Kev Maxen be first male ach a US men’s pro sports league to publicly e out as gay | CNN

Contents:

• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
• IS LONELS THE GAY MAN’S CURSE, OR A PRODUCT OF 21ST CENTURY LIFE?
• GAY LONELS IS THE SILENT EPIMIC FACG THE QUEER COMMUNY
• JAGUARS ASSISTANT KEV MAXEN IS FIRST MALE NFL ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
• GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL
• THE LONELS OF BEG GAY A STRAIGHT MARRIAGE
• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
• DEPRSN IS KILLG GAY MEN

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

Amics at the Universy of Sydney pared the voic of gay, straight and bisexual men a study volvg 160 the rearch led by clil psychologist Jam Morandi, people were reced to analyse the voic of 60 men, 20 of whom were gay, 20 straight and 20 bisexual. They were then asked to rate the men on their sexual orientatn g a sle om zero (exclively heterosexual) to 10 (exclively homosexual). Rults om the study showed listeners uld distguish between gay and straight men’s voic wh an accuracy of 62 per cent, apparently nsistent wh prev rearch.

JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

The thors said their rearch showed bisexual men’s voic were perceived as beg more exclively attracted to women pared wh both gay and straight men’s voic. ‘Voice may unter visibily many bisexuals feel’An abstract of the study, tled Can listeners tect if a man is bisexual om his voice alone, reads: “The prent study examed whether bisexual men n be intified om their voic ak to how gay men n be intified on their voice alone. “The fdgs may also she light on whether bisexual male voic, like gay male voic, differ om straight voic terms of their genr non-nformy – a qutn that to date has not been examed.

”But amics noted the rearch was limed on the grounds all men who participated the study are Atralian, which may not be reflected among wir the thors nced the study did not ntrol for the rerdg environment or microphone-to-mouth distance, which uld have affected the qualy of the voice thors said the fdgs suggted that while the voic of bisexual men the sample were perceived as more mascule and attracted to femal, listeners did not associate this imprsn wh a rult, while bisexual men may appear to be at lower risk of facg voice-based intifitn and discrimatn than gay men, they may often be mistaken as beg study was published the Journal of Sex Rearch. McCoy for The New York TimHis Sexualy Don’t Defe Him, but It Can Set Him ApartEric Bach is an openly gay broadster for the Frericksburg Natnals. Three years earlier, while he was studyg journalism at Michigan State Universy, he had publicly e out as gay an say he wrote for the time of the say, he braced for a backlash, but nothg materialized.

He worked his way up om ternships to full-time broadstg jobs, and while anyone wh an ter nnectn uld learn he was gay, nobody asked, and he did not say so aga publicly. It was paful at the time — the worst thg that had happened to him as a gay man, he said — but has reced far enough to his memory that did not e to md an hourlong terview about his experienc as a gay broadster. As far as Bach knows — and as far as many of his unterparts wh other teams are aware — there are no other openly gay broadsters the sport.

IS LONELS THE GAY MAN’S CURSE, OR A PRODUCT OF 21ST CENTURY LIFE?

McCoy for The New York TimBorn to BroadstLong before he knew he was gay, Bach knew he wanted to be a sports father was a ach, and a love of sports ran through the fay. ’”By the start of his sophomore year at Michigan State, Bach was ready to tell his parents that he was gay, tchg his father off guard but nfirmg what his mother had prevly assumed. He did each job to the bt of his abily, and his sexualy never me, he has found that there’s a difference between beg a gay man baseball and beg pletely fortable as one.

“I feel like that’s the burn a lot of gay people live wh — tryg to be perfect for straight people, ” he job requir equent teractn wh the players and the achg staff — addn to his duti as play-by-play announcer, Bach also is the ma public relatns ntact for the team — and he said he hadn’t fully relaxed any of them. Mrer/Frericksburg NatnalsThat feelg is somewhat “self-flicted, ” Bach said, but he believ the solutn is to brg more openly gay people to sports and create a safe environment for those who are already there but have felt necsary to hi their League Baseball has touted self as a place of clivy.

Billy Bean, an openly gay former player, was named the league’s first ambassador for cln 2014 and has sce been promoted to senr vice print and special assistant to Commissner Rob Maned. In Febary, Anrson Comás, a mor leaguer the Chigo Whe Sox anizatn, me out as gay wh a post on Instagram, and the announcement was met wh public support om his club and some people around the cints suggt there is more work to be done.

GAY LONELS IS THE SILENT EPIMIC FACG THE QUEER COMMUNY

The Boston Red Sox lled up a mor leaguer, Matt Dermody, who had posted an anti-gay msage on Twter 2021, and Anthony Bass, a reliever for the Toronto Blue Jays, reposted a vio on social media that lled for boytts of L. “Those of that are this very small mory sports have to keep on havg the nversatns, keep on workg really ick’ hard to earn your spot this space, ” he aspir to be a gay person at home a big-league booth.

McCoy for The New York TimA versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 27 of the New York edn wh the headle: A Gay Broadster Climbs the Ladr, But It’s Been Lonely. Per Outsports, as of September 2022, there have only ever been 16 players NFL history to publicly e out as gay or bisexual.

Per Outsports, Maxen is the “first publicly out male ach a major Amerin men’s pro sports league, ” wh WNBA ach Curt Miller, who publicly me out to the media as gay 2015, also a publicly out male ach an Amerin profsnal sports league. -- Jaguars assistant strength and ndng ach Kev Maxen has bee the first male ach major Amerin men's profsnal sports to publicly e out as gay, tellg he ma the cisn bee he didn't want to hi who he is any longer and to possibly spire others siar 's a cisn and move that drew praise and support om owner Shad Khan, who was a vol and emphatic supporter of a cy ordance that expand protectns on the grounds of sexual orientatn, genr inty and genr exprsn. Outsi lebacker Carl Nassib beme the first active NFL player to e out as gay and to play a game Associated Prs ntributed to this report.

JAGUARS ASSISTANT KEV MAXEN IS FIRST MALE NFL ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

In other words, where Bud Light has buckled unr prsure as bigotry grows agast the LGBTQ+ muny, Gay Water’s creator Spencer Hodson wants his new boozy brand to be the anthis of that. “The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them,” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer.

The nned cktail is named after a lloquialism given to the popular mixed drk (vodka and soda) orred at bars by the gay muny.

“Puttg a product wh the word gay the tle is reprentatn self,” which he hop reclaims the word om the negativy ’s sometim associated wh. The two chatted about the limed amount of gay people wh , and wh Hodson burnt out om his tradnal day job tech, started the nned cktail. Hodson built up a strong social media followg on TikTok and Instagram durg Covid-19 and is g some of the money om that (as well as om iends and fay) to help fund Gay Water.

GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL

“Gay is an umbrella term and the ia behd the brand is to be as clive as possible, which means we want alli, we want straight people to be part of this muny we’re buildg.”. For now, Gay Water is sold largely onle (wh a few retailers) and four sugar-ee flavors — watermelon, lime, peach and grapeu — at lnch.

Gay Water might not have the ep pockets pared to s petors, like Whe Claw, but “even at small sle, pani of many siz are havg succs makg spir-based seltzers and premixed cktails,” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and edor of the alhol beverage newsletter, Sightl+, told CNN. “There’s lots of space the spir-based seltzer tegory which Gay Water n play, pecially if the brand n offer a cultural or emotnal nnectn that will feel more excg than the prospect of another peapple-flavored vodka seltzer om natnal or ternatnal rporatns,” Roth said.

Of urse, other drks e the word “gay,” too, cludg Gay Beer and So Gay Rosé, Hodson noted, which are also tryg to reach the queer muny and offer them an alternative the straight-domated space. No NFL ach had ever publicly e out as gay, so Maxen, an assistant strength and ndng ach for the Jacksonville Jaguars, kept quiet about his sexual that ma him angry — at himself. Acrdg to the article, Maxen ma his cisn to do so last year and reached out for advice om Carl Nassib, who 2021 beme the NFL’s first out gay active player as a member of the Las Vegas was Nassib who put Maxen ntact wh Outsports.

THE LONELS OF BEG GAY A STRAIGHT MARRIAGE

Still, even as we celebrate the sle and speed of this change, the rat of prsn, lonels and substance abe the gay muny rema stuck the same place they’ve been for s. In a survey of gay men who recently arrived New York Cy, three-quarters suffered om anxiety or prsn, abed dgs or alhol or were havg risky sex—or some batn of the three.

“Marriage equaly and the chang legal stat were an improvement for some gay men, ” says Christopher Stults, a rearcher at New York Universy who studi the differenc mental health between gay and straight men. In the Netherlands, where gay marriage has been legal sce 2001, gay men rema three tim more likely to suffer om a mood disorr than straight men, and 10 tim more likely to engage “suicidal self-harm.

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY

TTravis Salway, a rearcher wh the BC Centre for Disease Control Vanuver, has spent the last five years tryg to figure out why gay men keep killg themselv.

By the late 2000s, he was a social worker and epimlogist and, like me, was stck by the growg distance between his straight and gay iends.

DEPRSN IS KILLG GAY MEN

When the dispary first me to light the ’50s and ’60s, doctors thought was a symptom of homosexualy self, jt one of many maniftatns of what was, at the time, known as “sexual versn. “That was the ia I had, too, ” Salway says, “that gay suici was a product of a bygone era, or was ncentrated among adolcents who didn’t see any other way out. He found that gay men everywhere, at every age, have higher rat of rdvascular disease, ncer, ntence, erectile dysfunctn, ⁠ allergi and asthma—you name , we got .

“We see gay men who have never been sexually or physilly asslted wh siar post-trmatic strs symptoms to people who have been bat suatns or who have been raped, ” says Alex Kroghlian, a psychiatrist at the Fenway Instute’s Center for Populatn Rearch LGBT Health. And I kept nyg was a problem bee I had always told myself, ‘I’ve e out, I moved to San Francis, I’m done, I did what I had to do as a gay person. For s, this is what psychologists thought, too: that the key stag inty formatn for gay men all led up to g out, that once we were fally fortable wh ourselv, we uld beg buildg a life wh a muny of people who’d gone through the same thg.

“It’s like you emerge om the closet expectg to be this butterfly and the gay muny jt slaps the ialism out of you, ” Adam says. It got so bad that I ed to go to the grocery store that was 40 mut away stead of the one that was 10 mut away jt bee I was so aaid to walk down the gay street. Several studi have found that livg gay neighborhoods predicts higher rat of risky sex and meth e and ls time spent on other muny activi like volunteerg or playg sports.