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February 19, 2010

Posted on 02/19/2010

'I can handle a few wolf whistles'

Speaking to Brian Viner in The Independent, former Lions captain Gareth Thomas reflects on reactions he has received since announcing he is gay and explains why coming out would be much harder for a footballer.

"It is two months since Thomas came out. There had been occasional rumours, and even photographers staking out his house, but nobody ever turned the rumours into fact. Now that he has done so himself, he welcomes me cheerfully into his home in a village near Bridgend knowing that his sexuality is what we'll be talking about for the next hour or so. Oddly, I have been asked by a man called Emanuele, his friend and adviser – Thomas loathes the word "agent" – not to raise the reports that Thomas is on the verge of a move to rugby league. It's the first time in my interviewing career that a fellow's sexual orientation is wide open for discussion, while rugby league is firmly taboo.
He makes coffee and we sit down at a round breakfast table. The house, where he lived with Jemma, now the ex-wife he still adores, is not at all grand, but comfortable. There are rugby photos around the place, and I spot a copy of Barack Obama's book, Dreams of My Fathers. Has he read it? "No, I've just bought it." The "it" is pronounced the Bridgend way, without the T. "I've never been a big reader, but now I read a lot. I'm into books that challenge me, and..."

He starts to chuckle. "Obviously Barack Obama and myself are in no way comparable, but who'd have thought there would ever be a black president of America?" I complete the connection for him, and assure him that it is in no way fanciful: who, similarly, would ever have thought that a big, tough Lions and Wales ex-captain, thunderous wing, full-back and centre, would burst out of the closet? "Yeah, and what he must have gone through... I thought I could read it and in some fraction of a way, relate to it."

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