You don't spit into the wind.
You don't pull the mask of the ol' Lone Ranger
and you don't mess around with Jim (/Slim)!”
-- Jim Croce
I hope starting with that quote will not make the message surrounding this sports story glib, because it really is the first of two special stories I will be doing for this blog on similar subjects.
It is time that the world accepts the GLBT population, by reason or by force.
(And “reason” is quickly leaving the playing field.)
To show how far we have to go, two “Special Report” stories this week on the blog.
For the first one: Let's take an extended look at an incident on ESPN's Grantland site which has raised more than a few negative eyebrows.
It all started rather innocuously: An January 15, 2014 article written by Caleb Hannan on a “Dr. V” who had created a putter which appeared to significantly enhance one's putting game.
The creator, a Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt, had put up a YouTube video (in the linked article) with no less than former CBS golf commentator Gary McCord singing the praises of a new putter he had discovered from Dr. Vanderbilt.
(And, believe you and me, with as long as McCord has been around the sport of golf, his endorsement has to carry some degree of weight.)
Dr. Vanderbilt was a physicist, who had been researching golf patents going back to the 1950's, and appeared to make a putter that could be saleable in a sport which even most smaller companies now believe may be about to die in the United States, with a rapidly aging demographic.
So, the person from Grantland wanted to interview her. The response, at best, indicated that much of what was going on was secretive, at best.
From the article:
“I have no issues as long as the following protocols are followed because of my association with classified documents,” she wrote. “Allow me to elucidate; I have the benefits under the freedom of information act the same privileges as federal judges, my anonymity is my security as well as my livelihood, since I do numerous active projects … If the aforementioned is agreeable to you, please respond to this communique at your convenience so we can schedule our lively nuncupative off the record collogue.”
I can tell you that I associate with certain people who have connections with various well-known parties, who have asked me to keep any information (given to them in confidence) I get from them, similarly, secret. So, though I find this uncommon, I do not find anything outside the verbage used to be particularly unusual.
So he tried to go through McCord to try to smooth the waters a bit. Hannan found out, from McCord, that Vanderbilt was not joking about classified documents – we're talking Department of Defense here.
The first mistake Caleb Hannan made was trying to make was going beyond the science to the scientist.
She was a tall woman, a bit of red hair, and a Vanderbilt. A lot to study there.
McCord cautioned the Grantland author not to do so, and basically warned him to “hang on” when he finally was going to be able to contact Dr. Vanderbilt.
And McCord didn't leave his endorsement of Dr. Vanderbilt's putter to YouTube. A PGA professional had picked up the club and was using it in the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship, and McCord was singing it's praises in the tournament. A clip of that is also on the original Grantland article, linked above. The golfer, Aaron Baddeley, would quickly transition to another putter, even though his performance significantly improved with Dr. Vanderbilt's club. No true reason was given.
So that led Hannan to finally weave through the web of Dr. Vanderbilt and actually get to talk to the mysterious doctor. Accent, deep voice, migraines if she ever spent more than a couple hours outdoors – the last precluding any personal use of her handiwork.
She also revealed a dark side to her invention. In a six-month period, her golf company's office had been broken in to NINE TIMES, presumably to attempt to either steal the plans of or completely discredit the club which she had created.
The next step was actually to get the club and have Hannan see it for himself. It worked wonders immediately, and he found out that McCord had been information by Dr. Vanderbilt that she had worked on government projects like the Stealth Bomber.
But an e-mail to Dr. Vanderbilt which sang the praises of the putter was met... coldly.
“As I clearly stated at the onset of your unsolicited probing, your focus must be on the benefits of the Science for the Golfer not the scientist, however, at this juncture you are in reversal of your word, as well as neophytic in your modus operandi of understanding the science of Yar. If you were observant or should I state; had the mental aptitude of ratiocination you would have gleaned or inquired about the advantages of the Inertia Matrix … If you are what you presented yourself to [Gary McCord], as a golf nut, then you should be in shock and awe that someone has given the golfing milieu a scientific breakthrough as revolutionary as the two-piece rubber core golf ball was a hundred years ago!!!”
This created the second mistake Caleb made: Hannan's experience with the putter had piqued his interest so much that he decided to dig into Dr. Vanderbilt's story. Finding no record of any such person as a Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt until about 10 years ago or so, he dug further.
It was a lawsuit that was filed by Dr. Vanderbilt for sexual discrimination in Arizona that finally unraveled the mess.
She lost the lawsuit when the judge ordered her to sign an affidavit so that the city could (like Hannan) explore Dr. Vanderbilt's background – that she'd always been Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt.
I think you can tell where this is going, especially from my initial statement: She had not. The person from the city sued who was contacted all but tipped off the whole mess by using “she” and “her” as if the quotation marks I just threw around those two pronouns were verbalized.
And then, Caleb Hannan showed his hand, and outed Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt as a transsexual who had never attended the colleges or anything else which she had indicated.
But the deception on the colleges was not the point: Hannan crossed the line, cleanly, when he outed Dr. Vanderbilt as a transsexual in a country where only being as different as “THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT ALABAMA!” after the Iron Bowl is a death penalty offense – or being considered a bandwagoning 49ers fan would've been one had the bullets found their intended target.
There are still many locations in this country that are so backwards that they would have no problem executing anybody different than them in such manners if they could get away with it. As a result (and I speak from nine years on the streets of San Francisco with common knowledge of the Castro District), many members of the GLBT community – especially the T – live in constant fear of their lives, and, in many cases, not the least from their families.
Once Gary McCord got word Hannan had found out and exposed Dr. Vanderbilt's identity, he (and almost certainly quite angrily) stopped speaking to him.
The ensuing communications from Dr. Vanderbilt became much angrier, much less stable, and much more indicative of a person who was being bullied (and she felt, as well, by Hannan, as well as others) for being who she was.
On October 18, 2013, Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt killed herself, and it appeared to the pleasure of at least one in-law in the family, who contacted Hannan with the news.
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To say the shit hit the fan on the Grantland article would be kind.
Within 48 hours, Grantland's lines were lit up by people outraged that the article made print.
On Monday, Bill Simmons, the editor of Grantland, attempted to take to his own defense.
It took Simmons only a few hours of the outrage he read to realize that Grantland screwed up.
Speaking with my knowledge of the GLBT community, I almost have to say it should be fatal to the Grantland column.
Why?
Let's start with a very interesting web series that TSN (the Canadian ESPN) ran on “Reorientation: The Culture of Casual Homophobia”.
It has three parts. The videos are linked here: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.
Homosexuality (and being a transgender even more so) is a death knell in sports which makes one considered lesser and not worthy of participation, if not basically being injured/killed outright.
Anyone who has not read of the numerous people murdered for being LGBT in this country – and the innumberable additional human beings who kill themselves at the literal direction of bullies for being LGBT – either is ignorant by choice or by a very large stroke of blind luck.
The final mistake Hannan made was that the author had outed Dr. Vanderbilt to one of her investors – before she killed herself when that investor pulled any further involvement as a result.
Frankly, that should expose the author (and Grantland/ESPN) to money damages for the wrongful death, and probable criminal charges for Hannan. The suicide now becomes a wrongful death situation, and, the “numerous lawyers” for Grantland and ESPN aside, there will be a lawsuit. This was actually going to be discussed on Deadspin for a period of time, until it was decided that a lawsuit was ultimately the best way to proceed.
And Simmons makes some very valid points in his attempt to apologize:
- The high suicide rate of transgenders. It should come as no
surprise that most of them are encouraged by forces around them to
conform or die – often choosing the latter out of frustration,
pain, bullying, and the inherent internal conflict transgenders
have. According to LiveScience,
no fewer than two out of five of all transgenders are believed to
have attempted suicide.
- That it was never clear in the article whether Hannan was
going to out Dr. Vanderbilt.
- And that it was never discussed before her death as to what
was going to happen in that regard at Grantland or ESPN.
- That the second cardinal sin against a transgender was also
violated – not getting the pronouns correct. GLAAD publishes a
style guide on how to properly deal with that.
- That Hannan had a “chill down his spine” also could be
read the wrong way.
- And the fact he pulled the trigger on the ultimate cardinal
sin, outing Dr. Vanderbilt, destroying her livelihood as a result,
and directly driving her to her suicide.
This would be no different than if ESPN had outed an athlete, previously in the closet, on the current US Olympic Team, and something happened to him or her in Sochi, Russia. (Why that might very well be a problem will be addressed in my second “Special Report” on the farcical Five-Ring Circus in Russia (and the bad need for a GLBT Jesse Owens Moment) this week.)
This is no different than an athlete being outed in a college or high school, and eventually bullied, at minimum, out of sports, or the school, or the community he or she lives in, or his or her life outright.
Again, as often happens with inexcusable penalties like the zero-tolerance penalties against clear tributes to dead friends in the end zone, etc. and so forth, ESPN (especially, since it seems to glorify homophobia in various forms and fashions – whether it chooses to or not (and it certainly does not do so universally)) needs to understand the culture of sports in this country: Where “Power Over”, even (and often) to the point of rape and worse, is the ultimate goal.
Even a straight woman can no longer, in my honest opinion, expect appropriate conduct from a man, especially in a culture which glorifies absolute power on the part of said man over everyone in his path (we've even had a Congresscritter call for the concept of “legitimate rape”). It, at best, has to be enforced through the law – criminal AND civil. (And, usually only when the woman is considered economically important. I speak from experience in this regard.)
Moreover, it's 100 times worse when you start talking anybody in the GLBT community.
This is why Chile's motto -- “By reason or by force.” – applies. Either this world needs to recognize the right of GLBT human beings to pursue whatever form of athletic or other endeavor without fear of bullying or worse, or the Anakin Skywalker Effect needs to take hold, and that right needs to be forced on the rest of the world.
I fear we are very close to that latter situation. “Reason”, in this subject, has finished off Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt in a manner in which much of our American culture finds the desired result.
“Reason” has allowed an International Olympic Committee, for the second time in twelve years, to award a Winter Olympics to an openly homophobic city. (More on that after the Super Bowl.)
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I have received a number of sources (from a number of parties) on this subject, in addition to the two initial Grantland pieces.
The women's issues sister blog to Deadspin, Jezebel, ran a story on January 18th, three days after the initial Grantland article.
Deadspin, itself, ran a catalogue of many of the issues surrounding the article on the 19th.
Another sister Kinja site, Uppercutting, went so far as to call Hannan a coward.
Much of the rhetoric of some disgust and a lot of discussion of the Grantland pieces overlaps between the three articles, and many others on the subject.
However, most stunning is that Grantland had somebody who could well have easily stopped all this.
Christina Kahrl is a baseball writer for ESPN. She could easily have seen this article, and seen all the problems she delineated in a scathing piece against Hannan and Grantland.
Why do I say this? She serves on the board of directors for GLAAD. On top of that, she has been known to be transgender herself since her days on Baseball Prospectus.
Essay Anne Vanderbilt died because she, in this homophobic/transphobic world of sports, did not appear to have the human right of decency of self-identification.
For this, ESPN, Bill Simmons, Hannan, and Grantland should pay through the fucking nose – and tack on jobs and the entire Grantland project while you're at it.
It truly appears that ESPN, as a “corporate citizen”, is guilty of a felony here – a hate crime, no less. And Caleb Hannan should honestly be charged with something, if the laws on the books exist in the relevant state.
We live in a sports world, today, where being only as different as not a big enough fan, a fan for not long enough, or even just not willing to throw oneself off the cliff for the team's latest loss is grounds for murder.
We live in a sports world, today, where being only as different as not as elite of an athlete as others is grounds for assault, battery, and dehumanization.
We live in a sports world, today, where taking time out for one's own life out of sports is no longer allowed – not only in the 24-hour news cycles of ESPNFS1NBCSNCBSSN...
We live in a real world where being different is grounds for death, whatever the manifestation of “difference” is. And when, in the interest of “getting the story”, an overzealous report exposes those differences to the point where it basically opens the gates of Hell, they should expect to be burned.
I add two further perspectives (which are good enough to stand on their own merit – adding my own thoughts, except on rare points, is almost pointless) on the subject along the lines of Christina Kahrl:
First, I add this piece from Maria Dahvana Headley, to which I only make one further comment: If the story is the entire thing, then there is only one option: Don't run the story, in any kind.
And then this article, short and sweet, from Melissa McEwan at Shakesville.
McEwan called it “careless, cruel, and unaccountable”.
And, until those three things are changed, it's time for heads to roll at ESPN and Grantland.
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