Thomas Hitzlsperger announces he is gay

It's only brave/bold or whatever adjective you use because society has bigotary against homosexuals.

People shouldn't need to come out at all. People should just live their lives as they pleased and not be judged on it. These coming out of the closest from so called high profile people seems to be an pre-tmptive strike against the press leaking the story instead. In a way it reads they want to control how the information is released themselves. If the press are not interested in doing these stories at all (which means people should stop reading them which will lead to them stop writing it), then I don't see why they need to come out at all.

Unless it is a way to advertise to yourself to the world so now you have all the attention of homosexuals? (I am kidding).
 
Castiel said:
Thomas Hitzlsberger, while it is good that he has come out, he would, in my humble opinion, would have better served the move toward acceptance and fight against homophobia in sport if he had not hidden away in the first place, that suggests that in order to succeed you must hide your sexuality and this is not in my opinion a good example to perpetrate. Footballers already don't feel they can be openly gay when playing, and Thomas has simply reinforced that rather than inspiring young players to be open about themselves.
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Thomas Hitzlsperger does state that it has only been in the past few years that he has known he was gay. You can accept that position or not but if it is something he has only comparatively recently come to know about himself and accept then that perhaps partly explains why he wasn't "out" while he was still playing. I can easily imagine that if you've thought of yourself as being sexually orientated one way for the majority of your life that it takes a bit of time to mentally adjust. While it might have advanced the issue and led to a more open debate in professional football if he'd come out the instant he knew because they'd have had to address the situation of an openly gay premiership footballer it needs to be remembered that it is his life - not everyone needs, wants or is equipped to be the trailblazer so maybe he's just trying to affect a small change in the way he feels most comfortable.
 
I work with a guy with a very old school mentality, he's in his 50's and comes from a 'tough background' where calling someone gay is still seen as an acceptable put down and unless you are shagging at least 3 women and cheating on your wife then you must be a "bender".

Because I'm single (and have been since I started working there) to him I'm gay and he can't resist making a joke about it every time one of the outside workers comes into the office.

I came in the other day and made the mistake of not checking the mirror before I left so had some toothpaste on the side of my face, of course this was made out to be my "boyfriend's cum" after a BJ and that amused him for the rest of the day.

But as someone who is comfortable with his sexuality I don't get offended by it, more bemused that someone can think just being gay is somehow 'funny' so I just roll with the punches now and humour him. The confusion on his face when I retort "You're just jealous because I don't fancy you" is priceless.
 
Freefaller said:
As someone that knows about football/football culture, why is it that it's less of a big deal to you, but from what I've learned thanks to Tummy and others here that actually this is a really big deal within the football culture/environment.
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It is indeed a big deal within football culture. Football is still rife with homophobia in the stands and many a time have I had to listen to it being shouted at players and opposing fans and quite frankly, it is disgusting.

The last time my team played Brighton I nearly walked out in shame to what I was hearing being shouted at the away fans, just because they are Brighton fans. It is totally unacceptable and that is when it is being shouted at a group of people just because of the area they are from, let alone singling out an individual player.

Fair play to Thomas Hitzlsperger, he has my utmost respect, though it shows how bad it is that he only felt that he could come out after he has retired and therefore would not have to listen to the abuse he would have got if he had come out whilst he was still playing.

It is a fact that there are numerous gay players playing for some big teams in this country that have to hide it because of the abuse they would face.
 
Tunney said:
So you think that gay people should be accepted but ignored? They shouldn't have a voice within society?
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That isn't what he said.

Why should some people have a disproportionately large voice within society just because of their sexuality? Why should gay people be considered to have a single voice anyway? They're millions of individuals, not one entity. Why only gay people and not, to pick a random example, people over 6'3" tall? At a rough guess, I'd say that's about the same number of people in the UK.

You see homosexuality as something of great importance and a defining feature of a person - so much so that you think of all homosexuals as one person (i.e. with one voice).

The person you're replying to does not.
 
kedge said:
It can be harmful in different ways, check the medical records, is it wrong? to many yes, lgbt is wrong conduct simple as that.
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In what way is it harmful? Specifically homosexuality itself, of course, not things such as sexually transmitted diseases or domestic violence since they're not unique to homosexuality.

What some people think doesn't make something right or wrong, especially when they have nothing to support their views. If I, for example, somehow managed to condition some people into thinking that drinking tea on Saturdays was wrong because I said so, would that actually make it wrong?
 
estebanrey said:
I work with a guy with a very old school mentality, he's in his 50's and comes from a 'tough background' where calling someone gay is still seen as an acceptable put down and unless you are shagging at least 3 women and cheating on your wife then you must be a "bender".

Because I'm single (and have been since I started working there) to him I'm gay and he can't resist making a joke about it every time one of the outside workers comes into the office.

I came in the other day and made the mistake of not checking the mirror before I left so had some toothpaste on the side of my face, of course this was made out to be my "boyfriend's cum" after a BJ and that amused him for the rest of the day.

But as someone who is comfortable with his sexuality I don't get offended by it, more bemused that someone can think just being gay is somehow 'funny' so I just roll with the punches now and humour him. The confusion on his face when I retort "You're just jealous because I don't fancy you" is priceless.
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It's my experience that a majority of people see "gay" as an insult. It's only online that I experience all this fake, self-righteous "how dare you be homophobic!" business.

I don't even know any gay people who are offended by it and in general are the ones that use the most homophobic abuse because they can get away with it.

It's inappropriate in the work place I do agree.
 
I'm quite pleased at how over the years (I've been lurking on these forums since the days of the AMD Duron :P) OcUK has become quite accepting and suchlike. I remember those old days where threads like this would have been plagued with posts about how "un-natural" gays are and things of that ilk. Glad to see it's changed for the much better.

Proud of you guys! :D
 
M3G4UK said:
I'm quite pleased at how over the years (I've been lurking on these forums since the days of the AMD Duron :P) OcUK has become quite accepting and suchlike. I remember those old days where threads like this would have been plagued with posts about how "un-natural" gays are and things of that ilk. Glad to see it's changed for the much better.

Proud of you guys! :D
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Thankfully, as society matures (in a variety of different ways) people who hold onto this kind of out-dated & simplistic mind-set go the way of the dinosaur.

It's cultural evolution, with sadly a few Cro-Magnons still hulking around watering down the social gene-pool. :D

I can totally understand the need to 'come out' later in life, I can imagine school being incredibly difficult for people who are of a different sexuality to the majority & that experience making coming out as an adult much harder.

A couple of my school friends who came out waited until college/university - specifically for that very reason. Public figures coming out changes in part helps change the social attitude, I'm sure Stephen Fry (by being adored & followed by so many heterosexuals) has done a great service in combating homophobia by simply a example that gay people are just as capable as being intelligent, funny & witty as anybody else.

It's akin to how the early African American comedians in the US did a great service to equal rights, as it changed the public perception of them - it allowed people to connect on a level with people normally who would be distant, it's this very connection which works best at combating racial or sexual prejudice.

Clearly it would be better if they didn't have to come out & the contributions socially made by people who have been openly gay the entire time would be larger - but it's completely understandable & most certainly is a force for positive social change.

Essentially, any group which suffers from unjustified negative prejudice in the wider population benefits from positive public figures who represent them for reason above, along with providing an example to the given group that they have nothing to be ashamed of.
 
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