the turning: sexuality & shame in women's sport

As a child, I was warned tacitly about the pandemic: of dangerous, contagious lesbianism. I rolled my eyes and dismissed it. I was heterosexual but cool.

A comment left on the internet by a person called Peter Condron. Thank you, Peter.

It seeps through us in fractures: as a phenomenon, a myth, a joke, an enduring stereotype, a revolution.

The question that has lost its form, is no longer a question but an implication: Do girls turn gay in sport? It contorts often into a threat: Girls are turned in sport. You will be turned. You are turned. You are the turner. It is a legacy — a non-secret secret that twists through hundreds of lives within Australia’s professional female basketball world. It is carried by teammates, by opponents; shared with past players turned coaches now married to men. It has leaked out into mainstream society and been corrupted into a warning. Or, it had started as a warning and, obedient as women, we tried to fulfil the prophesy.

The Turning is an essay that examines identity, sexuality and labels in the WNBL and AFLW.