It doesn’t matter what you do in life, what kind of a job or career you choose. At the end of the day, we’re all equal as humans. And we’re all different! From the way we brush our teeth to our sexual orientation. Yea, you heard me right.
A list of the most courageous sportspeople around the world that have openly talked about their preferences. Hats off!
Softball: Allard Jenny
Former All-American softball player at the University of Michigan and currently the head coach of the Harvard University softball team, Jenny officially announced that she is a lesbian in 1997, becoming one of the first major college coaches to openly announce her sexual orientation. She wrote a email to her players telling them something like this: I know you’ll potentially be stopping by my suite or calling, and I just want to let you know that my partner has decided to move on campus with me and you’ll soon get the opportunity to meet her.
She added:I wanted to be very honest about how I was living and not be shamed or silenced by it. I ask and expect my athletes to be honest about things. They don’t have to tell me everything, but if they are going to tell me something, I want them to be truthful. And because I want to model that, I couldn’t tell them I’m hiding my partner behind the left field fence and I’m embarrassed to have them know her.
Jenny also held speeches at conferences on this subject and become an advocate for the rights of gay and lesbian athletes.
Basketball: John Amaechi
Four years after retiring from sport – February 2007 to be more precise – ex-NBA player John Amaechi talked about his homosexuality on ESPN’s Outside the Lines program and in his memoir, Man in the Middle. He is the first NBA player to publicly speak about his sexual orientation.
Amaechi also said he believes there are other gay players in the NBA: I don’t know if there are a lot, but there are some. But you know … I don’t really want to talk about it because I think that the coming out process for these individuals that for some I have been privy to and some I have not, um, it is theirs and theirs alone. And I don’t think that they should be pressured or pushed for the good of the gay community or otherwise. They should not be pressured or pushed.
Field Hockey: Alyson Annan
Lesbian-bisexual Olympian Australian hockey player, Annan, the Best Female Hockey Player in the World of the year 1999, having scored 149 goals in 201 international appearances, can definitely be described as an outstanding goalscorer.
Annan had been married for two years with former Argentine hockey player Max Caldas. But they weren’t really happy, so they decided to separate. Five months later she and former Olympic rival Carole Thate fell in love and got married in 2005. Now the two have sealed their love with the birth of their first child – a son named Sam, who was conceived using the donated sperm of a friend.
Our relationship – and now Sam’s birth – has never been frowned upon. We live in a street where there are 20 kids under the age of three. Everyone has accepted us as a couple. We are talking about sending Sam to a Christian school.
Baseball: William Daro “Billy” Bean
Former Major League Baseball player – outfielder, and left-handed hitter – Billy Bean played from 1987 through 1995. He broke into the major leagues with the Detroit Tigers and tied a major league record with 4 hits in his first major league game. He went on to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the San Diego Padres. He chose to keep his personal life away from the public eye and the sports world for quite a while. But in 1999 he made news when he made his homosexuality public.
As a motivational speaker and a national spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign and featured spokesman on behalf of the Democratic National Committee from 2000 to 2004, he reached out to many young adults who shared his orientation. In 1996 – in the prime of his career – Billy walked away from Major League Baseball after a year long struggle dealing with the sudden death of his former partner. All the frustration of holding onto that secret all alone had gotten hold of him, so Bean went on to write a book: Going the Other Way: Lessons from a life in and out of Major League Baseball.
Golf: Mianne Bagger
Professional golfer from Denmark, Mianne has quite a story! In 1995 she had sex reassignment surgery and she returned to golf in 1998 as an amateur in Australia, causing a huge media stir! Many fans considered that her being born a male could give her some advantages over the other female competitors. But since the Australian Women’s Golf Association had no ban against transitioned females, she was welcomed to play there. In 1999 she won her first South-Australian championship. Same thing happened in 2001 and 2002.
Bagger kept her birth name a secret and said she never considered herself a male, even when she was still a teen. She didn’t tell anyone about how she felt until she was 18, but she says the experience was unbearable. I got thoroughly depressed. I got suicidal. That feeling of laying on the hospital bed just going in for surgery was like, ‘My God, I can’t believe this is finally about to happen.’
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