Gay&Night Januari 2014
In dit nieuwe nummer een interview met Jared Leto, de Pink Planner met de belangrijkste 'roze' events van het komende jaar, interviews met Olympisch schaatser Blake Skjellerup, Britney Spears, Paul Haenen, de ouders van Matthew Shepard en nog véél meer! In dit nieuwe nummer een interview met Jared Leto, de Pink Planner met de belangrijkste 'roze' events van het komende jaar, interviews met Olympisch schaatser Blake Skjellerup, Britney Spears, Paul Haenen, de ouders van Matthew Shepard en nog véél meer!
18 “My sport was not considered masculine and that singled me out as the gay kid”
Interview / Blake Skjellerup During the World Cup in Kolomna, Russia in November, you met up with several Russian gay activists. How did they inspire you, or give you an extra push, to take a stand in Sochi? The people I met with in Russia in November helped me understand the full affect the newly introduced laws are having on the LGBT community in Russia. Violence is a very real and occurring threat. These people are scared, and are living a life that is threatened on the basis of love and personal expression. That is not a life to live, and one I would never wish upon anyone. Meeting with them, and understanding only inspires me more to speak out, and do my best to highlight and educate about what an unthreatening and loving community we are. Have you received any support from fellow gay athletes? I have yes. Unfortunately, the world of sport for some is still a place where they feel unable to come out. I know this is a real situation for many athletes in sport right now. I am lucky I am in a sport where my sexuality was accepted and offered no discrimination. I am happy that I can offer support to them and aid them in being the best athletes they can be, besides feeling unsafe to be open in their sport. By being an open athlete competing in the Olympics, you’ll inevitably be a role model for many teens, some of whom might be struggling with their own coming out. What were your own teenage years like, especially concerning your own homosexuality? My teenage years were very hard. I struggled with accepting my sexuality, and the main percentage of that came from being bullied in high school. My peers imposed on me a self-hatred of who I was. My sport was not considered ‘masculine’, and that singled me out as the gay kid. I hadn’t even accepted my sexuality or even understood or knew I was gay when I was being called ‘homo’, ‘faggot’ et cetera on a daily basis. This led me to fight against who I really was, and led me to believe I could not be in sport. It led me into a depression over many years, and the one thing I held onto was the dream of competing in an Olympic Games. The Olympics helped me through the toughest time in my life, many times over, by being a beacon of hope, and giving me the strength to know that my peers were wrong. Yes I was gay, but it was not their place to impose or bully me because I was different. I was a good athlete, and they felt threatened by that. They used my differences against me for their own personal bravado. Who are your own role models? Growing up I always idolized New Zealand rugby players. Richie McCaw led New Zealand to a successful World Cup win in 2011. With the weight of a nation he pulled together 15 men to achieve something that had eluded New Zealand for many years. British actor Stephen Fry has compared the Sochi games to the Berlin Olympics of 1936, suggesting that president Putin is not unlike Hitler. Would you agree with that? I wouldn’t agree with that. What Hitler did is incomparable to the anti-gay propaganda laws of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Vladimir Putin is neither a murderer nor a fascist, Hitler was. Putin is dictating his own set of oppressive laws to define the society of his ‘ideal’ Russia. It is not illegal to be gay in Russia, it is however illegal to be expressive of one’s nontraditional sexuality, that isn’t fascism, that’s dictatorship and oppression. Many have suggested a boycott of the entire games to show Putin that his recent anti gay laws are very much frowned upon by the rest of the world. Would you say a boycott is a valid solution? I definitely would not say that a boycott would be a valid solution. Not showing up in Sochi gives validation to Putin that we feel threatened. We are not threatened, nor will we allow him to impose his archaic laws on an organization and event that embodies all of the exact opposite of his antigay propaganda laws. The Olympics are about peace, friendship, diversity and education, and by taking place in a country that is clearly uneducated offers the opportunity to educate those said values. If you don’t get to compete at the Winter Olympics in February, do you still intend to visit them and show your support for Russian LGBT’s? Most definitely. I will not shy away from this issue. The Olympics are important to me, and I as an Olympian believe in championing the values of Olympism. Not just for me, but for my fellow Olympians, the youth of the world, and for the community of Russia. With such a busy training schedule, do you have any time left for a personal life, or even a love life? My commitment to my training is 100%. My sport does not offer the ability to be distracted. As I go at it alone with no support from my country, I have to work that much harder to remain competitive with my competitors. In saying that, of course I find time to relax, it’s as important to relax as it is to be focused, they each have a role to play, and each are important at different times in the day, week and year. 19
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18<br />
“My sport<br />
was not<br />
considered<br />
masculine<br />
and that<br />
singled me<br />
out as the<br />
gay kid”
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