Roller derby's publicness: toward greater recognition of diverse genders and sexualities in the Bible Belt

Abstract

While scholars have considered the various meanings of roller derby for participants and discussed how roller derby critiques and stabilizes gender and sexuality normativity, their investigation into how a larger public is impacted by roller derby's public performances has received less attention. Here, we begin to address this oversight. Employing both participant and spectator data, we examine facets of publicness in the discursive and material spatial practices associated with roller derby in the US Bible Belt, specifically Oklahoma. While some scholars doubt that there is much social impact from roller derby, we suggest that the specific spatial qualities in roller derby's public performances, in both the sporting and playful senses, contribute to a change in cultural norms – that of greater recognition of diverse genders and sexualities in this region. Such validation increases the social stability of individuals who do not neatly reside within heteronormativity.

La exposición pública del roller derby: hacia un mayor reconocimiento de diversos géneros y sexualidades en el Cinturón Bíblico

Mientras los estudiosos han considerado los varios significados del roller derby para lxs participantes y han discutido cómo el roller derby critica y estabiliza la normatividad de género y la sexualidad, su investigación sobre cómo un público más amplio es impactado por las performances públicas del roller derby ha recibido menos atención. Aquí comenzamos a abordar esta omisión. Empleando tanto datos de participantes como de espectadores, examinamos las facetas de la exposición pública en las prácticas espaciales discursivas y materiales asociadas con el roller derby en el Cinturón Bíblico en los EE.UU., específicamente en Oklahoma. Mientras que muchos investigadores dudan de que haya mucho impacto social del roller derby, sugerimos que las cualidades espaciales específicas en las performances públicas del roller derby, en el sentido deportivo y del juego, contribuyen a un cambio en las normas culturales—el de un mayor reconocimiento de los géneros y las sexualidades diversas en esta región. Dicha validación aumenta la estabilidad social de los individuos que no encajan fácilmente dentro de la heteronormatividad

直排轮的公共性：在圣经带（the Bible Belt）中迈向对性别与性的多样性的更大认可

学者们虽然已考量直排轮运动之于参与者的各种意涵，并已讨论直排轮如何批判性别与性的常规、并同时使之稳固，但他们对于更广泛的公众如何被直排轮运动的公共表演所影响之探讨，却受到较少的关注。我们便于此着手处理此 一 阙如。我们同时运用参与者以及观众的数据， 检视在美国圣经带、 特别是奥克拉荷马中，与直排轮运动有关的论述及物质性空间实践中的公共性面向。纵然有些学者怀疑直排轮是否具有广大的社会影响力， 但我们主张， 同时就运动与愉悦感而言，直排轮的公共表演中的特殊空间质量， 导致文化常规的改变 —— 于此区域中， 各种不同的性别与性向， 获得了更多的认可。此一肯定，增加了无法恰好符合异性恋常规的个人的社会稳定度。

Keywords::

• gender
• sexuality
• roller derby
• sport
• heteronormativity
• Bible Belt

Palabras claves::

• género
• sexualidad
• roller derby
• deporte
• heteronormatividad
• Cinturón Bíblico

关键词::

• 性别
• 性
• 直排轮
• 运动
• 异性恋常规
• 圣经带

Acknowledgments

We thank the Oklahoma Humanities Council and the Foundation for the Scientific Study of Sexuality for funding this study. We are grateful for the insights from the three anonymous reviewers as well as helpful comments from Helen Regis on previous drafts. Finally, we are indebted to the Tornado Alley Roller Girls for their generous participation in this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. This number does not include leagues and teams not associated with WFTDA.

^2. The point at which the fingertips touch the thigh when standing up is the skirt limit length.

^3. Alternately, Gilbert (2011) reinterprets early twentieth-century femme femininity in London of tennis great Dorothea Lambert Chambers. He argues that Chambers’ Lawn Tennis for Ladies created a more progressive femininity because it became a how-to-guide – a book ‘to be practiced’ (204). He argues that Chambers actually worked within the constraints of femme dress through athletic and mental practices as well as the parks and tennis clubs of the suburban landscape to perform a more progressive femininity. Gilbert shows that a variety of scales were at work in (de)stabilizing heteronormativity in the larger society through interrelated geographies of (the) body(ies), suburbia, the city, as well as the state.

^4. Pavlidis (2012) and Pavlidis and Fullagar (2013) also hint to this.

^5. Some teams in the Bible Belt and elsewhere, however, have begun to near completely standardize their uniforms in large part to be taken seriously (see also Breeze 2013).

^6. A derby wife is a ‘very good friend’ that provides ‘encouragement and to keep you accountable.’ Derby girls became roller derby ‘wives’ by exchanging vows or as a matter of ‘common law’ (spending time together) even when they were actually already married to a man, woman, or in a committed relationship.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rebecca Sheehan

Rebecca Sheehan is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Oklahoma State University. Her research focuses on geographies of nonmainstream and marginalized groups specifically related to identity, tourism, and cultural landscapes. Her work has been informed by feminist theory, especially performativity.

Jacqueline M. Vadjunec

Jacqueline M. Vadjunec is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Oklahoma State University. Her research focuses on human–environment geographies, specifically related to land use and livelihoods of traditional and/or marginalized groups. Common Property Theory and Cultural, Feminist, and Political Ecologies inform her work.