gay in play

Soccer stud Jake Williamson reflects on coming out and becoming the gay role model he never had

 

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Jake Williamson, a former semi-pro soccer player from the U.K., has opened up about homophobia experienced on the field, both in the form of homophobic chants from soccer fans in the stands and rejection from some of his own team members after he came out.

The 22-year-old has since emerged as a vocal advocate for the right of LGBTQ+ athletes to play as their authentic selves on-field. In a recent interview with Pink News, he said that some of his teammates in a Birmingham weekend league weren’t supportive when he first told them he was gay.

“I was completely shut out of the team,” Williamson said. “It’s bad enough that, in the society we live in, we get made to feel like we’re the worst thing on earth sometimes – so it’s not nice when your own football team just cuts you off.

He told the publication that the experience made him feel like he needed to continue playing and address the issue head-on rather than feeling sad about it.

“It’s bad enough that, in the society we live in, we get made to feel like we’re the worst thing on earth sometimes, so it’s not nice when your own football team just cuts you off,” he explains. “It didn’t stop me playing football but it was something that made me say: ‘Right, I need to address this rather than be sad about it.’”

In a mid-January podcast by the pro-LGBTQ+ sports organization Football v Homophobia, the podcast’s host, Jon Holmes, asked Williamson about homophobic fans chanting “Chelsea rent boy” during a January 1 match between Nottingham Forest and Chelsea, two teams in England’s Premier pro-soccer league. Both teams condemned the chant, which basically called the Chelsea team a bunch of gay sex workers.

“I was so in denial at the point when I was younger – aged 16 to 18 – that [such chants] didn’t necessarily affect me too much,” Williamson recently said.

While homophobic chants have been used by fans internationally to distract and demoralize their opponents’ teammates, he says their effect goes far beyond that.

“Looking back, you realize how much those chants and the terminology being used really does put you further into the closet effectively. It makes you feel that you don’t fit into society and community as a whole,” Williamson added. “You go even further into yourself and you don’t feel like you can come out because of what’s being said and what people are chanting, with a herd mentality.”

“[The chants are] implying that homosexuality is something to be ashamed of, which a lot of us have felt and do feel some of the time when we hear these chants,” he added.

In December 2021, Williamson told the BBC LGBT Sport Podcast that he was always aware of his same-sex attraction, but that he was in “absolute denial for years,” noting, “You push it so far to the back of your mind that you never act on any sort of urges, obviously, because you personally don’t think it’s okay.”

He also said at the time that he didn’t think it was possible to be an out gay pro-sports athlete because he didn’t see any others — something that they’re extremely rare — not even on his university team or youth leagues.

“It says a lot about role models and feeling accepted in a community when there isn’t really a community to be part of,” he said. This lack of community makes many gay male athletes wait until retirement to come out, he added.

Williamson, who now works as a personal trainer, said he didn’t feel encouraged to come out until he met his current partner, Paul, who helped him understand that anyone who didn’t accept him for being gay didn’t deserve to be a part of his life.

He began coming out to his friends and on social media after meeting Paul. Since his experience on the Birmingham team, he has used his social media to highlight the right for LGBTQ+ athletes to play on-field as their authentic selves. He has also started volunteering for the U.K. LGBTQ+ sports charity Stonewall as a sports ambassador.

Since coming out, he says numerous people have written him emails thanking him and sharing their own stories of being closeted or coming out on their teams.

“The amount of messages I’ve had, the amount of people who’ve taken part in Q&As on Instagram, it is making a difference,” he told PinkNews.

Scroll down for more pics from Williamson’s Instagram page…

 

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A post shared by Jake Williamson (@jake_williamsonpt)

 

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A post shared by Jake Williamson (@jake_williamsonpt)

 

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A post shared by Jake Williamson (@jake_williamsonpt)

 

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A post shared by Jake Williamson (@jake_williamsonpt)

 

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A post shared by Jake Williamson (@jake_williamsonpt)

 

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A post shared by Jake Williamson (@jake_williamsonpt)

 

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A post shared by Jake Williamson (@jake_williamsonpt)

 

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A post shared by Jake Williamson (@jake_williamsonpt)

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