12-year-old to gay lacrosse player: 'the day I got that vio was the bt day of my life' - Outsports

Contents:

• GAY ATHLET IN LACROSSE – WHAT’S THE PROBLEM HERE?
• HARVARD LACROSSE PLAYER TO TEAMMAT: ‘GUYS, I’M GAY’
• 12-YEAR-OLD TO GAY LACROSSE PLAYER: 'THE DAY I GOT THAT VIO WAS THE BT DAY OF MY LIFE'
• GAY U.S. LACROSSE GOALIE ME OUT TO ‘NORMALIZE WHAT MAK DIFFERENT’
• SC FEATURED STORY ON YOUNG, GAY LACROSSE PLAYER RONAT WH VIEWERS
• GAYT PLAC IN WISNS FOR 2020
•  WISNS LBIAN AND GAY BARS, RTRANTS, LODGG, PRI EVENT, BS MAPS
• GAY HIGH SCHOOL LACROSSE PLAYER FOUND STRENGTH OM PRO PLAYER’S ALLYSHIP
• AFTER BE AMY HIR GAY LACROSSE COACH, ABBOT WHO OVERSE SCHOOL SAYS HE IS 'DEEPLY TROUBLED'
• STRAIGHT LAX BROS GREET GAY TEAMMATE'S G OUT EXACTLY HOW THEY SHOULD
• CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL REHIRED A GAY ACH FOLLOWG OUTCRY OM STUNTS AND PARENTS
• GAY LACROSSE PLAYER BREAKS THE ‘BRO’ STEREOTYPE AT CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL
• SUBURBAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL CHANG URSE, HIR GAY ACH AFTER BACKLASH
• ST. PROPI ABBEY CUTS TI TO BE AMY IN LISLE MONTHS AFTER SCHOOL HIR GAY LACROSSE COACH
• WH ONE CLICK OF FACEBOOK’S “POST” BUTTON, THIS GAY LLEGE LAX BRO SAW HIS TEAM’S LOVE
•  WISNS LBIAN AND GAY BARS, RTRANTS, LODGG, PRI EVENT, BS MAPS

GAY ATHLET IN LACROSSE – WHAT’S THE PROBLEM HERE?

This week, I was talkg at a school wh an emergg group of terted lacrosse players, and I brought up the ia of recg openly gay/lbian athlet om other sports, and om wh the muny, to help grow the game. But at the end of the day, all of the exclnary practic are makg me ask the qutn: are “lax bros” homophobic? Homosexualy is still not somethg that is talked about very openly our society.

However, wh all that said, and wh all this growth, is the marketg of lacrosse broad enough to appeal to the Gay/Lbian muny? So why do people still thk ’s okay to say the same thg about homosexuals? Now, I n also see a uple of people who know me personally sayg, “Chewy isn’t gay… so why do he even re?!

For more stori on gay lacrosse players, check out. The All-Amerin goalie had stggled wh his sexualy sce he was 7, and like so many gay and transgenr kids, had ntemplated suici. '"Earlier this year, another young lacrosse player realized that he was gay.

HARVARD LACROSSE PLAYER TO TEAMMAT: ‘GUYS, I’M GAY’

"There's nothg wrong wh beg gay, " Braen rpond, "bee I am gay. Playg the celt of ccibl, the Syrace Carrier Dome, before 25, 000 fans, Dartmouth College's sophomore lacrosse goalie somehow has plucked Michael Sprger's pot-blank shot out of the air and starts sprtg up the curly open left sile. "As Goldste would say later, "I gus tak a gay goalie to have enough balls to sre the NCAA tournament.

12-YEAR-OLD TO GAY LACROSSE PLAYER: 'THE DAY I GOT THAT VIO WAS THE BT DAY OF MY LIFE'

But early his sophomore year at Milton Amy, his Massachetts hometown, he told a iend, was liberatg, even thrillg, but Goldste's secret stayed between the two until July 2003, two months after he sred that groundbreakg goal at Syrace.

He worried that on the team's first road trip that the "unlucky guys who had to be my roommat would pla about sleepg the same room as the homo. " He wonred if anybody would s next to him on the team, however, several teammat approached him to apologize for homophobic language and off-lor-jok om the past. A handful of notable profsnal team-sport athlet had e out after their reers end and, to be sure, there were a number of openly gay athlet dividual sports at the Divisn I, II and III levels.

Still, the 5-foot-10, 170-pound goalie was, the sports work nclud after rearchg the ntext, the most acplished male, team-sport athlete North Ameri to be openly gay durg his playg that year he was drafted by the Boston Canons of Major League Lacrosse and eventually played for the Long Island a before Amerin soccer player Robbie Rogers played for the Los Angel Galaxy of Major League Soccer, prr to Jason Colls steppg on the urt for the NBA's Brooklyn Nets, before Michael Sam, a Missouri fensive end, me out advance of the 2014 NFL draft, there was Andrew Goldste. "Andrew was the first openly gay male athlete to be drafted by a profsnal sports league the Uned Stat, " said Cyd Zeigler, -founr of "And then he beme the first to play a profsnal sports league. "In 2005, the gay muny didn't want to talk about sports and the sports muny didn't want to talk about gay people.

GAY U.S. LACROSSE GOALIE ME OUT TO ‘NORMALIZE WHAT MAK DIFFERENT’

You n no longer say that gay men all jt want to listen to show tun. "The ESPN profile won a televisn journalism award om the Gay & Lbian Alliance Agast Defamatn. "In 2013 Goldste was enshred the gural class of Natnal Gay and Lbian Sports Hall of Fame, joed by, among others, Marta Navratilova, Billie Jean Kg and Greg GoldsteToday, at 32, Goldste seems fortable his own sk.

"I would notice that a lot of people would make, like, homosexual jok, " he explas. And then I realized that I was gay.

"They all say the same thg -- are you gay?

SC FEATURED STORY ON YOUNG, GAY LACROSSE PLAYER RONAT WH VIEWERS

"So we go to Braen's room and ask him, 'Are you gay?

One boy at his school told Braen he was gog to hell bee beg gay wasn't mentned the Bible. "Stt had found the statistics on-le: The suici rate for gay teens is thought to be four tim the natnal average. "Makg a nnectnFive weeks after Braen me out, on March 16, the Lang found Andrew remembered seeg a televisn piece on a gay lacrosse player and wh a few mut she had Googled the ESPN feature.

GAYT PLAC IN WISNS FOR 2020

On the day before the 2015 Divisn I lacrosse champnship game between Denver and Maryland at Lln Fancial Field Philalphia, a few away on the mp of Pennsylvania Universy, several hundred people, gay lacrosse players and their alli, gathered for The Courage Game. Noah Knopf was received warmly after g out to his Harvard teammat, but says the sport has to al wh an graed homophobia.

“I wanted to talk to you this morng to tell you that I’m gay. “I uld tell people that I’m gay.

 WISNS LBIAN AND GAY BARS, RTRANTS, LODGG, PRI EVENT, BS MAPS

When I was 19, I heard on a podst that the new ernor of Colorado was gay, and felt for a moment that the world might be changg.

GAY HIGH SCHOOL LACROSSE PLAYER FOUND STRENGTH OM PRO PLAYER’S ALLYSHIP

Never had I properly acknowledged the fact that I was gay.

While bshg my teeth a few nights before talkg to my parents, I realized that I had never even said the words “I’m gay” out loud before. “I’m gay, ” I whispered the mirror, and sed to myself.

I also felt the need to expla myself my first few nversatns about beg gay. I’m gay. I had asked my iends and fay to keep our nversatns private bee, after wnsg the way that people lacrosse talk about beg gay, I wanted my teammat to hear the news om me.

AFTER BE AMY HIR GAY LACROSSE COACH, ABBOT WHO OVERSE SCHOOL SAYS HE IS 'DEEPLY TROUBLED'

I believed that after three years on the team, they would know me as Noah first and the gay kid send, but our locker room was not immune to the homophobic jok and sults that are the norm men’s lacrosse. Although my experience as a gay whe man is different om Ellison’s experience as a Black man, his words spired me.

But one factor I began to nsir was the way that people talk about beg gay our culture. For the first time throughout the fall, I started payg closer attentn to the jok, sults and ments about beg gay that had surround me sce I was a teenager.

STRAIGHT LAX BROS GREET GAY TEAMMATE'S G OUT EXACTLY HOW THEY SHOULD

I first heard the word “faggot” locker rooms when I was fifth gra — before I unrstood what meant to be gay. Even the progrsive circl where I me om, kids sually threw around homophobic jok and sults que routely, cludg those of who would have said we believed was pletely OK to be gay.

I’m embarrassed to say that I too ma homophobic jok and lghed at homophobic sults. I believe that a siar gnive dissonance plays a role the wispread homophobic speech that pervas the sport of lacrosse. I am sure that a few people our sport do ed hate gay people and e hateful language to exprs their feelgs.

CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL REHIRED A GAY ACH FOLLOWG OUTCRY OM STUNTS AND PARENTS

But still, homophobic language flows eely practilly every llege lacrosse locker room om stunts at some of the world’s most ele universi. Homophobic jok still richet through the group chats of high school lacrosse players across Ameri.

GAY LACROSSE PLAYER BREAKS THE ‘BRO’ STEREOTYPE AT CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL

So many young people our sport still throw around homophobic sentiments sually and thoughtlsly, my past self among them, as if there is some kd of divi between their beliefs and their words, as if is ed tly possible to “not mean like that. When I began to nsir g out, I thought I wanted to be the gay kid who “gets .

” I thought I wanted to be the gay kid who was ol wh my iends llg each other “fags” and referrg to thgs they didn’t like as gay. They don’t get that the homophobic culture of lacrosse matters.

From the way that my iends and I joked growg up, I learned that beg gay was equivalent to beg annoyg and unmanly. It took me a long time to unlearn the homophobic ias that I did not know I had nsumed.

SUBURBAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL CHANG URSE, HIR GAY ACH AFTER BACKLASH

After years of nfn and silence; after years of uncertaty and shame; after a long journey through challeng I did not know I uld face — after 22 years of life, this was how the Harvard men’s lacrosse team felt about me beg gay. I wrote to say that you n be openly gay, bisexual, non-bary, transgenr or queer — you n be whoever is that you are — and you n play the sport of lacrosse. Our sport has a problem wh homophobia and I thk ’s time that we addrs .

If you are a person lacrosse who homophobic language, you should nsir the fact that those words n hurt ep and plited ways. And you should also nsir the possibily that the way you talk about beg gay uld be hurtg the people you love.

ST. PROPI ABBEY CUTS TI TO BE AMY IN LISLE MONTHS AFTER SCHOOL HIR GAY LACROSSE COACH

There are more gay people lacrosse than you realize.

WH ONE CLICK OF FACEBOOK’S “POST” BUTTON, THIS GAY LLEGE LAX BRO SAW HIS TEAM’S LOVE

I remember one of my iends tellg me ma him sick to his stomach to thk about the way he had talked before he knew I was gay. I had said homophobic thgs as well, and I am an actual gay person.

I hope we n end our culture of homophobia. At USA Lacrosse, we celebrate that anyone om anywhere should be able to play lacrosse and ’ve piled and veloped rourc to help parents, players, and lears posively nnect wh the lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer (LGBTQ+) muny lacrosse.

 WISNS LBIAN AND GAY BARS, RTRANTS, LODGG, PRI EVENT, BS MAPS

Women’s lacrosse team that won the unr-19 gold medal last year, hat the notn of beg known as a gay athlete, yet she accepts why the distctn is necsary. “As proud as I am to be who I am — to reprent my untry as a gay athlete — I hate that I have to, ” Doucette wr a g out say US Lacrosse Magaze. That’s well said and te — no one lik beg known as the “gay (fill the sport) player” — yet visibily is important to enurage more LGBTQ people sports to e out.

Braen Lange, a 12-year-old lacrosse player who was bullied after g out as gay but found solace an ESPN feature. “The Courage Game” told the story of Braen Lange, a 12-year-old lacrosse player who was bullied after g out as gay but found solace an ESPN feature produced 10 years earlier. The 2005 feature was about Andrew Goldste, a Dartmouth lacrosse player, who me out while llege and later beme the first openly gay athlete to play an Amerin pro sports league (Major League Lacrosse).

“It’s (Braen’s story) given me a new outlook on life and also a new perspective on how different groups such as homosexuals are treated today’s society. This is our sixth time rankg the gayt plac left for slishow. Article ntu the Supreme Court led favor of same-sex marriag, Ameri generally, and the gay muny specifilly, celebrated.