Tag: grrr

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Sam Stanley, Professional Union Rugby Player, Comes Out

Sam Stanley, a 23 year old English professional union player from Essex, comes out as gay in an interview with the Sunday Times.

Stanley told the Sunday Times, “You are so worried about what people will think, and I thought I couldn’t be a macho rugby player the way I was, and there was nothing else I wanted to do with my life.”

Stanley follows Batley Bulldogs’ Keegan Hirst, who recently came out as gay. At the time, Stanley publicly praised Hirst via Twitter.

Hirst became the first openly gay rugby league player to take part in a game earlier in August.

Additionally, rugby star Gareth Thomas came out in 2009.

Congrats Sam! Good on you! Visibility is what helps the rest of the world see we’re like everyone else. Only maybe a little more fabulous.

I know we’ll be seeing a lot more of Stanley in the coming weeks.

And speaking of “seeing more” – check out Stanley’s Instagram video playing guitar and singing (naked?) James Bay’s “When We Were On Fire:”

A video posted by Sam Stanley (@samstannerz) on Jul 16, 2015 at 11:11am PDT

A photo posted by Sam Stanley (@samstannerz) on Jul 26, 2015 at 8:00am PDT

Sam Stanley (L) with rugby champion & LGBT ally Ben Cohen (R)
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Brian Sims for Nike’s LGBT Sports Summit

From Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims Facebook page:

“Today is the last day of the Nike #LGBTSportsSummit and it’s an important one.

“Nike is committing considerable resources to combatting homophobia and promoting respect and diversity for all athletes from k-12, college and the pros and today we’ve got to figure out what projects we can develop with their support!”