While many people are focused on LGBT athletes and when we’ll have the first out male pro athlete in America in one of the big five leagues, Hudson Taylor wants more attention to be paid to coaches. And he’s 100% right. On the Huffington Post he details the importance of laying out the welcome mat [...]
Posts under ‘Closet’
Another gay teenager, Jeffrey Fehr, commits suicide. Closeted athletes still offer no help.
Every time I see a kid has killed himself, I can’t help but think about the professional athletes who are closeted. In case you missed it, teenager Jeffrey Fehr killed himself near Sacramento, Calif., on New Year’s Day. He was gay, and it’s now evident that anti-gay bullying was part of what lead him to [...]
David Testo tells Outsports why jocks stay closeted, and his first relationship
Moments after professional soccer player David Testo publicly came out of the closet in an interview with Radio-Canada’s Marie Malchelosse, the reporter warned Testo that his revelation would have far-reaching implications. Testo felt bad for Malchelosse: She seemed like a nice woman, and he was afraid she was too excited about a story that wouldn’t [...]
Navigating a maze in blue: Two gay Michigan gymnasts share their stories
By Ben Baldus-Strauss and Evan Heiter, with Cyd Zeigler Editor’s Note: Ben and Evan were teammates on the 2010 men’s gymnastics national championship team at the University of Michigan. At the time, Evan was out on the team and had been for a while; Ben was in the closet and would remain there until after [...]
Alleged closeted gay Div.1 football player taking your questions
We have no idea if this person is legit (and frankly, after the Mikey hoax, we wouldn’t trust any anonymous person on the Internet). But someone on Reddit claims to be a starting offensive lineman in Div. 1 football. Jim and I have met a gay offensive lineman at a top program, so they’re out [...]
Jamey Rodemeyer: This is why pro athletes should come out of our society’s last closet
One of the reasons we hear professional athletes don’t come out is that they don’t have a good reason. “They would risk too much,” we hear. “They can just wait until after retirement.” But of course, even then they keep chasing a million-dollar dangling post-career carrot. So they stay in the closet. Let me introduce [...]
Moment #32: ‘Out’ magazine editor Brendan Lemon reveals relationship with MLB player
Part of Outsports’ series on our 100 most important moments in gay sports history. Baseball, 2001. When Out magazine published an editor’s letter by editor Brendan Lemon in May 2001, it caused a stir in the sports world that no gay publication had caused before. Lemon’s letter revealed a relationship he was having with a [...]
Gay cyclist Graeme Obree tells athletes to stay in the closet
Openly gay cyclist Graeme Obree trotted out some bullshit from a bygone era this week when he told the Scottish Sun that gay athletes should stay in the closet until they retire. I don’t think being gay and an active sportsman is a good thing. While I was competing and in a changing room environment [...]
Gay teenage hockey player fears for his safety if he is found out
Note: Bumped to the top of the blog since it has gotten an interesting dialogue going. We have written a lot celebrating how it has gotten better for many gay teenage athletes, profiling several this year with their heartwarming stories of acceptance. But this story out of Northumberland County in Ontario, Canada, reminds us that [...]
Dave Pallone: Sports enmeshed in DADT
Dave Pallone has penned a short piece for the gay professionals site dot429 comparing DADT to the state of gays in sports. It’s a comparison we’ve seen made before, but few people know it better than Pallone. Ever since Abner Doubleday invented the game of baseball there have been players who are gay. That is [...]
164 closeted gays at NFL training camps?
Gotta love The Onion: Across the NFL, gay players are shaking off the rust of a long offseason, contending with the rigors of learning the playbook, and competing with their teammates—some of whom are younger, some of whom are stronger, some of whom are also gay—for a spot on a 53-man roster. Share on Facebook
Ex-BP chief laments lack of out athletes
Until 2007, John Browne was chief executive of BP, and was forced to resign after he could not stop a former male lover from going public with details of their relationship. He wrote a column for the London Guardian about David Laws, a member of the British cabinet who was recently forced out after financial [...]
Is hockey kid Mikey a hoax?
May 20, 2010 update: Mikey found to be a deception Original article: This will be a short post and I will follow up, but there is something weird going on with “Mikey,” the teen-age hockey player-blogger I first wrote about in December. On the front of his site is a post by “Jimmy,” a Canadian [...]
Gay soccer player blogs from the closet
The latest in what is becoming a mini-trend — closeted jocks blogging — has a new and worthy entrant, One in Eleven, Thoughts of a Gay Footballer Exposed. That’s football, as in soccer. The author, Craig, is a semipro soccer player in England, who has hopes of one day turning pro. His writing is both [...]
Will sports follow military’s end of DADT?
Tim Joyce writes about ending sports’ Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy for Real Clear Sports. While people talk about sports leading to cultural change in racial equality in the ’40s and ’50s, Joyce points out that it was the military, not sports, that lead the way; And hopefully sports will follow the military’s (hopefully) impending [...]