Should we be looking forward to an end in coming out stories? In 2013, all sorts of folks came out of the closet. Now take a look at this list of allegedly famous folks who came out in 2014 and see how many you actually recognize.
Probably the biggest name of the year was Michael Sam, who became famous because he came out of the closet in a publicity blitz prior to his pursuit of a National Football League career. He got drafted by the St. Louis Rams, saw pre-season play, but ultimately failed to find a permanent home on any team.
But the coverage of Sam’s coming out primarily revolved around people tripping over each other to declare how ready the NFL was for an openly gay player. There were a handful of naysayers, sure, but any actually controversy was confined to backseat coaching about whether Sam was good enough for the pros and whether his sexual orientation secretly hurt his chances despite everybody insisting otherwise.
Just as with 2013, eyes are on the top professional sports as the last holdout for a big coming out story for a current player. Country music got gayer this year as well with Ty Herndon’s coming out, but as Jesse Walker has noted, country music has a history of “queer” themes. Past this new crop, maybe we’ll see much less emphasis on celebrity “coming out of the closet” narratives in the United States. “Coming out” is still, obviously, going to be something every gay, lesbian, and bisexual person will have to deal with. But culturally, hopefully it will end up somewhere around the category of celebrity pregnancies in terms of attention.
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