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Outspoken
Outspoken: A Journey From Olympic Athlete to Activist
by Betty Baxter
Nightwood Editions,
256 pages, $23.95
The history of 2SLGBTQ+ Canadians gaining legal equality is shockingly recent. Sexual orientation became covered by the Canadian Human Rights Act in 1996, while Bill C-23 — which granted same-sex couples the social and tax benefits that only heterosexual couples in common-law relationships previously had — passed in 2000, with same-sex marriage being legalized in 2005.
None of those protections were in place when Betty Baxter, an Olympic volleyball player, was fired in 1982 from her job as the first woman to coach the Canadian national women’s volleyball team. Baxter’s new memoir, Outspoken, opens with a dramatic scene in which she’s confronted by the powers that be over rumours of her sexual orientation. Baxter’s identity would ultimately result in her — at the time, legal — dismissal.
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Being fired simply for her sexual orientation is obviously a major event in Baxter’s life, though much of Outspoken isn’t about Baxter’s identity at all; rather, it’s the story of a young woman from Brooks, Alta., who found her place in the world through her prowess on the volleyball court. In the first two-thirds of the book, in which Baxter rose through the ranks of Canadian volleyball, her sexuality seldom comes up because, to the author, it was the sport that mattered most. Baxter paints a fascinating portrait of international amateur sports in the 1970s and the strengths and weaknesses of Canada’s national program.
Of course, it all came crashing down after that 1982 confrontation, which is where the “outspoken” part of Baxter’s career comes in. She helped organize the 1990 Gay Games in Vancouver and eventually toed into politics, but the heart of this memoir lies in those earlier days of her sporting career. It’s a peek at a time so different than today’s big-budget Olympics, told with humour and clarity.
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