Brendan Holer is a Masters Natnal Champn, 9-time state champn, a pro cyclg ach, and openly gay. The stigma of the gay male athlete persists, and ’s a stigma he hop to change.
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GAY CYCLG CHAMP PROMOT AN THENTIC AND VISIBLE LIFE
And I am an open and proud gay man. I often qutned if I need to e out, and I never thought I'd wave the flag, but the whole procs up to this pot has ma me very proud to intify myself as gay.
After I me out, a number of tim I would hear, "But you n't be gay! " My physil tras and abily to excel at sports ma impossible for some to even nsir me gay. That notn or ia that there is a okie-cut fn of what is gay is somethg that I would like to see change; but aga, only visibily will make this happen.
Sure, at first when you e out, that will be somethg to talk about, but when you simply go out and live proudly as you are, gay jt be another, but not solely fg, characteristic. I am not the gay iend. I do not get troduced as, "This is Brendan, he's gay.
GAY CYCLG LOVER
Of urse, if datg up, "he's gay" gets add on. Poor analogi asi, live thentilly wh pri and you will spire others, gay and straight, to live their life more fully. When you make yourself visible, you too are like Michael Sam, or any public figur that n spire other people to be fortable their own sk, and at the same time, change the perceptn of what gay is.
Gay Cyclg Lover. gay lycra. ” swagger (thk Dick Vale, not At Powers), all the trappgs of a tradnal cis whe male, or at least those of a ago, a time that now feels curly antiquated nsirg how far we’ve e — Holer was gay.
After his parti wrapped, he’d feign fatigue, tell iends he was head to bed, then meet lol men onle and later that same night person (anywhere except for Rochter’s gay bars, which he avoid for fear that a straight iend might spot him). “I had a iend whom I told I was gay, and he was like, ‘You’re kiddg me, right?
MOST CYCLISTS ARE GAY?
You CANNOT be gay. Growg up durg the ‘80s and ‘90s suburban Rochter, Holer didn’t have any gay role mols. “I had no gay iends.
My fay didn’t know any gay people.
I had no accs to a real gay human, which sounds crazy to say…” he adms now. ’ So, to a kid the msage was, ‘Hey, if you’re gay and you have sex wh someone of the same sex, you’re gonna get AIDS and die. ’ There was no Michael Sam om the Rams beg like, ‘Yo, what’s up everyone, I’m gay and I’m cshg people on the football field.