Don’t be pedantic. He contrasted boys with girls, not boys with men.
When you are 20, you CAN NOT say you like "boys." You just can't. You are in college ... you can not say you like boys. There are no boys in college. Boys are in high school and in middle school.
So when an adult female mentions her boyfriend, do you assume that she is dating a child?
I'm happy for Nico and think it must be a big weight off his shoulder. That being said. I do have one quibble with tpart of his statement.
This is a quality of myself as well as so many other people that should be accepted and celebrated just the same as a straight person’s identity is.
Why does he talk about a straight person's sexual orientation being celebrated? Is being heterosexual ever celebrated? No it's not. No ever puts a "straight" flag on their front porch. The closet being straight comes to being celebrated is maybe a baby shower but you can have a baby shower for a gay couple as well.
There is no straight equivalent of PFLAG - Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbian and Gays. So being straight isn't celebrated.
Being straight is celebrated at weddings. Yes, gay couples can get married now in a small number of countries (but not most), but that’s a relatively recent and still contested development.
Proud of Nico. Doing this is never easy. I wish I had a role model like him when I was growing up and suppressing my personality/sexuality and living in fear of rejection and shame. His post reaches so many closeted athletes/runners and now they gain the courage to live authentically because of what he did by being vulnerable and transparent. It’s very admirable and it takes guts to speak up when so many want to silence you.
114
17
Promoting Excellence in Running, Integrity of Character, Clarity of Mind, Sublime Humor.
I think it's great that Nico has chosen to share this part of himself so publicly. Like someone else said, when I was in high school, the only openly gay male distance runner I knew of was Matt Llano. I came out to my teammates a few years into college and afterwards pretty quickly learned of a dozen-plus other gay/bi teammates or high-level competitors on other teams — I'm talking All-Americans and NCAA champions — who were all varying levels of out of the closet. It would have been comforting to know about some of these people when I was still closeted and feeling my most isolated. For someone like Nico, who has a following of several tens of thousands (many of whom are young high school kids), to publicly share this is really great! Representation matters, which is something that people who regularly see themselves reflected in their role models don't seem to realize.
I met Nico in California, asked to take a picture, and he was more than happy to. We talked about his race and his PR, and he couldn’t have been nicer. A great young man who has a great future ahead of him.
I will not be making any comments in this thread because the mods would surely ban me again. During the summer they have brought on a new level of unfunness to LRC that is hard to imagine. It’s a shame, since the potential of using Flag in this thread in humorous ways seem quite lengthy.
I agree, the site is a lot less fun since the moderators began throwing out posts willy-nilly. I don’t know what the criteria is for an acceptable post, and anytime I ask the post gets removed. Not sure why that keeps happening either.
I'm happy for Nico and think it must be a big weight off his shoulder. That being said. I do have one quibble with tpart of his statement.
This is a quality of myself as well as so many other people that should be accepted and celebrated just the same as a straight person’s identity is.
Why does he talk about a straight person's sexual orientation being celebrated? Is being heterosexual ever celebrated? No it's not. No ever puts a "straight" flag on their front porch. The closet being straight comes to being celebrated is maybe a baby shower but you can have a baby shower for a gay couple as well.
There is no straight equivalent of PFLAG - Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbian and Gays. So being straight isn't celebrated.
I agree. I am not required to accept or celebrate his sexuality. And I don’t. Really it is none of my business. He makes it my business because he comments about it publicly.