Just reading that Steve Davies a cricketer in the Ashes test squad has come out as gay citing Gareth Alf Thomas as his inspiration. In the same article it said that Graham Obree has come out as gay. I think taht it is great that they can do this but at the sametime it also annoys me that it matters whether they are gay. Do people still care if people are gay?

Ton Who was the Australian rugby league player that outed him self a few years back.

Nobody cares apart from when some roofrack comes along banging on and drawing attention to it….Oh Hang on…………………………..

who cares?

Me, I think it’s great that they feel they can ‘come out’ whilst in the public arena. Professional sportsmen are role models and it’s only right that they can be role models for gay people. There is still far too much prejudice in the sporting arena.

Good on him.

Do people still care if people are gay?

I’d care if my girlfriend was gay…

I have been called far worse than a roofrack 😀

I’ts not meant as a term of abuse really…… They’re essentially useful but Oh I dunno it just popped into my head.:)

Oh and I’m gay by the way and couldn’t care less whether sportsmen ( or women) are gay or not.

It doesn’t matter that they are gay but it matters that they are confident enough to say they are gay. Football for example is well documented to have great problems in excepting gay players, more people in more sport being confident helps others feel confident. Whether this is other sports people or someone else struggling to find the confidence to tell friends and family how they feel.

Homophobia is still pretty rife in some areas and people hind behind statements like “you don’t get gay footballers,” “real men do …”. If you are high profile and gay you should not be forced into making a one statements about your sexual preference but if you are happy to do so you can inspire others who may be struggling.

I don’t think it matters, but as gay people perhaps they see prejudice and assume that their being strong enough to ‘come out’ might help others in having the confidence to come out too.

I do think ‘coming out’ is a horrible term though.

Football for example is well documented to have great problems in excepting gay players

Justin Fashanu.

😥

I dunno they seem to except them really well. Not too keen on accepting them, mind.

grr dam speed lazy typing!!

Can’t see many more sportsmen coming out TBH..not after mickey rourke plays alfie in this bio-pic 😆

Alfie has a certain rugged charm wheras Mickey R looks like a plastic faced octogenerian!

Ton Who was the Australian rugby league player that outed him self a few years back.

Do you mean this fella, John ‘Brown Fingers’ Hopoate?

I think it’s great that they feel they can ‘come out’ whilst in the public arena.

Is it 1988 again? Are we in Iran?

Feels like we are regressing somewhat here.

Football for example is well documented to have great problems in excepting gay players

I think that football is great at excepting players, very poor at accepting them though..

(love a pedant, its the right thing to do..)

There is still far too much prejudice in the sporting arena.

I agree shall we discuss women refs now 🙄

It is both a good thing and a shame that they have to do this. It is good that they can come out publicly and gain the support of other colleagues and people in general- better than being in the closet or treated like Fashanu. It is still poor that this actually matters to some folk and has to be done my press release etc. The progres sis in the right direction though

it’s not really news is it? so what if they are, you are not going to bother reading past the headline.
i would be more impressed if they outed themselves as pederasts or nazis

I’d care if my girlfriend was gay…

Trust me. Your girlfriend most definitely is not gay.

Is it 1988 again?

On here for a lot of people it is.

Considering all the homoerotic overtones of football, it’s surprising there’s so few no out players.

I don’t care, and I don’t see why they feel the need to tell the world about it either.

You’re gay. Get over it.

Gays in sport? You’ll be telling me that they’re going to start filling teams with ethnics next!!! We’re all doomed!!!

In an ideal world this would not be news, but sadly it still is news.
The fact that there are only 2 openly gay, currently competing sportsmen in the UK when statistically the numbers are almost certainly higher suggests strongly that there is still prejudice impacting these people.

It isn’t 1988, it is 2011, and this is still a problem.

🙄

I don’t care, and I don’t see why they feel the need to tell the world about it either.

You’re gay. Get over it. Pretty much word for word what my attitude used to be. Stuey has already decribed why my attitude changed.

That super detirmined and didiplined people like sportpeople feel that it would be detrimental to their careers if they came out or are openly gay, tells you all you need to know about whether homosexuality is still a taboo in some areas of life. Having role models like sportpeople TV and film stars that are openly gay is mega important to young gay people thinking of coming out. It was for me.

People usually out themselves ,before the press does it for them with all the sleaze etc that they can hang onto the story to sell papers.

Being gay and in the so called closet isnt easy, especially for people and sportsmen in public life, for some bigots theyre still seen as a good whipping boy, or figure of derision, the word queer used to be a derisory word, now people like Peter Thatchell use it as a reverse insult, branding themselves as queer.

Also people need to ask themselves would they still get changed in front of a gay mate, or somebody they didnt know,who was gay in a comunal changing room, if the answer is no, ask yourself why, especially if you see nothing wrong with being gay.

Thats possibly one of the reasons why people dont out themselves.

i think happy people should reclaim the word gay, homosexuals stole it from them.

I do wonder if those that have come out would be so well accepted if they were not at the very top levels of the sport. I still expect they would get a lot more grief had they not proved themselves on the field of play, especially at a local club level.

I think more sports should have the same open and accepting tolerance to homosexuality that American Football does.

I love the juxtaposition there. Black guy screwing the white guy, but the black guy is wearing white and the white guy is wearing black.

And they’re gay!

There’s been quite a few famous gay golfers, Vijay Singh, Jose Maria Olazabal. Lots on the LPGA
Brian Gay is straight, he just has a very unfortunate surname, & I can’t help but pity his poor caddy who has to display Gay on his bib.

Then there is Billie Jean King & Navratilova in tennis.

Navratilova

He’s not gay, he likes women.

would the proportion of gay people in professional sport mirror the proportion of gay people in general?

Navratilova

He’s not gay, he likes women.

Very clever 😆

pigface, the aussie arl player who came out was Ian Roberts.
played for wigan for a while, played origin and for the kangaroo’s.
tough bloke he was too.

Footballers are openly gay, ask Messers Ferdinands and Tevez: