On coming out.

You'd want to have been living under a rock not to know that Gareth Thomas, a prominent Welsh rugby player, has recently come out as a gay man, after splitting up with his wife and subsequently letting his fellow players in on the secret he had kept to himself for over 15 years. I first came across the article in the Mail Online (someone else had linked to it, you must understand, and I was curious) and of course the overall tone of the piece was a touch on the overwrought side. Sometimes I almost feel like rolling my eyes: Thomas is quite close in age to me, yet he only recently went through a process that I - and the average gay men of my age - went through the same 15 years ago. He faced his sexuality for the first time at the age of 17 and he denied it. Now, after buckling under the inevitable psychological pressure, he's decided to accept it. What does he want, a medal?

Of course it's never that simple, and it's got me thinking about the whole coming out process. Thomas's statement that he wanted to prove himself as a player first is perhaps fair enough, and there may be some truth in the statement that he would never have made to the highest echelons of rugby if he had come out at the start of his career. Still, there exists the assertion in the essay On Coming Out, a sub-section of the pamphlet With Downcast Gays, that 'posing as heterosexual and thus identifying with a group comprised at least in part of oppressors of gay men, he was a traitor to the gay cause'. It's an assertion that is certainly applicable in many circumstances, the question is, is this application universal? Is it applicable here?

Yes and no, I think. In spite of the macho culture surrounding rugby, it still is made up of predominantly middle-class men who happen to have had a smattering of education in their youth before turning pro in adulthood. I find it hard to believe that if he had come out, say, ten years ago, it would have raised many eyebrows. It was the twenty-first century, for Christ's sake.

I can just about understand someone subsuming their sexuality for the sake of a career that they love very much. When he said he wanted to 'prove himself as a player first' however, you can read this to mean that he wanted to prove that he wasn't a supposedly weak man afraid of confrontation, as many gay men are (still, unbelievably) stereotyped to be. Being gay in rugby was probably never really the issue, being physically weak was. And it's highly likely that this denigrating stereotype was picked up by the players when they first started playing in secondary school. Can you imagine the coach at that time doing anything other than reinforcing it? When I was in school, our coach certainly didn't.

In an interview on the BBC website, he speaks of how he hopes that by coming out, being gay will be less of an issue for the next generation of rugby players. He'll most likely achieve something in this regard, but he would have achieved more if he had come out earlier, when his career was at his peak, when he had by then proved himself, but when he still had substantial achievements ahead of him. But then, he knows more about the rugby environment, the players and the fans, and that's what's interesting. Was his decision to stay in the closet based on his close-quarters observation of those around him? No-one makes any attempt to hide or apologise for the pervasive homophobia that exists in football, and that is a reflection on the vermin that are involved with that sport, from the managers and players, right through to the fans. In general, homophobia in rugby doesn't make headline news. Is it because the players, managers and fans are more enlightened, or are they just more discreet about it?

Interestingly, he makes the point about how understanding the gay community was in allowing him his closet, even after it was common knowledge in some circles there that he was gay. In the pamphlet I referenced previously, this is railed against, and deemed a form of self-sabotage for the gay community. Perhaps this is true, but I've never been comfortable with the shrieking glee with which certain gay men out closet cases. Unless of course, the latter are anti-gay in their public life.

I'm not going to judge. He's come out before it's too late for him to have a happy gay life, as it were, and the only person he ultimately has to answer to is his ex-wife. And while his visibility would have been crucial to the gay cause once upon a less-enlightened time, it is not so much now. Except, it would appear, to the cause of gay rugby players. And he's not altogether bad in the attractiveness stakes. Like one of these people who get better with age...

I can't imagine the world of football/soccer ever being this accepting, though. I think that would be too much of a leap for their mankind. But with such a bunch of ugly skinny things, who cares?