Coming Out A Relief for Gay Basketball Star
Slowly, they continue to come out worldwide: Gay athletes in sports like football, diving, wrestling, and now basketball.
Argentine basketball star Sebasti�n Vega kicked down the closet door last week in a social media post he titled "The truth sets us free!"
In the post, Vega recalled the first time he had a sexual experience with another man - it was a moment that exploded his world.
"I had just been with a man for the first time and could not accept it. That night was one of the worst I can remember. Not only because I could not enjoy it, but because it meant a definitive change in my life,"
the post recalled.
La verdad nos hace libres! pic.twitter.com/oKv4vUuOeg— Seba Vega (@_sebavega) March 10, 2020
The post went on:
"I debated between my desires to be with another man and everything else. I suffered, I repressed feelings, I felt lacking. I could not understand how a person of the same sex attracted me, that was not right, that was not 'normal'. And I wanted to be normal."
In time, however, Vega came to understand that he was not alone and his feelings were perfectly normal - for him. he eventually met the man who would be his significant other for more than half a decade.
Coming out to his family and teammates was far from the shaming experience full of rejection that Vega had feared. Rather, he found himself loved and supported, he told Reuters.
Then he decided to come out to the world at large.
"I was really scared, but the fear didn't paralyze me," Reuters quoted Vega as saying. "I felt truly free: it had been a long time since I'd walked without such a heavy weight on my shoulders."
Reuters noted that marriage equality is the law in Argentina, but that there is still a high level of social animosity toward LGBTQs. That's particularly true in the macho world of sports.
Noted Vega, "It's very difficult to say you're gay.," Reuters reported. Vega went on to say that men "have to be masculine" or risk being viewed and treated as "less than" by others.
But that may be changing, in part due to the courage of public figures like Vega who publicly embrace authenticity.
Vega opined that things are getting better, saying that "five or six years ago, I don't know if society would've been ready" to accept him as an openly gay athlete.