Keegan Hirst, who became the first British professional rugby league footballer to come out as gay in 2015, and retired in 2020 has announced he will return to the sport, joining the Batley Bulldogs to increase visibility of gay players and also to combat homophobia in the sport.
“COVID, added to my own personal circumstances, made me lost tough with some of the things I hold dearest to me – friends and rugby league, After the recent thinly-veiled homophobia over a rainbow shirt I thought: ‘How can I help with visibility and inclusion?’ By lacing up my boots, putting on a playing shirt and getting back out there, that’s how. I still have plenty of games in me and am looking forward to help Batley continue their incredible season as they ready for their playoff campaign.” – via Pink News
Thanks Keegan.
Oh and by the way it’s alright by us if you leave your “playing shirt” off.
Keegan Hirst, the hunky 27 year old British Rugby League player who came out last August in an interview with GuysLikeU.com, has said that he is opposed to the outing gay athletes.
“I don’t think it’s fair to try and force it. A person, whoever they are, can only come out when they want to. They’ll feel the same as anybody else does before they come out. But if a regular guy has 100 people to come out to, to be possibly rejected by, footballers have 50,000 people who they feel may reject them. I think only when they’re totally comfortable with their situation will you get a footballer who publicly comes out,” he said.
Hirst, a father of two, in the interview also talked about being a gay father of two and how his love life comes second to being a dad.
“She’s aware,” Hirst said of his 7-year-old daughter’s knowledge of his sexuality. “It doesn’t really affect the kids, so I don’t need to bang on about it to them. But yes, they’re aware. My son is too young to understand so I guess he’ll just grow up and not know any different.”
NLGJA Recognizes 2015 Excellence in Journalism Award Winners aka The Nepotism Awards: Probably the biggest crock of shit awards out there evening beathing the GLAAD Media Awards by a mile. Most of the winners are either associates of Board Members or Board Members themselves. If inbreeding could be done by this group of hacks they’s all have 3 arms and buckteeth.
Case in point:
Journalist of the Year First Place: J. Lester Feder, BuzzFeed News – Connected to Chris Geidner past winner.
Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for Excellence in LGBT Media First Place: Trish Bendix, AfterEllen – Closely connected to NGLJA and Host of yearly “Media Convening”
The Al Neuharth Award for Innovation in Investigative Journalism Steven Thrasher – Former Journalist of the Year Award Winner.
Excellence in Blogging Award
First Place:
Rob Smith for“They Fought The Gays and The Gays Won: How The “Duck Dynasty” Stars’ Homophobia Destroyed Their Brand,” Queerty.com – Lester Brainwaithe who works at Queerty is a NGLJA Board Member and Queerty.com is a professional website with paid writers and sponsored content is not a BLOG.
Second Place:
Faith Cheltenham for “Bisexuals at the Gates,” Bilerico.com – Billerico.com is owned by Bill Browning NGLJA Board member and Cheltenham was one of the hosts for the “2015 Media Convening”
All in all a bunch of close knit “journalist hacks” who give each other handjobs every year so they can make believe that they are great.
Keegan Hirst who’s a Prop Forward with the Batley Bulldogs, became the first openly gay rugby league player this weekend after an open and emotional interview with The Sunday Mirror: “At first I couldn’t even say ‘I’m gay’ in my head, let alone out loud.
“Now I feel like I’m letting out a long breath that I’ve held in for a long time.
I had a wife and kids. I’ve been a builder, doorman, worked in factories – I play rugby. I tick every macho box. How could I be gay? I’m from Batley for goodness sake. No one is gay in Batley.”
“On the worst days I’d think, ‘I can’t do this, I’d rather be dead than for it all to come out. I never got as far as actually tying a noose or having tablets in my hand. But I thought how I would do it, where I would do it, when I would do it. Thankfully I have friends and family I love and was able to talk myself out of it.
[Then] One day, a few months ago, I just thought, ‘You know what? Actually, this is who I am. I’m gay. I felt I could finally be honest with myself.”
Keegan came out to his wife after he realised she blamed herself for their marriage break-up. She “didn’t ask a lot of questions,” when he spoke to her, “but she was supportive”.
“The support from my team-mates and other rugby league players has really surprised me, it’s all been positive. These are tough blokes. We go out on the field together and it’s 26 blokes knocking seven shades out of each other. But on the other side of it, you go through blood, sweat and tears together – and they’ve been there for me when I needed them most.”
21 year old George Burgess is an English professional rugby league footballer for the South Sydney Rabbitohs of the National Rugby League and hot as hell! And now two nude selfies pictures of the Souths pin-up stud have surfaced online and are making a HUGE impression on both rugger and non-rugger followers across the internet
A BIG hat-TIP to the hot steamy site Wicked Gay Blog and its wicked hot owner for the HEADS up on these pics.
WARNING: There be hot humpy naked rugby stud below…….
Dieux du Stade (English translation: Gods of the Stadium) is the title of two books and some VERY popular yearly calendars that started publishing in 2001, featuring nude and semi-nude photographs of rugby players and other sportsman.
The calendars, originally created to support various charities have been credited for the increased fame of rugby in France. And are part of a marketing strategy crafted by Max Guazzini, President of the Dieux Du Stade rugby club to draw more women and gay men to the sport.
18-year-old Tom Boswell of Wales is the Captain of his Rigby team shows his extreme courage by posting his coming out video on YouTube for all the world to see to inspire others gay athletes and show them that its okay to play sports and be openly gay. (Maybe some professional athletes will see it and break open their glass locker doors.)
Rugby icon and anti- bullying champion Ben Cohen and openly gay former rugby star (and DILF) Gareth Thomas talk about The Bingham Cup, the gay-inclusive rugby tournament which numbers over a thousand players, and is heading to Manchester, UK on June 1 which Thomas championed to be played there.
Ben Cohen (melt) stated: “We’ll be celebrating with a sport I love, which is rugby. Rugby is very diverse anyway; it takes all shapes and sizes to play. It’s a sport that’s played by all and it’s very good to see that it’s really big in the gay community.”
Beautiful Ben along with the gay dating website Gaydar and a number of the Aviva Premiership clubs, have started the “Let’s Kick Homophobia Into Touch” campaign which calls for players and supporters to stop all homophobia in rugby . (To support Ben’s noble cause via Twitter use the hashtag #kickintotouch.)
Gareth Thomas recently spoke about the importance of gay rugby teams, and coming out in sports in an interview with Popular Publicity NYC. You can listen to the audio below:
