| dc.description.abstract | In this thesis I am going to explore the historical and cultural background of the emergence of the gay/lesbian sports groups in Taiwan along with relevant body politics and gender politics of the participants since late 1990s. The thesis begins with the etymology of the Chinese term “tongzhi yundong,” which has mostly referred to the gay movement not physical sports. The trivialization of gay/lesbian athletics is related with the general conceptions that “sports” is not serious and apolitical. As both a participant and a researcher, I would like to give counterarguments by giving evidences that gay/lesbian athletes do involve themselves in the gay movement such as participating in the Rainbow Games and Lesbian Championship in 2001, the Sydney Gay Games in 2002, and the gay march in 2003.
In addition to demonstrate the correlations between sporting gays and the gay movement, this thesis also aims to delineate the unique body politics, gender politics and identity politics that characterize gay/lesbian athletes. These various politics in some ways challenge the boundary projects that are often affiliated with modern sport, such as policed differentiation of sex, gender, sexuality, race, and nationality etc. Sometimes these politics conform to the heteronormative maintenance of norms, including acceptable masculinity and femininity etc. By reading and interpreting these politics, the researcher wants to demonstrate the complexity of gay/lesbian athletics. Last but not least, the researcher will try to disclose the interior performativity of the gay/lesbian athletes and manifest how the body politics, gender politics and the identity politics can be recognized as different forms of doing the gay movement. | en_US |