Everyone wele? Gay football fans prepare for FIFA World Cup

Contents:

• TAL OM A GAY FOOTBALL FAN
• THREE GAY FOOTBALL PLAYERS FEATURED NFL NETWORK SEGMENT ON CARL NASSIB
• DPE S BT TENTNS, FOOTBALL REMAS UNWELG OF GAY FANS
• EVERYONE WELE? GAY FOOTBALL FANS PREPARE FOR FIFA WORLD CUP
• GAY FOOTBALL FAN GROUPS TAKE THE LEAD ON EQUAL RIGHTS ON THE TERRAC AND PCH
• WOLV FED £100K FOR FANS' ANTI-GAY CHANTG VS CHELSEA
• GAY FOOTBALL MANAGER LE TUFFS ME OUT WHILE PLAYG NON-LEAGUE BUT FEARS PREMIER LEAGUE STARS N’T BEE OF OWNERS

TAL OM A GAY FOOTBALL FAN

Wele to the plight of a gay sports fan!

THREE GAY FOOTBALL PLAYERS FEATURED NFL NETWORK SEGMENT ON CARL NASSIB

My teemed lleague Cyd Zeigler wrote last week about the annoyg stereotype that gay men have to be “masc” to watch the Super Bowl. As a rult, I often take on a self-pretg tone when discsg my sports fandom, lamentg how I am the “worst gay ever” bee I n more easily name the Red Sox’s startg ne than the latt nttants on “Drag Race. I have my gay sports iends to thank.

My foray to the gay world began when I joed Boston’s LGBTQ flag football league 2016. I started datg men three years prr, but until then, my gay life basilly end the bedroom.

DPE S BT TENTNS, FOOTBALL REMAS UNWELG OF GAY FANS

The faiari eased my trepidatns about enterg a gay space. I’ve experienced so many important gay firsts wh my football iends: drag shows, weddgs, viss to Montreal’s Gay Village. I’m not sayg there are right and wrong ways to be gay, of urse.

Co-founr Jim Buzski recently wrote about a new survey that found 30 percent of gay men and 40 percent of lbians intify as “passnate sports fans. The subject was the impact of Carl Nassib g out as gay the NFL for the Las Vegas Rairs.

Matea offensive leman Jake Strer, who is gay, is one of five current or former LGBTQ athlet profiled.

EVERYONE WELE? GAY FOOTBALL FANS PREPARE FOR FIFA WORLD CUP

“When I returned to football my sophomore year after g out was bee I knew that if I qu football was jt the begng of thgs I would qu or hold myself back om bee I was gay, ” Strer told Outsports. “To fast forward to my last football game my senr year and have end wh ‘NFL 360’ there to clu me a story celebratg the first openly gay football player NFL history is still really unbelievable to me. EST, we see scen of Strer’s last game as a Matea Mtang, terspersed wh him speakg about beg gay football and what Nassib’s g out meant to him.

GAY FOOTBALL FAN GROUPS TAKE THE LEAD ON EQUAL RIGHTS ON THE TERRAC AND PCH

Their experienc are universal, ways good and bad, for many LGBTQ people — Pick talkg about the pa om the ial rejectn by her mom; O’Callaghan discsg suicidal thoughts before beg rcued by a therapist; Rapoport’s touchg rellectn of g out to NFL Commissner Roger Gooll by approachg him at a Super Bowl event holdg her girliend’s hand and Gooll’s se upon seeg ; Saffold discsg growg up Black and gay on the South Si of Chigo “where there are rampant levels of homophobia” and Strer on how he ed to worry “about how bad my life might be after I me out. “I thk 11- or 12-year-old kids playg football prr to Carl Nassib g out didn’t thk there uld be a gay football player, ” Rapoport said. Throughout his NFL reer and time playg football at Cal, O’Callaghan hid he was gay, assumg everyone football would reject him if they knew.

He didn’t thk he uld ever live as an out gay man. Another popular meme has been potg out that another team’s fans are so gay (bee beg gay is bad) that they mt love Pri month:. “It’s a shame for people to reject the NFL for embracg the gay muny, ” Rohrer said.

“The gay muny is a huge supporter of all sports, there are a lot of gay athlet every sport, football beg one of them. It mak no sense for people to be upset at the league for showg some pri and rpect for the ex-players the NFL who are gay. O’Callaghan was quick to pot out that, while ’s important to ntue to pot to rners of homophobic nonsense sports, this don’t mean a gay NFL player would be rejected by the league, s teams or most fans.

WOLV FED £100K FOR FANS' ANTI-GAY CHANTG VS CHELSEA

“A lot of people are gog to say this is proof pro sports aren’t ready for gay athlet, but I thk ’s proof the NFL is ready, ” O’Callaghan said. I, personally, am not even particularly offend by the moment; I jt fot that this was what was like, that spe the years of rabow lac and pta’s armbands, Sttish football – that is, men’s Sttish football – still has a problem wh homophobia. Ined, jt over half of Sttish football fans surveyed by the Equaly Network 2017 reported wnsg homophobic behavur at a football ground.

And yet while the polici agast homophobic language rema as strgent as that agast racism, the realy of enforcement is is, I thk, partly bee of the way homophobic language has imbedd self so eply to the Sttish vernacular as to seem almost nocuo. In all my algs wh him he had never said an unkd word or treated me any way differently bee I was gay. Gay people are largely treated as llateral damage.

I jt want to watch the people pot to the notable absence of any openly gay football players a major league as proof of the hospable environment.

GAY FOOTBALL MANAGER LE TUFFS ME OUT WHILE PLAYG NON-LEAGUE BUT FEARS PREMIER LEAGUE STARS N’T BEE OF OWNERS

He hung himself after beg acced of sexually assltg a 17-year-old boy the state of Maryland (where all homosexual acts were, at that time, illegal) his suici note stated: “I realised I had already been prumed guilty. ” However, I thk is fair to say that football clubs themselv are more welg plac to gay players than they ever were Fashanu’s time.

Even if the prence of Malky Mackay as the SFA’s performance director – a man wh a known history of sual homophobia – is hardly hearteng, the environment for homosexual players is unniably more welg than ever has been. A gay football player would not only have to al wh the evable hecklg of the opposn fans, but also wir society’s need to celebrate them for an attribute they never had a say ; a facet of their character that, unlike their skill as a player, didn’t take years of graft and trag. The dilemma any prospective gay footballer fac is that their reer would be overshadowed by their story.