Jake Williamson has heard this word a million times. Others too.
Sometimes he used them, even if it meant burying his true self deeper. Homophobia component in football vocabulary. Men’s sport. And he sought to belong to this world.
“It’s such a simple way to degrade someone to say ‘oh, that’s so gay,'” says the semi-professional football player modeler-turned-Hyrox fitness athlete and LGBTQ activist. “It was part of other people’s vocabulary. I don’t think everyone did it in a derogatory way. Some other people did, but that was the language used in those environments. And once you surround yourself with this vocabulary, it becomes normal.
“The gayest Games”, the nickname given to this summer’s Paris Olympics thanks to the friends of British Olympian Tom Daley after the silver medal in divers.
The numbers verify the alliteration. At least 193 LGBTQ athletes will compete in the 2024 Summer Games, according to LGBTQ OutSports. This figure exceeds the record of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where at least 186 known LGBTQ competitions were held.
However, as openly gay male athletes become more accepted in sport, Williamson believes more work needs to be done as the number of openly gay male athletes is declining towards women.
“Soccer is clearly the key sport, it’s the most important sport,” Williamson said. “But cricket, rugby, golf, tennis. . . There are many other sports where the same stigma still exists and other people in professional spaces do not feel it. “they can still be open. “
Homosexuality in English football has been described as a taboo subject by both players and the media. Blackpool striker Jake Daniels is the only openly gay football player in England’s top four men’s divisions. Australian Josh Cavallo, the first existing active player to come out as gay in 2021, followed by Cagliari’s Jakub Jankto and San Diego Loyal midfielder Collin Martin.
However, football in general continues to struggle with its relationship with homophobia. Mohamed Camara stuck two white ribbons over the logo of an anti-homophobia badge, earning him a four-game suspension. Carles Puyol and Iker Casillas were widely condemned across the LGBTQ+ network and beyond after a debatable exchange on social media.
Williamson is a self-proclaimed football fan. At the age of 16, he began pursuing a professional career, signed a semi-professional contract, and pursued the dream that very few people achieve. Throughout his journey, Williamson kept his sexuality a secret, fearing the consequences at a time when same-sex marriage was still illegal in the United Kingdom.
“When I was in my youth academy, there were a lot of laws that were derogatory to gay men, so naturally in a locker room setting that no one would stop a slur because the culture at large didn’t silence it,” Williamson says.
“I played football for essentially 21 years and didn’t come across any blatantly gay players, referees or staff members,” Williamson says. “I played at almost every level, in and around the professional world, so I saw and saw a lot, but I never met anyone who was blatantly gay. “
Finally, Williamson spoke to friends and family about the Covid pandemic. He describes his sense of amazement at the ease with which he was accepted, compared to the exhausting intellectual war he waged within himself for so long.
The lifting of pandemic restrictions marked a return to football for Williamson, who joined a league team in Birmingham on Sunday. Despite his revelations to friends and family, Williamson kept his sexuality to himself in the locker room, still tired of knowing if he would. to be accepted into the world of football.
But after speaking on a BBC podcast about his prestige as an unabashedly gay footballer, Williamson’s secret was revealed and his worst fears came true. Williamson said his teammates didn’t approve of him and he felt like an outcast. The first weekend after his appearance on the podcast, he said he got rid of the starting lineup. Eventually, their number was removed from the organization’s chat. Three months later, Williamson met with a club volunteer who apologized for “the way things went. “
“This showed what I suspected, which was that it was a homosexual case,” Williamson says. “This stoked the fire. “
Williamson, now an ambassador for Stonewall and one of the biggest names in athletics, Hyrox set a new British record in the game last year, hopes to use his developing social media platform to normalise being a gay man in the game from the ground up.
“I’m not necessarily the most famous athlete in the world, but it’s a story that can touch a lot of people,” he says.
“It’s essentially a matter of hope because I went to the other side. I’m happy, I’m happy, I compete and I’m blatantly gay. And I do it on a giant scale, but also to see everyone else. “people who are in a relationship, who have gone to school, to university, who have played football and to be able to answer questions that other people have.
Williamson believes that organically turning the stigma of gay athletes from the ground up is the way for football and other sports to see more prominent figures come forward in the sport.
“It’s a huge strain on the first person,” Williamson says when asked if a timetable can be set for the Premier League’s first openly gay footballer. “When you’re going through whatever you’re going through internally and emotionally, you just need to do it in that moment.
“You don’t want tens of thousands and millions of people chasing you too. It would be a media parade. “
There’s also the fact that footballers are brands in their own right, in markets where homosexuality is still illegal.
“The Premier League is very vital in other cultures and other countries, so there are elements of protecting the club. At the end of the day, they are companies, massive corporations, and the players are essentially the other people and the products.
Fostering a new culture from the pitch to helping the next generation of gay athletes feel comfortable coming out is Williamson’s unofficial project since leaving football.
Williamson partnered with Instagram to help him share his story, which has become an inspiration to many within the LGBTQ community. Williamson, who has more than 130,000 fans on the platform, hosts Q&A sessions and never shies away from the most intimate or taboo topics. Their running club in the United Kingdom, BTND (Better The Next Day), has become another space for athletes to come together and find solidarity.
“Because what does it mean to be homosexual?” We see a lot of portrayals in the media that are quite queer and camp. Which is great, but not everyone sees themselves represented under this rainbow umbrella. I was trapped in a void where I was not yet accepted in the world of football. He was not entirely part of the homosexual network as it is depicted or noticed in the media.
“That’s why I chose this path. I’m not an activist, I don’t like that word because I don’t feel like we want help. But I think there are a lot of other people who are going through struggles that I’ve been through and I’d like to make their adventure a little bit less difficult by having frank and open conversations.
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