Businessman and former football player Thomas Beattie came out of the closet.
“I am many things, and gay is one of them,” said the 33-year-old Englishman in a report recently published by ESPN.
Now, the former Warrior club player – and several other teams – is the first top English football player in 30 years to identify as homosexual after Justin Fashanu. Furthermore, he is the second native of the country to come out of the closet in football.
In interview with the magazine The Advocate, Beattie that “there’s not a lot of LGBTQ representation” in football. “If I can do anything to help with this [improvement] process, I hope to help,” he said.
Rest assured it helped, Beattie! Welcome to life outside the closet. It's a shame that he only did this after retiring from football – a sign that the field is, in fact, quite LGBTphobic.
