Out soccer stud, occasional model and author Robbie Rogers will appear on the cover of Attitude‘s April issue as “Football’s First Gay Superstar”, a title he earned after abandoning his intolerant UK team and signing with the LA Galaxy last May.
Along with Jason Collins and Michael Sam, Rogers is inspiring a new attitude toward LGBT players in major league sports, but he revealed his journey to self-acceptance wasn’t entirely smooth in the accompanying 14-page article. He says struggling with his own mental health was one of the motivating factors that caused his premature retirement last year.
“25 years of self-hate doesn’t go away just because you come out,” he says:
Definitely in my career there were so many times when I struggled with my mental health. That affected the way I played.
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For younger people that are closeted and they see that it’s illegal to be gay in Qatar, then they know that the World Cup’s going to be there and maybe they’re football fans? That’s so damaging on their psyche, on their mental health.
My thing was that I was done and I was going to [come out] on my own terms, away from a football club. I was going to take some time to myself and no-one was going to try and persuade me to do that while I was back in football and no-one was going to persuade me to do it in any other way.
The feature will also include eight exclusive photos as part of The Style Issue. The print magazine will hit shelves on March 5, but you can download a digital version today.
Dixie Rect
Snore.
Kieran
If only we had more Robbie Rogers and less Dixie Rects.
CCTR
@Kieran: so true!
It would be great to see more articles about mental health/self-hate articles on Queerty. Many of the negative comments that are posted show how many Queerty readers are dealing with such issues.
Thanks to Queerty, Attitude and Robbie. This is an example of why it is still relevant and important when famous people decide to come out publicly.
NG22
@CCTR: That was well written.
Merv
I suspect most of the mental health issues come from the religion he refuses to abandon.
Jenny
LOL @ ”stud”
fausto3000
Wow… I am constantly amazed at what bitches some of you are. Why should he be an atheist just because he likes dudes?? God/Jesus loves fags and everyone else. It’s stupid people with no empathy that spread hate. If it so easy to do what he does why don’t you go do it?? This guy shares about his self-hate and all you got to give is more hate. Nice.
Andrew Yang
@fausto3000: I agree with you Fausto3000 that being a Christian does not have to cause a gay to have challenges about who he is. At least this is what I think you are saying. However, I also must agree with Merv. I am a Mental Health Doctor and I deal with lots of Christians, Muslims and others who hate themselves as gays, because of their religious beliefs. Even those who do not hate themselves struggle with depression and other severe mood and anxiety issues because of the rejection they feel and the need to hide who they are. Mental health and homosexuality is a reality that we must deal with and not scuff at. I read many of the various posts here, and genuinely feel sorry for the individuals writing them as they have so much hate and aggression, that they have to be negative no matter what.
fausto3000
@Andrew Yang: You are much to eloquent to be understood by most of these fine people. I do agree with most of what you are saying but would add that it is more of the interpretation of religious writing that people bend to their own purpose/agenda to hate and discriminate against others. They often ignore the main messages of most religions of love, forgiveness, and that we are all one. Leaving out religion altogether we would most likely still arrive at the same point of bigotry and hate. Humans tend to exploit others.. Look for each other’s weakness…think that we are less than or greater than one another. In this way minorities can been divided into smaller groups and subjugated. With gays it is often the closeted self-haters themselves that do most of this work of undermining our rights and self image for the benefit of empowered ruling class.
CodyJ
Robbie, your ONE strong DUDE…and a ‘TRENDSETTER” for other, younger gays who might be afraid of ‘coming out’..your a GREAT inspiration,stay STRONG,stay well,continue to SHINE,ALWAYS!!
Merv
@fausto3000: Actually, it has been shown empirically that leaving out religion makes people much more accepting of gay people. A Gallup poll in 2012 showed that of those who attend church weekly, 70% oppose SSM, while 70% those who seldom or never attend support SSM.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/159089/religion-major-factor-americans-opposed-sex-marriage.aspx
Media campaigns opposing SSM almost always focus on religious arguments. Most of the organizations opposing SSM are religious. There’s just no denying that the biggest opponent of gay people are churches and religious organizations and individuals. A gay person trying to maintain an attachment to and respect for religion is going to inevitably experience internal conflict that a secular person would not.
fausto3000
@Merv: Fascinating. So what your saying is… Self haters are less likely to marry themselves because they hate themselves?? …. sarcastically pointing out that you are off topic. We are talking internal struggles with self hate not marriage here right? There are religious people who are out and proud gays and not secret closeted. You are not going to eliminate religion from the world so it might be better to emphases the peace love and acceptance message. It would be helpful in the vast array of situation in the world where people want to dehumanize, abuse, and kill others who are different than themselves.
isafakir
it’s a very difficult issue. in fact the christian churches performed same sex unions in church for the first 1400 years of christianity. rabid homophobia was introduced into christianity by the Spanish Inquisition because it was the easiest accusation against crypto-Muslims after their wholesale expulsion in 1492. between 1500 and 1700 the Spanish Inquisition’s records show about 100 million two spirit first nations people children mothers fathers burnt alive in central and south america. it was british and french colonial administrations which brought homophobic legislation to africa the middle east and south asia. The Ottoman State totally decriminalized sam sex orientation around 1860, more than 150 years ago. Early in Islamic history experts on jurisprudence ruled that same sex orientation was a congenital psychological condition and not punishable. Punishments were legislated for abuse of same sex oriented people. In places like Oman and the Arab Gulf same sex unions were a cultural norm, not sanctioned by religious authorities but as a part of traditional counter culture, like gypsy cabs in NYC, i.e. not lawful but not ordinarily prosecuted. just read all the arab turkish farsi erotic literature even famous spiritual classics, or the ubiquitous “coffee boy” culture [boys raised as coffee servers in divans, educated groomed and trained.].
most of what we know today as religious homophobia is relatively recent in origin.
take for example, passages of Leviticus translated as using “mankind” as a wife. Now who or what is mankind. The Hebrew clearly unambiguously says a man of wealth using a male person of inferior status without wealth or power. two totally separate unrelated words, one meaning a landowner and the other referring to property. 6 or 7 millenium later god knows what Leviticus means but what it does not man is same sex love. The fact is the English translations make less sense than the Hebrew which makes no sense at all, being idiomatically unique to those passages. It is only homophobic ideology that squeezes “homosexuality” out of it. Jesus’s only reference to the matter says some people are born that way and some people are that way for god’s sake. Acts shows one of the very first Christians was the “chief eunuch” of Ethiopia returning from Pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem.
Most cultures through most of history gave prominent or at the very least tolerant place to same sx orientd people. watch the movie, Little Big Man, if you want to seen example how gay was very normal in American first nations culture. The captain of the national team of Samoa is another example, officially not a male, but masculine gay. Samoan language includes several other sexes besides male and female. the captain of the Samoan side was the “male2male” sex [the other sex term is “female” or “guy who is girl”].
Our homophobic enemies literally lie about the history of sexuality wholesale. Lincoln on cold lonely nights usually slept not with his wife but with his military escort. Before he became president, POTUS, the love of his life for decades was another country lawyer. Several of our ‘Founding Fathers” were sisters. As is clearly indicated by the letters not burnt by archivists in the 19th Century.
So Robbie Rogers deserves all the support he can get. He is courageous. We all owe him.
Some very good research shows that people who are openly homophobic are driven by self loathing and self doubt. Fear of being gay.
isafakir
typo: ” god knows what Leviticus means but what it does not mean is same sex love.”