Bretman Rock is Playboy's first openly gay male ver star | CNN

Contents:

• JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN COM OUT AS GAY HISTORIC ANNOUNCEMENT
• JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU
• BRETMAN ROCK IS PLAYBOY’S FIRST OPENLY GAY MALE VER STAR
• THE FOTTEN HISTORY OF THE FIRST OPENLY GAY MAN TO PLAY MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS' KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE COACH TO COME OUT AS GAY MAJOR U.S. SPORTS
• THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY THEATER, THREE ACTS

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

-- 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. The assistant strength and ndng ach for the Jacksonville Jaguars has bee the first male ach ever the NFL -- or Amerin men's pro sports altogether -- to publicly e out as gay.

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTCric’s NotebookIn recent shows, ias of gayns are expandg, bg and disappearg all at once.Cred...Ben WisemanI don’t know whether was bee my parents were jt generally open-md, or bee they had a specific, kdly yet mortifyg agenda, but one of the first Broadway plays they took me to, June of 1977, was way too gay for fort.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN COM OUT AS GAY HISTORIC ANNOUNCEMENT

Some, like “A Strange Loop” and “Fat Ham,” dramatize how the experience of racism amplifi that of homophobia, and vice versa.Others fy expectatns by makg sexual orientatn a distctly sendary ncern among characters who “happen to be” gay or lbian, as “A Case for the Existence of God” and “At the Weddg.” In another pair, “I’m Revoltg” and “You Will Get Sick,” that ncern isn’t even sendary, but tertiary to the pot of near visibily. When a (male) love tert enters the picture, and they sg Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” as a duet, you feel somethg new has happened, as ntroversy melts to a blissful cloud of nonbary bubble gum.This is the equalizg, homogenizg fluence of pop culture at work — an fluence that some queer people unrstandably mistst.

Jackson’s “A Strange Loop” go further, makg the cross-pollatn of inty the prime source of s nflict, as the ma character nonts both the homophobia of his Black fay and the racism of his queer one.

JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU

(One of the songs is lled “Exile Gayville.”) The productn, which closed Sunday, even built tersectnaly to a marketg tagle, llg self “the big, Black, and queer-ass Great Amerin Mil for all.”ImageBlack masculy is among the them ursg through Jam Ijam’s “Fat Ham,” which ran at the Public Theater last sprg.

From left, Nikki Crawford, Marcel Spears and Billy Eugene Jon will return to the show for s Broadway n.Cred...Sara Klwich/The New York TimOf those several inti, the only one “A Strange Loop” seems to feel optimistic about is the last: “Great Amerin Mil.” (It did w the Pulzer Prize.) Its body, race and orientatn issu are left a kd of stalemate that suggts what might happen if a foundatnal gay play like “The Boys the Band” (which had only one Black character) were multiplied fun hoe mirrors ad fum. That the Hamlet figure, lled Juicy, is Black and gay, wh an termtent csh on a Laert-like iend, suggts that the queer theme will domate, yet don’t; “Fat Ham” is really a play about Black masculy and, even more broadly, the vlent herance all men mt renounce. Hunter’s “A Case for the Existence of God.” Beltran portrays a gay Black man hopg to adopt the young girl he’s been fosterg.Cred...Sara Klwich/The New York TimMy other favore queer plays of the past year likewise offer no bands; their gay characters (there are still far too few lbian on) operate as if their gayns were mostly ternal and pletely irrelevant.

Hunter’s heartbreakg “A Case for the Existence of God,” that turns out to be an illn, as a gay Black man, after fosterg a ltle girl for more than three years, fds his plan to adopt her undone at the last mute. If there are subtle ways which their sexual inti affect their character or behavr, they were too subtle for me; miss a le or two and you may not even know that gayns is a part of their makp at all.That mak sense plays about cris that threaten to oblerate a person entirely: genr, race, orientatn and all. Francis, the closeted llege stunt “Gemi,” probably did; if he lived through AIDS, I expect he achieved full five-star gay privilege, plete wh marriage, children and Crate & Barrel chee boards.

BRETMAN ROCK IS PLAYBOY’S FIRST OPENLY GAY MALE VER STAR

(Five of the ne origal st members died of AIDS.) What about the gay characters who, lackg whe sk, almost never appeared on mercial stag those supposed great gay play s? Here are ten of the plays that have ntributed to LGBTQ+ theatre's rich Drag by Mae WtThe Drag follows Rolly, a gay man who marri a woman to hi his sexualy, and the nsequenc of this. Wh a st of exclively gay actors om a Greenwich Village club, the play was a huge fancial succs, but was wily panned by crics and shut down due to obsceny laws and never ma to Broadway as planned.

Max (played by Ian McKellen the origal n at the Royal Court) is a gay man Berl the 1930s, taken to Dach wh his boyiend Rudy after the Night of Long Kniv. It is by no means as ntroversial as many plays wh central male gay them, but has to work doubly hard bee of this lack of other lbian storyl on the stage, somethg that is dire need of changg and that Fun Home self uld In Ameri by Tony Khner The exploratn of AIDS 1980s Ameri an epic unrtakg, and Angels Ameri is a suably epic play.

THE FOTTEN HISTORY OF THE FIRST OPENLY GAY MAN TO PLAY MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

Hot on the heels of the Angels Ameri revival, Matthew Lopez asks what is like for the next generatn of young gay men New York, growg up and livg the shadow of the AIDS crisis. Penned by Tarell Alv McCraney (whose tobgraphil play beme spiratn for the Osr wng Moonlight) this 2008 play talks about what means to be black and to be gay. Adam* said was dangero to e out as gay his home untry and feared beg forced to an arranged marriage wh a said he was "so lucky" to wed his soulmate, Ray, Manchter and wish everyone uld marry who they love.

There are more than 60 untri wh laws that crimalise same-sex sexual acts acrdg to the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn, cludg Sdi Arabia. 'Authentilly myself'Ray said he had also stggled growg up gay the 1970s and 80s England, which was "tough" said his relig school "dmmed to you, 'you are gog to hell'" Adam returned home to Sdi Arabia, spe beg more than 3, 000 apart and later rtricted by the Covid-19 panmic, they kept touch daily and the romance years ago, Ray proposed on a vio ll and after succsfully applyg for a UK fiancé visa, Adam moved to Manchter December 2022. Adam said he had been aaid to even wear lours his home untry so the first thg he did when he moved was start to "grow my mullet, got my ears pierced and booked appotments for tattoos" relled how, ntrast, one of his gay iends Sdi had been forced to marry a woman, addg: "It has ed not only his life but the life of his wife.

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

The uple, who live London, said a "really betiful memory" was on the way home when one of their sons shouted out of the black b wdow to Trafalgar Square, "My dads jt got married" and cheered "Yay, gay marriage".

THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME

” The requt “was meant to jolt the baseball tablishment to acknowledgg that there were ed gay men playg the game, ” Andrew Maraniss wr his new book, Sgled Out: The Te Story of Glenn Burke. Along wh beg the first openly gay man to have played the MLB — he me out 1982, after leavg the league — Burke and his teammate Dty Baker are often creded wh ventg the high five. Yet his acplishments were largely fotten or tentnally obscured, whether by a homophobic society that had no e for a gay athlete or by a baseball anchise that wanted to claim cred for the thgs Burke had done for the team whout acknowledgg the prence of an out gay man their Sgled Out, Maraniss do his bt to pture the tragedy and weight of Burke’s story.

He signed a Mor League ntract wh the Los Angel Dodgers his first uple of years the mors, Burke didn’t yet know that he was gay, jt that he was “different” om his teammat. He also spent the off-season prowlg the gay bars of the Castro San Francis, across the Bay om his hometown of Maraniss explas his book, was unheard of for profsnal male athlet to be gay at that time.

The other players were so far removed om gay culture, and so unspectg that one of their teammat might possibly be gay, that many of them simply missed the ample evince of Burke’s inty.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY THEATER, THREE ACTS

His teammat were fur and, after he was gone, the team traer nfirmed Burke had been trad bee Campanis and manager Tommy Losarda didn’t want any gay men the Oakland, Burke stggled to fd his groove after an jury.

Followg one 1979 game at the Oakland Colism when A’s fans were yellg homophobic slurs at Burke the outfield, he chased down the heckler the nurse and grabbed him around the neck.