Liam Hendriks fails as LGBTQ ally by excusing anti-gay slur of Red Sox teammate Jarren Duran

Watthen Boston Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran spat out an anti-gay slur in response to a heckler during Sunday’s game, one of my first thoughts in response was that I hoped Liam Hendriks would speak with him.

Hendriks has been one of MLB’s most prominent and vocal LGBTQ allies and was proud to make it publicly known that before signing with any team as a free agent, he seeks confirmation that they host a Pride Night. The Red Sox relief pitcher has also looked for ways to get actively involved with our community in every city where he’s played.

Yesterday, Hendriks addressed Duran’s homophobic slur with the Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham. Based on his comments, it was clear he had chosen the path of standing behind his teammate publicly as most players do when one of their own is called out for doing something terrible.

“This is what happens in anger,” Hendriks said, “But I know Jarren. I’ve had conversations with him plenty of times about the LGBT community and he’s been nothing but supportive.”

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I will give Hendriks this: there are few players on Earth better qualified to speak on the subject of anger. One of the most entertaining and colorful characters in baseball, Hendriks usually plays as if his pitching coach was Lewis Black.

Hendriks is even the subject of Youtube compilation videos focusing on the parade of profanity he screams during a game. But even in his most wrathful moments as he bellows out numerous words beginning with “F,” the one you never hear is the anti-gay slur that Duran spewed.

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Letting a torrent of expletives fly in anger is one thing we all have in common. But screaming out one of the most hateful homophobic slurs in the English language says something about the person uttering it.

Specifically: In that instance where Duran lost control, he went immediately to hate speech. While Duran has been open about his struggles with mental health issues in the past, his on-camera slur revealed there is still a part of him that reverts to homophobic bigotry when he loses it.

That’s something that he needs to address and no amount of previous discussions about the LGBTQ community can make that go away.

Continuing to speak on behalf his teammate, Hendriks expounded Duran’s use of that specific slur.

“It had nothing to do with that community, had nothing to do with trying to put someone down who’s in that community. I know where his heart’s at and that’s something that I value more than anything,” he said.

That’s quite an assumption.

Here’s the thing about this particular talking point: those who want to defend someone who uttered bigotry often fall back on some variation of the “It had nothing to do with that community” line. Hendriks is implying that Duran was just looking for a hurtful word when he lost control and happened to stumble upon that particular slur.

But once someone invokes that word, it has everything to do with us. 

Regardless of who Duran was trying to go after, by dropping that hate speech, he hurt every LGBTQ person.

That word takes away our humanity and damages all of us to the very core of our being.

You can talk about where Duran’s heart is at all you want but that’s the consequence of his words and actions. In the wake of hearing him hurt all of us that way, having a teammate come to his aid by telling us that anti-gay slurs are not about our community feels like gaslighting.

On the subject of the Red Sox organization’s relationship with the LGBTQ community, Hendriks said, “I honestly think that if there were a gay player on this team, he’d be embraced better than other people.”

One way to embrace a gay player would be to unequivocally condemn homophobic hate speech, regardless of how you felt about the teammate who uttered it.

Unfortunately, that was one area where Hendriks let our community down.

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