August 15th was a big day for professional sports. It was the day Darren Young came out to the public that he was gay, which is pretty cool and takes some major balls. He is the first WWE wrestler to ever come out. The best part of his story: he told a reporter that he was gay in an airport before he even told the WWE. Young said he ran to the car after he realized what he did and called the head of WWE to tell them before it ran in the papers and all over the Internet. Luckily, the WWE was cool with it and even helped set a press conference for him to confirm the then rumors. An interesting factor to this story was that he has had a boyfriend for 2 years, who was openly gay but respected Young’s wishes to keep their relationship private. Since coming out, Young has done even more collaboration with the anti-bullying group “Be A Star,” which focuses on “teaching children how to create positive environments for everyone regardless of age, race, religion or sexual orientation.”
Young is not the only professional athlete to have come out. Some fellow gay athletes are Jason Collins, who was the first active male athlete to come out as gay in 2001, Brittney Griner, Greg Louganis, and Martina Navratilova—just to name a few.
This begs the question: Has homosexuality become a more acceptable idea in professional sports? America itself has made strides in gay rights and realizing it is not a mental illness but something we must respect. Most locker rooms have the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which seems like the most neutral way, but teammates should never have to hide something that is so much a part of them from their fellow players. One major case that changed the LGBT community in sports was when Jennifer Harris came out that she was gay to her basketball team in 2006. Her coach then stated that she “will not have it in (her) program.” This was soon sent to court and Harris won the case—the head coach was asked to resign from her head coach position. This case showed that bullying of homosexuality in any way would not be tolerated in sports.
Some fun facts about homosexuality and sports: There is a group called the Federation of Gay Games, which is an openly-LGBT sports events committee. Also, other countries offer LGBT-friendly teams. Australia has the Sydney Convicts RFC, which is the first gay rugby union team. France has Paris Foot Gay. Ireland has the first gay rugby team in Ireland that goes by the Emerald Warriors RFC. These are just a few countries that are taking strides in equality in sports. Young was extremely brave to do what he did; he now isn’t just an awesome fighter, but a true hero.
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