Coming out on a college team especially if you’re not 100% out of the
closet can be one of the most intimidating experiences of your life. Not
knowing exactly how your teammates are going to react is both scary and nerve-wracking. However, with plenty of confidence you’ll be
able to attack any situation with ease and style.
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Let me start off by telling you about my coming out experience on my
team. Now I’ll be completely honest-I probably had a very different experience
with this then most of you. To start, I’m openly gay. However, I’ve really only
had conversations about my sexuality to my close friends and a small portion of
my family. I’ve always kind of just let other people find out either through
word of mouth or through seeing me live openly. I just never deemed it
necessary to discuss my sexuality with every single person or group of people
in my life-which included my college team.
When it came to my team, I definitely wouldn’t say I was close with them.
Now don’t get me wrong-I had a few teammates who were my absolute best friends
and they obviously knew I was gay, but as far as I know, the rest of them who I
wasn’t as close with were totally clueless. It was a very unique experience
because I had my few tennis friends on my team (I’m talking 2 or 3 here) who
knew and were cool with it and then I had my friends outside of my team who knew.
So then of course I had this other group of my teammates who I never discussed
it with so to this day I still have no idea what they knew or didn’t know when
it came to my sexuality.
I’ll give you a few examples. My best friend on the team and my
roommate-I ended up having a sit down conversation with her about it our
freshman year because I felt that she should know. And she was super
supportive. I had two more teammates who just flat out asked me because they
were curious-so I told them. Again, super supportive. Now on the other hand, I
had a teammate who asked me about boys on a regular basis. Clearly having no
idea. So as you can see, it was all across the board.
Now the point I'm trying to make by telling you my story is that the
best way to come out on your team is to do whatever makes you feel comfortable.
If you're not super outspoken about your sexuality (like myself) then don’t
say anything at all and just let people figure it out on their own. Or just
tell a few who you're close with. I mean-it's your life and in most cases, you get
to decide how open you want to be. Now if you’re super close with your whole
team then maybe you’ll want them all to know and you’ll want to have a special
conversation with each of them about it. Or maybe you’re the type of person
that wants your teammates to find out by making out with your girlfriend after
the big game while they all watch. All of those are great no matter how
different they are! Whatever makes you feel comfortable is always the best
method. Just remember that you have control over who you have conversations
with about your sexuality and who just finds out through other means. Always tell the
people you're ready to tell first who you know would be hurt if they found out
through someone else. Trust me-you won’t want that to happen.
Now you’ve come out to your team. Great! Unfortunately, a few of your
teammates are completely appalled by your choice in sexual partners. So what do
you do? To start, learn to be civil. I have news for you-not everyone is going
to be ok with the fact that you like to kiss girls and that’s ok. People are entitled to their own opinions
and they don’t have to agree with you or the way you live your life. And you
shouldn’t force them to. Whether it’s religious beliefs, or their upbringing or
whatever, there are always going to be people that don’t agree with your
lifestyle. All that means is you don’t have be close with them. But if you’re on
a team or in a work situation where you’re going to see this person all the
time who isn’t accepting of you, then you’re going to have to learn to be
civil. You don’t have to be friends but you will need to be able to at least
speak to them in regards to your sport/work situation/whatever. Keep it
professional. The more mature you act about it the better off you’ll be. Hopefully
your good attitude about the situation will rub off on them too.
Of course though, this person or group of people who isn’t ok with your
sexuality could easily turn into a wild maniac and not be able to keep it
professional themselves. Then what do you do? If this person begins to
negatively affect your life on your team then you need to take it up with
higher authority and make it known what is happening. Tell your coach or
athletic director and let them handle it. Discrimination based on sexuality is
completely unacceptable and should not be taken lightly so if it becomes a
situation of you not being able to do the job you're supposed to be doing then
it needs to be dealt with by someone who has authority over the whole team.
Overall, coming out on your college team no matter how you choose to do
it will be a beneficial experience. Whether or not it turns out how you
envision it, it still means you're growing as a person and becoming more and
more comfortable with your sexuality day by day. And that’s always most
important J
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