Jaguars' Kev Maxen First Male Coach to Come Out as Gay U.S. Sports

Contents:

• WHAT 40 YEARS OF CELEBRY TERVIEWS TGHT ME ABOUT ATTUS TOWARDS GAY MEN
• MEET THE GAYBROS
• BACHELOR ALUM COLTON UNRWOOD COM OUT AS GAY ON GMA: ‘I RAN FROM MYSELF FOR A LONG TIME’ (WATCH)
• TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY
• INVTIGATG THE SID RISE OF THE GAY CEL
• JAGUARS’ KEV MAXEN IS FIRST MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY US MEN’S PRO SPORTS
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS' KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE COACH TO COME OUT AS GAY MAJOR U.S. SPORTS
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS KEV MAXEN BE FIRST PROFSNAL MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

WHAT 40 YEARS OF CELEBRY TERVIEWS TGHT ME ABOUT ATTUS TOWARDS GAY MEN

TL;DR - I thought I was straight, got cur, started chattg wh a guy 3 hours away, met up, did everythg together, talked everyday sce we met, velopg feelgs for each other, need to take slow, not sure how but termed to figure out, never been happier, both closet bi/gay. "I was so sred of what actually meant to ll yourself gay so even the first man I dated, I still thought that afterwards I was gog to eventually meet a girl and get married bee that's what men did, " he said. "I was actually rehab when I was 16 years old and I thk a part of why I end up gog to rehab was the difficulty I had wh acceptg myself as a gay person, " Sharok said.

The third party is the hband’s male adaptatn of Bethan Roberts’ novel vers a perd recent English history – stretchg om the 1950s to the 90s – when attus to homosexualy unrwent signifint change. It wasn’t until 1995 that the actor fally felt able to nfirm what had bee an open secret, an terview wh the Daily gay men may now wonr why took him so long but, while homosexualy may have been crimalised 1967, attus didn’t change overnight. Makg such a fs about not talkg about his private life was, as Sher now wryly accepts, like “puttg a gigantic neon sign over my head sayg ‘This guy is gay’”’s hard to blame eher actor for beg fensive, as the Aids epimic had, the 1980s, not engenred sympathy towards gay men om the tabloids, only more hostily.

MEET THE GAYBROS

Lookg back, I thk Andrews, then 73, had cid to e out: he dwelt the terview on how he’d wanted to make “a pot” wh the gay role he played Entertag Mr Sloane. ”Psychologists talk airily of how shame always requir punishment – almost as if ’s a procs some gay men have to work through – and LGBT rights mpaigners may today say that not beg open about sexualy amounts to wardice, which holds back the e of equaly. As members of Gaybros—a Redd-based muny for gay guys wh tradnally manly terts like sports, huntg, and beer—the large majory of their bondg tak place through ment threads unr topics like “Ron Swanson vs.

The r is classic pub, all dark woods and vtage trophi, but wh a cidly gay twist: Look even briefly at the hoe-ma baseball and football player posters ratg the walls, and more than sportsmanlike appreciatn for the athletic male form quickly be apparent. From my perch by the rner at pile, I survey the scene: Gay men of an imprsive range of age, race, attractivens, body type, and ball-p embroiry shake hands and strike up nversatns.

He has brought along a solidly built and more maturely handsome AIDS rearcher wh whom I spend a nsirable amount of time discsg the cle of gay social spac like the one we’re .

BACHELOR ALUM COLTON UNRWOOD COM OUT AS GAY ON GMA: ‘I RAN FROM MYSELF FOR A LONG TIME’ (WATCH)

Also worthy of note was the lack of excsive ciss wh the group; though gay men almost never stop flirtg entirely, this was clearly not, as multiple bros would tell me, a “datg service. After the first round had been draed, I overhear my iend Jake—who I only found out was a Gaybro sympathizer after startg on this story and whose hband, Tim Ka, is one of the group’s morators—rpond scily to a ment about football players’ jock straps: “Now that’s a game I uld get to! Pl, I thought I’d earned a break om the prsure of all those firm handshak: The uple I was crashg wh had ved me to a gay hoe party promisg more faiar acutrements like cdés and Robyn mic, so I Google-mapped my way across Boston om bro to ‘mo.

But as I glanced around at the Crate & Barrel brand of gayns on display this open-ncept, Hdu y-studd livg room, I felt, not relief, but a twge of doubt. My terlocutor was mostly jokg, of urse, but the kernel of tth h home: I was probably gog to have to butch-up my vobulary a b if I wanted to hang wh, much ls hope to unrstand, a group of fellow gay men who would willgly ll themselv “bros. The first—“a gay man who acts mascule and is terted guy stuff like sports, vio gam, ary issu, grillg, kniv, gear, workg out, gadgets, tech, etc …”—seems to have been lifted om the Gaybros missn statement.

TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY

The send is ls ntral: “Young mascule homosexual mal who exhib no effemate characteristics or terts and make a pot of gog on about how ‘normal’ they are. Many gays I’ve spoken wh share a visceral and somewhat histrnic revulsn toward the very ia of Gaybrodom that, ironilly, is not dissiar to the reactn many straights have to gays before they know one. When Buzzfeed terviewed the group’s founr, Alex Delu, on the ocsn of their one-year anniversary this past January, the ments sectn immediately filled wh screeds about “mascule privilege” and “femmephobia” wh the gay muny.

Delu, 23, spoke the Q-and-A about his dismay at enunterg a “very narrow fn of what means to be gay” mastream culture, one that apparently don’t make room for guys wh terts like “vio gam, patball, and sports.

INVTIGATG THE SID RISE OF THE GAY CEL

“[A place for them] to gather and talk about shared terts and to break down stereotyp and promote the ia that you uld be a gay man and still be exactly who you’ve always been. Eli Fox, a menter om New Orleans, ptured the general plat of those who took issue wh Delu’s treatg the gay “stereotype” like an unwanted rdboard box: “This is such bullsh and jt perpetuat the ia that femy is fake or that people put on […] He mak sound like mascule gay guys are somehow OPPRESSED. No, they’re the most sired, bee mascule tras are prized the gay male muny jt like practilly every other social group […] Masc guys aren’t the on who need to spend time promotg some agenda of masculy and “regular guy” culture crap.

But if ill-chosen language is unnecsarily drivg would-be members or fans away, that’s a shame, bee Gaybros has a lot to offer—and not jt for jock-strap nnoissrs. But before the Gaybros n grow to a full-blown movement, they have some cricisms to ntend wh: that they are young (or newly out) and are therefore somewhat naïve or unrmed about the gay culture they don’t intify wh; that they assert their supposed masculy as a power play agast more effemate gays; that their straed relatnship wh the gay mastream is the rult of their own stubbornns as much as mean-girl excln. Still, though the foced discsns of “gay culture” that I’ve read on the se often lack historil ntext and nuance (many imply that ’s only ever been glter, Gaga, and GHB), they’re also almost always thoughtful.

However, the “bro” part of the name—regardls of how “playful” Delu claims to have been choosg —will e many to see them as merely the next rnatn of the “butch, ” “straight-actg” or “regular guys” who have fed themselv agast some abstract notn of a more effemate “gay mastream” sce at least the 1970s. But spend an hour their onle discsns or an eveng chattg wh them over beers and you’ll quickly learn that the Gaybros’ relatnship to masculy and gay inty is not as simple as that.

JAGUARS’ KEV MAXEN IS FIRST MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY US MEN’S PRO SPORTS

In fact, that gently tawdry jock joke that Jake ma at Frz may have been the only time I heard sports—or any of the tradnally mascule thgs the Gaybros claim as their terts—mentned that eveng. But then, I wasn’t really surprised to fd that the so-lled Gaybro army don’t actually match some Tom of Fland fantasy; though some members of the muny no doubt aspire to that kd of steroid-assisted gravas, the entirely cliched homosexual gentleman imaged by the group’s missn statement uldn’t possibly be real. This ngence has led them to want to “break the stereotype, ” but fact the Gaybros aren’t breakg anythg—they’re simply addg to the bety of what was already there.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS' KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE COACH TO COME OUT AS GAY MAJOR U.S. SPORTS

” That might sound banal, but g on the heels of a lengthy discsn about the Gaybro muny’s penchant for helpg guys wh what Ka lled their “journeys” out of the closet and to gay life, ma a lot of sense.

Ka said that the morators get a lot of msag om guys who fd solace realizg that beg gay “don’t have to be a game-changer … don’t mean that I’m somebody different. ” He and the other morators see as an unexpected but wele part of their missn to help the guys feel at home their own sk a fom that don’t necsarily traffic the same bety-ials, athetic tast, and social etiquette that a newly out gay might enunter on, say, movg to New York or San Francis.

Of a piece wh the brotherly vibe of Gaybros is the need to velop, as a se le puts , a “thick sk and sense of humor” toward ntent teractns, which crop up fairly often on threads about touchy issu like open relatnships. Like “shootg the sh, ” mandg a thick sk n at first sound like somethg a homophobic ach might yell at you for beg upset by bulli, but also has a socially eful functn.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS KEV MAXEN BE FIRST PROFSNAL MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

Gaybros exists by nature and sign outsi the super-polilly rrect, llege-bubble rhetoric that largely f the terms of the discsns today (jt check out the absurdly arne ground-l for r/LGBT to see what I mean). In this, provis a so-lled “safe space” for novice gay men who do not yet know the “right” words to explore their new inti and engage wh their newfound muny whout fear of tar and feathers for not tug the difference between two-spir and tersex. If you believe (and I do), that “gay” is somethg more than “homosexual”—somethg wh a history, non, and culture—then llg yourself gay is a “game-changer” for sure.

” Take that wh the generatnal void ed by AIDS, and you have a perfect recipe for a generatn who rejects “gay culture” while knowg ltle, if anythg, about .

This is a great step, and ed, any adjtment of language (short of renamg themselv) that n help disentangle Gaybros om the gay culture wars is to be enuraged. And of urse, as gay culture is refed for the 21st century, there’s nothg that says the Gaybros n’t brg their guns, vio-game ntrollers, and sports sticks to the club as well.