- Hi everybody. I'm Jen. I'm here. I'm queer.
And I want to know if softball really is a queer sport.
(rock music)
Despite my appearance, I'm not too great at sports.
I told this to someone the other day,
and he went "Well aren't you like
"really good at softball?"
Confused, I took to the internet
and discovered that if you're a woman
who plays softball, people are gonna think
you're a ho-
mo.
Are queer women better at softball than straight women?
Do more queer women play softball
than straight women?
To get to the bottom of this,
I decided to attend a BuzzFeed softball game.
One, so that I could ask other people
their thoughts on this stereotype,
and two, so that I could potentially
bring the game home
for everyone there.
♫ There she goes, my baby ♫
I am Jen. I am here at the BuzzFeed softball game
with my teammate Ryan.
Ryan, do you identify as a queer woman?
- Negative.
- Do you think you would be better at softball
if you were a queer woman?
- (laughs)
- Which queer woman? I don't know. No.
- Any of them. Ellen.
Are we winning or losing? I don't ...
- Right now we're winning, which is rare for us.
- Do you think we're doing better because I'm here?
- Yes, absolutely.
- Who's up?
- I don't know.
Oh, shit. I'm up. We gotta go.
Is softball a queer sport?
The only piece of evidence we have is
that I am killing it right now.
Look at this team. They love me.
Unfortunately, my good performance was short lived.
The game is over. We didn't win.
We didn't lose. We tied 10 to 10.
Which means that the results were inconclusive,
and we need to investigate further.
After pondering BuzzFeed's disappointing tie,
I decided to speak with some players
who were a bit more experienced
than me and my coworkers.
There are a lot of stereotypes
that surround female athletes,
but I think softball players in particular,
and some of them are that the sport
is full of queer people.
- I didn't have some experience
where there was just like all lesbians
or all this, all that.
We were a varied group of girls,
just like society.
- What a bummer.
- I've played with straight girls and lesbians.
I think like anything, it's just people
like to perpetuate these kind of myths.
- There are a lot of queer women playing softball,
but I wouldn't say it's any more
than women's basketball.
It goes in every sports direction
because you spend so much time together,
and I feel like a lot of people
take that friendship to the next level,
and that's kinda how it happens.
You're with them all the time.
- [Jen] If Julie is correct
and queer women don't play softball
more often than they play, say basketball,
it's still unclear why softball players are
more frequently accused of playing for the other team.
Unless of course, queer women really are better at softball.
I decided to test this theory again
with a larger sample size.
I took a team of queer girls
and a team of straight girls
to the batting cages to see who's really the best.
Hey everybody.
I'm here with the three members of Rainbow Power.
Incidentally, our queer team.
Team Tigers, the straight team.
There is a stereotype that queer women
are better at softball, they play softball more often.
- There was a girl at my school that played softball,
and everyone thought she was a lesbian.
Big reveal, she's straight.
- How do you think you're all gonna do?
(Cheers)
- I'm really scared. I don't like balls, these ones.
(start bell)
- The first contestant for the tigers is up to bat now.
Her name is Holly. She's gonna kick ass.
Let's do this.
First up for team Rainbow Power is Kelsey Jones.
Linda Barsi, number two from the Tigers,
is about to go up to bat.
Contestant number two from team Rainbow Power,
Gaby Dunn is up now.
- [Gaby] Oh!
- Jenny, the last contestant for the Tigers,
is up to bat now.
Karen is the third and final batter
for Rainbow Power.
(Cheers)
- I'm a stereotype!
(laughs)
- Our victorious team, also incidentally our queer team.
How do you guys feel right now?
- Feelin' pretty good.
- You guys wanna go adopt some cats?
- Yeah, that's it. Let's go.
- And like, listen to Tegan and Sara or ...
- Yep, sounds like a ...
- Who's Tegan and Sara? Who's Tegan and Sara?
- Never heard of them.
- What?
(laughter)
- At the end of the day, yeah,
the queer girls were a little bit better
than the straight girls in the batting cages,
but regardless of sexuality,
we were all really bad.
- Oh!
- Great, we're all gonna die.
In fact, the only conclusion I'm comfortable making
is that, no matter who you are,
you can still suck at sports,
and we did.
(upbeat music)