Why There Few Openly Gay Athlet In Men's Profsnal Sports : NPR

Contents:

• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• WHY THERE ARE FEW OPENLY GAY ATHLET IN MEN'S PROFSNAL SPORTS
• JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
• EACH OF AMERI’S BIG 5 SPORTS CURRENTLY HAS AN OUT GAY MAN THE PROS. THAT’S NEVER HAPPENED
• NORTH AMERI’S FOUR BIGGT PRO SPORTS LEAGU HAVE BEEN AROUND A BED 398 YEARS. THEY’VE HAD TWO OPENLY GAY ACTIVE PLAYERS
• ATHLET WHO ARE GAY
• WELE TO THE ‘GAY GAM,’ AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE OLYMPICS, WHERE ACTIVISM IS ENURAGED AND EVERYONE’S AN ATHLETE
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT PUBLICLY AS GAY

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

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.

WHY THERE ARE FEW OPENLY GAY ATHLET IN MEN'S PROFSNAL SPORTS

Atralian A-League soccer star Josh Cavallo me out as gay an October vio posted to his social media, beg hailed as the first current male top-flight profsnal soccer player to publicly do so. The 28-year-old Natnal Football League player and Rairs fensive leman ma history when he me out as gay on Instagram durg Pri Month, beg the first veteran NFL player to e out as gay while signed to a regular-season ntract.

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

The Bachelor star and former football player (who was signed by the San Diego Chargers as an undrafted ee agent and was on the practice squad of the Oakland Rairs and the Philalphia Eagl) me out as gay April, sayg he had fally e to terms wh his sexualy and the "next step all of this was sort of lettg people know. Corey Walsh, the 27-year-old pro BMX rir and Vans spokperson, said he isn't normally the type of person to "let people " on his personal life, but felt was important to e out as gay a March Instagram post bee "there are a lot of people still stgglg wh the same suatns" and he "jt wanted to let people know that they are not alone. Champn long track speedskater Conor McDermott-Mostowy never hid beg gay om his fay, iends, and fellow athlet, but he also wasn't one to rate his locker wh rabow Pri flags eher.

EACH OF AMERI’S BIG 5 SPORTS CURRENTLY HAS AN OUT GAY MAN THE PROS. THAT’S NEVER HAPPENED

When Nashville Predators prospect Le Prokop me out this week, was the first time an active player unr ntract to an NHL team had ever publicly acknowledged they were gay. "Gay men are a fe rource, so they n't exist great numbers every quarter, " Magrath told "Gay men are overreprented some areas, and as a nsequence are gog to be unrreprented sports. There are key differenc the cultur of men's and women's athletics While few active players the major men's sports leagu have e out, many female profsnal athlet have said publicly that they're gay, om U.

The two-time Pro-Bowler never publicly me out as gay before he died of Aids aged was selected the nth round of the 1965 NFL draft by the Washgton Redsks, now lled the Washgton Football Team.

NORTH AMERI’S FOUR BIGGT PRO SPORTS LEAGU HAVE BEEN AROUND A BED 398 YEARS. THEY’VE HAD TWO OPENLY GAY ACTIVE PLAYERS

"Owens, who often roomed wh Smh, said that Smh lived fear and never me out bee he worried if people knew he was gay, his reer would be died two months after revealg he had AidsIn 1986, Smh beme the first profsnal athlete to announce he had been diagnosed wh Aids. Tiln was openly gay and one of the most domant figur US sport durg the 1920sDpe those nvictns, a 1950 Associated Prs poll, Tiln was unanimoly voted the greatt tennis player of the half-century.

-- 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. To improve LGBTQ reprentatn profsnal sports, Schweighofer and Denison said, ach and lears youth sports should set a precent that homophobic language and discrimatn are unacceptable. Homophobic slurs ntue to be prevalent sports – a 2020 study om Out on the Fields, which studi LGBTQ cln sports, found that more than 80% of gay participants had heard them ed while playg.

ATHLET WHO ARE GAY

When ach and teammat e gay slurs equently, sends the msage that the language is harmls and OK to e – and solidifi the belief that all members of the team are heterosexual, Denison said. The same Out on the Fields study reported that over 81% of gay men unr 22 hid their sexualy to avoid rejectn by teammat or discrimatn by ach or officials, among other reasons.

WELE TO THE ‘GAY GAM,’ AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE OLYMPICS, WHERE ACTIVISM IS ENURAGED AND EVERYONE’S AN ATHLETE

“Boys and young men are tght to avoid anythg associated wh femy, most notably weakns, emotn, and homosexualy, ” said Schweighofer, whose work on LGBTQ cln sports has appeared the publitn of the Natnal Park Foundatn. The Las Vegas Rairs fensive end is now jt one of two openly gay active players the history of the four biggt North Amerin sports leagu (the Natnal Football League, Natnal Basketball Associatn, Major League Baseball and the Natnal Hockey League).

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY

Homophobic language is still a regular feature of playg on a boys’ sports team the US and abroad, Denison’s rearch shows – one of his studi found that more than half of the ice hockey and gby players he terviewed said they’d ed slurs. Denison scribed what he lls a “cycle of excln” that begs when a boy hears ach or olr players e homophobic language and observ a “posive rponse” to that behavr – maybe they lgh at each other, or the ach don’t challenge them, he said. As a child, before Davis unrstood what meant to be LGBTQ, he was already absorbg the norms beg set around him durg practice – that “beg gay those walls was unsafe, that [he] would be danger.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT PUBLICLY AS GAY

Almost 50 years earlier, there was Glenn Burke, a buddg Los Angel Dodgers star whose reer was cut short by homophobia the 1970s, argu Andrew Maraniss, an thor and special projects ordator wh Vanrbilt Universy Athletics, his book on Burke. “He was a phenomenal athlete at the time when majory of straight sports fans the untry assumed that there’s no way there uld even be a gay player the game, let alone the most popular player on his team, ” Maraniss said.

While recent data om the US shows that the acceptance of homosexualy society often remas divid by untry, regn and enomic velopment, overall there has been creasg acceptance most untri.

Rearch the UK, for example, nsistently shows high levels of acceptance of homosexualy - wh only 16% of those surveyed 2018 believg same-sex relatnships were eher “always” or “mostly” wrong.