"He spent his teenage years, he said, trying to reconcile his sexuality with those expectations. "As a young teenager, I carried a weight that did not seem to fit into that world, and I lived in a constant state of dichotomy. I loved the game, but I lived with a persistent fear. I wondered how I could be gay and still play such a tough and masculine sport.""
""I spent every week in a locker room with guys I respected, yet I still did not feel safe enough to tell them who I truly was. Even when the conversation turned to wives, families, or dating, I would quickly change the subject. If it came down to it, I would just tell them I was single, even when I was seeing someone.""
Jesse Korteum grew up in Minnesota as the youngest of four brothers where sports and competition defined identity. He struggled during adolescence to reconcile his sexuality with expectations in a masculine hockey environment and lived with fear and dichotomy about being gay in the sport. Coming out in the 2000s felt impossible due to limited positive representation and high-school social risk, prompting him to leave his high school team at 17. Years later he resumed playing at high levels in New York and Atlanta but still concealed his identity in locker rooms and social conversations until recently sharing his story.
Read at LGBTQ Nation
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]