Out of the Closet, Out on the Field
Athletes that happen to be gay.

By Hali Ortega

Now I have your attention. It’s a combination of words that can be sensational.

What someone does in the bedroom does not affect what he does on the field (or the locker room, for that matter). Yet that hasn’t slowed the spur of headlines about male athletes coming out in recent months. Due to the hyper-masculinization of sports, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

At least there are brave people like Jason Collins of the Brooklyn Nets, and Michael Sam of the Missouri Tigers who have set a precedent for other players. They’ve shown the public it’s OK to come out — which is nice, but this has been a long time coming.

Collins became the first professional player to publicly announce his sexuality while still active in a sport in 2013. In a Sports Illustrated article he wrote, “I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I’m happy to start the conversation.”

Which is awesome, but he definitely wasn’t the first gay man to play basketball — let alone sports in general.

Take Stefan Palios, a senior track and field athlete at Yale University He came out in 2010, during his freshman year and years before Collins and the NBA followed suit.

“Seeing a lot of people come out now, I think it’s fantastic and really provides such great faith for kids in the future,” said Palios. But just like Collins after him, he didn’t set out to be the token, he came out to live authentically. He wanted to live without hiding important aspects of himself.

“I just came out as gay and happened to be an athlete,” said Palios. “It wasn’t that I wanted to make sure I came out as ‘the gay athlete.’ I just needed to tell my team because I saw them as a really integral part of my life.”

That’s what people don’t realize — nobody sets out to be the first “insert minority here.” They just want the chance to freely and openly be themselves. And once society gets over the heteronormative, hyper-masculine expectations for athletes, the novelty of the situation and the headlines should die down.

Not to mention, there are gay people in every field. Your field, too — even if it isn’t made of grass. Many gay athletes have waited long past retirement to come out, so we will never really know how many lived, played and died in the closet.

Esera Tuaolo waited. It wasn’t until three years after retiring from his defensive tackle position in the NFL that he came out. In his book, “Alone in The Trenches: My Life as a Gay Man in the NFL,” Tuaolo wrote about the homophobia he witnessed. “They called each other ‘f-gs,’ ‘f——g queers,’ ‘fudgepackers,’ — they took it to the crude and graphic limits. I laughed at the gay jokes to be part of the conversation. I hid behind my laughter. Inside, I cried.”

Much of the hesitation surrounding gay athletes is rooted in locker room etiquette. They must be physically attracted to all of their same-sex teammates, right?

Ever played a sport? Been on a band field trip? Had to change in the same room as people of the opposite gender (or same gender, for that matter)? Did you actively make them feel uncomfortable? Were you uncomfortable? Probably not. Chances are your gay teammate isn’t checking you out in the locker room. And you’re probably not as attractive as you think, anyway.

Palios believes the biggest misconceptions come from mainstream ideas about masculinity and femininity.

“There is a pervasive notion that gay men are feminine, and that can be anecdotally quite true, but the damaging assumption is that femininity is a bad thing,” he said. “That femininity disallows them to play sports on a high level.”

This illuminates the double standard of the gender binary. Masculine women are praised in sports; society doesn’t go into shock when female athletes come out as gay because lesbians are stereotyped as “butch.” Oh, and women don’t bleed testosterone … but that’s another story.

Each player coming out of the closet signifies a bigger step: acceptance in American society.

Brian Kitts, co-founded of You Can Play, an organization promoting respect for athletes by focusing on their skills, work ethic and competitive spirit instead of their sexuality. He found this growing sense of authenticity or stepping out of the closet is due to the culture many of us grew up in. “These are men and women who’ve grown up with ‘Glee,’ ‘Will and Grace’ and plenty of celebrity LGBT role models, and to this generation, sexual orientation just isn’t that controversial. It is still interesting because it’s part of who we are as humans, but it’s a small part of who these athletes are,” Kitts said.

Building a base of role models is a step in the right direction for the Queer Movement.

“It is such a fantastic thing because now people can have role models,” Palios says. “You can say now that there are gay people in every walk of life, so no matter what life you want, you have a role model.”

America is learning that being gay — masculine or feminine — and what’s between one’s legs doesn’t negate athletic ability.

“At some point, relatively soon, we’re not going to even acknowledge orientation with more than a shrug,” said Kitts.

So get on the field and remember — he’s not looking at your butt. Jeez.