She married a man, came out as a ‘late-bloomer lesbian,’ and now coaches high school football

After working and living all over the country as an IT recruiter, Katie Dockter found herself in a major life pivot by returning to her roots in Minnesota to teach and coach high school.  

Along the way, Dockter’s latent realizations about herself have come together to make her an out, proud coach at Tartan High School in Oakdale, Minn., a suburb of St. Paul.

Dockter, a phys-ed and health teacher, has an extensive coaching portfolio at the school: She’s the strength and conditioning coach for boy’s hockey, and an assistant coach in boy’s football, girl’s flag football and boy’s track.

Describing herself as a “late-bloomer lesbian,” Dockter, who turned 40 this year, had been married to a man before she discovered her true orientation and now has a wife. Her love of traditionally male contact sports as a young girl morphed into her coaching in one of those sports. Her journey led her back to Minnesota, where her vulnerability and proud displays of outness have propelled her to success on and off the field.

Born and raised in a suburb in Minneapolis, Dockter grew up in a sports‑oriented family with three brothers and one sister. Her brothers played hockey, baseball and football, shaping her interest in those sports.

Get off the sidelines and into the game

Our weekly playbook is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

“Sports have always been a big part of my life,” she said. “I liked the sports I was drawn to and watched, [such as] hockey, baseball, and football, three sports that didn’t have female presence at that point.  I don’t think I met a female coach in any of those sports until my 20s probably.”

While Dockter didn’t initially find opportunities for and representation of women in contact sports, she sampled other sports that didn’t quite fit the mark. Then she found rugby while in high school.

“It was like my life changed,” she said. “A real contact sport. It was finally an opportunity for me to do what I loved… I don’t think I ever realized, especially as a teenager, that something like rugby existed.”

Through her discovery of rugby, Dockter realized that she actually liked the physical strength that she could apply to the sport.

“Going into rugby, I saw all these strong women and girls and being celebrated for being strong.  Whereas you spend your life as a female being put down and put in your place.  I felt like suddenly there was a place where there weren’t those boundaries: We could be strong and excited about it.

Related

She married a man, came out as a ‘late-bloomer lesbian,’ and now coaches high school football
Katie Dockter coaches boys high school football in Minnesota as an out lesbian. It’s a journey she never would have imagined growing up.

Gay figure skating champion living his best life on and off the ice after coming out
‘Living as myself and doing the programs and routines to music that expresses who I am has helped my skating career,’ says solo ice dancer Lucas Appel, who set a world record this year.

 “It changed everything.  Before that, I had never been someone who lifted weights.  Now I find myself as a strength coach. … it opened that door to strength as a female-identifying person.”

Dockter’s journey to coming out somewhat mirrors her discovery of rugby.

“I’m very visible now,” she said. “In my office I have a Pride flag behind me, a key chain on my school keys that says ‘gay.’ It took me a long time.  Playing rugby, finding strength were first steps, but I was married to a man for 10 years. 

“I kind of fell into [compulsory heterosexuality] so hard and heavy.  I still know him and love him and he’s my best friend, but when I finally figured myself out … all of this makes sense.” Dockter and her wife, Britt, will celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary this summer.

As an out LGBTQ coach, Dockter benefits from her high school drawing a diverse cross-section of students in the Minneapolis area, which helped her ease into the coming out process. “It’s been incredible, because it is so open and diverse,” she said.

Despite the diversity, Dockter still has to navigate a culture in high school football where gay slurs are often used, especially among the younger players. “I didn’t realize how much that happened,” she said.

What started as a challenge became an opportunity for her to make a positive impact on a team culture.

“This was my first year coaching the boys football team here, it was scary, and there were definitely some days where we were having conversations about me feeling safe and how to make me feel safe, because they were casually dropping gay [slurs] that that didn’t make me feel safe.”

Her message to them? “While I can’t control what you say all the time, I can explain to you why this is a problem, and I can make it so that you don’t use these words around me.”

“It definitely made a difference because they knew me and they liked me and they trusted me as a coach,” she said, adding that when she showed the players a vulnerable side of her regarding such language, “it did seem to turn the tide.”

In addition to herself being adversely affected by the cultural use of gay slurs, Dockter has also had to navigate the other side of the coin, where gay athletes in the closet have come to her for support.

“It definitely felt like a lot of responsibility at that moment,” she said. “I don’t want to say the wrong thing, I don’t want to tell them to do something, and so I was very noncommittal. I said ‘I hear you, I’m here, I support you, I understand.’”

Check out Outsports’ archive of coming out stories.

Subscribe to the Outsports newsletter to keep up with your favorite out athletes, inspiring LGBTQ sports stories, and more.