Savoy Howe
Boxing

When Ontario's TSN asked Savoy Howe to be part of a documentary about gay athletes in 1993, her first thought was of her parents, back home in Chatham, N.B. They were coming to uneasy acceptance of her sexuality. "They said, 'You can do what you like up in Ontario, but just don't use the L word with the folks back home' " , Howe recalled.

She reckoned the documentary would be shown only once, and, anyway, her parents didn't watch sports television, so she talked about her experience as a lesbian boxer in For the Love of the Game. Problem was, the film was so popular that TSN was deluged with requests to rebroadcast it -- and did so six times. By then, every one of Howe's 68 cousins had seen her use the L word on TV. So much for that little secret.

"That was probably the best thing that ever happened to me," impish Howe told the audience on Monday at a fundraiser called Sports Heroes: Paving the Way for Queer Youth. "I had no choice, I'd outed myself and people had to deal with it."

Savoy Howe has been an amateur boxer for seven years. She won Toronto’s first ever sanctioned women’s bout in 1993 and went on to win silver in the 1995 Ontario provincial championships. She is an influential certified boxing coach. She teaches 40 women to box at a Toronto gym called Sully's. "Most of us are gay, and we let it be known that the straight world has to adjust to us"

In 1994 she roller-bladed 1,600 kilometres around Northern Ontario with an AIDS awareness tour that focused on providing AIDS information for high school students around Northern Ontario.

Savoy is a professional actor, has written and starred in her own play "Tale of Doohnamow" as well as performing in improvisational comedy troupes, such as the "Stupid Goodlookings

This page was last updated on 30 August 2003