and performance approaches. We pay attention to how Orlando Cruz used the media to stage his public coming out; investigate how homophobia and toxic masculinity helped shape, narrate, and perform this process; and examine how he negotiated his masculinity and sexuality in the media.
Resumen
Partiendo de previas investigaciones académicas sobre raza, género y sexualidad en el deporte, en este ensayo analizamos el proceso de salida del armario del primer boxeador abiertamente gay, el puertorriqueño Orlando Cruz. Con la influencia del feminismo de mujeres de grupos racializados, los estudios de performance, la crítica mediática de latinas y la sociología del deporte, analizamos las entrevistas en los medios tanto en inglés como español usando un análisis discursivo crítico y perspectivas de performance y de queers de grupos racializados. Observamos cómo Orlando Cruz utilizó los medios para montar en escena pública su salida del armario; investigamos cómo la homofobia y la masculinidad tóxica ayudaron a formar, narrar y representar este proceso y examinamos cómo el boxeador negoció su masculinidad y su sexualidad en los medios.
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Notes
We are presenting only our translations of Spanish quotes; originals are available for review.
We use Latinx to be inclusive beyond binaries and to account for the multiple expressions of genders and sexualities. The x for us “marks the spot” to borrow from Richard T. Rodríguez (2017). Inspired by his essay, we recognize the need for the x to resignify gendered language and to disrupt the binary of a/o. We also recognize the dangers of subsuming all identities into the x. Rodríguez argues that we cannot use Latinx without acknowledging “discrepant gender politics” or “map it onto people’s lives, histories and bodies uncritically” (2017, p. 212). Our usage is also informed by Ferrada (2021), Torres (2018), Vidal-Ortiz and Martinez (2018), and Alan Lopez Pelaez (2018).
Puerto Rico’s colonial relationship to the United States is too complex to sum up here. However, for context, the reader should know that SCOTUS, in a series of cases known as the Insular Cases, defined PR as “an unincorporated territory which ‘belongs to but is not part of the United States’” (Colon 1984, p. 101). Given this status, one of the “concessions” made to Puerto Ricans to disguise the true colonial status of the island is the idea of “sport sovereignty.” This means that Puerto Rico can compete as a separate and sovereign nation in international sport competitions.
Both Collins and Sam disclosed their sexuality publicly after Cruz, in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Amaechi did so before Cruz in 2007, but he had already retired.
Jotería studies is a field of study that bridges thinking in Chicanx and Latinx studies, queer-of-color theory and women-of-color feminisms. See the 2014 Dossier in Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, edited by Michael Hames-García, for field-defining essays (Hames-García 2014). Jotería studies scholars work with epistemologies and pedagogies that move beyond queer while resignifying the word joto or jota from their derogatory sense. They develop new embodied frameworks for understanding the world beyond White gay homonormative and US-centric perspectives (Ferrada 2021). Juan Sebastian Ferrada argues that marginalized Latinx communities in the US who embrace jotería as “identity, academic theory, and sensibility” exemplify how resignifying practices offer new avenues for “making sense of lived experience” (2021, p. 16).
We highlight men of color here because it is relevant to Cruz’s own experience as a Black Puerto Rican, but this is a wide-ranging problem. Think of Peter Fury, White British trainer, and Frankie Gavin, White boxer, tweeting homophobically while Cruz fought Flanagan in 2016 (Griffee 2016).
For a contrasting story of being forced “out,” read about boxer Yusaf Mack (Moye 2015).
To better understand how fighters can receive championship opportunities without actually being the top contenders, read Gibson (2015).
In fact, this is his literal response to Carmen Dominicci’s prompt: “There are people that have been shocked by your announcement because they believe that there is a contradiction between being a boxer and being gay.” Rather than correcting the erroneous premise, Cruz opts to once again separate both things: “Yes, I understand that, but I always let it be known that I don’t mix my personal life with my … boxing,” seemingly making his gayness more “palatable” (Video 4, 2014).
Think of Emile Griffith’s beating of Paret.
Openly gay wrestler Mike Parrow did bring a rainbow flag into the ring with him in 2018, several years after Cruz had already done it twice (Buzinski 2018).
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Acknowledgements
As with any research project, the final product is never only the work of the researchers. We are indebted to Drs. Sandy Soto, Francisco Galarte, Sima Shakhsari, Virginia Arreola, and Maude Hines for all the suggestions and insights they provided when we presented early results and first drafts. We also appreciate the invaluable feedback and critiques provided by our four reviewers and the editors of Latino Studies. Likewise, we would like to highlight the indispensable help we received from Eddy’s research assistants: B. Bobolinski, Joel Chavez, Jesus Contreras Barajas, and Leith Ghuloum. Finally, we owe our families: Jorge, Oscarcito, Mariena, Emil, Lianny, and José Raúl for their love and support always. After all, it was they who, one day, over several plates of chicken wings, convinced us to undertake this project together. We love you!
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Feliciano Ortiz, R.J., Alvarez, E.F. “And in the rainbow corner”: Orlando Cruz and performances of masculinity, homonormativity, and liberation. Lat Stud 21, 64–83 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41276-022-00392-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41276-022-00392-1