Although his coming out wasn't ideal when news broke that he was facing charges for assaulting a former boyfriend, former San Francisco 49er Kwame Harris spoke out against fellow 49er, Chris Culliver, who said he didn't believe gays had a place in the locker room, saying: "Its surprising that in 2013 Chris Culliver would use his 15 minutes to spread vitriol and hate. I recognize that these are comments that he may come to regret and that he may come to see that gay people are not so different than straight people.
Balian Buschbaum underwent sexual reassignment surgery in 2008 after retiring from pole vaulting. Buschbaum was Germany's second best female pole vaulter and competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.After his operation, Buschbaum said, "Courage is the road to freedom. I woke up in complete freedom today. The sky is wide open."
Known as much for his colorful fashion sense as his slick moves on the ice, Weir faced intense media scrutiny over his sexual orientation before finally coming out in his recently published memoirs. "With people killing themselves and being scared into the closet, I hope that even just one person can gain strength from my story," Weir said at the time. "A lot of the gays got downright angry about my silence. But pressure is the last thing that would make me want to 'join' a community."
Unfortunately, the tennis pro's 1981 outing was not her choice; she was forced out when her former female lover sued her for palimony and nearly lost all of her commercial endorsements as a result. But her career was far from over, and in 2000, she became the first open lesbian ever to coach an Olympic team.
Heather Cassils is a Canadian performance artist, body builder and personal trainer now living in Los Angeles. Unlike other artists working in more traditional mediums, Cassils uses her body to investigate issues related to gender, mass consumption and the industrial production of images, among others. Her conceptual pieces, which have been performed in museums and galleries around the world, also highlight transgender or "genderqueer" themes, like in "Cuts: A Traditional Sculpture," for which she spent 23 weeks documenting herself building her body to its maximum capacity by following a strict weightlifting regime, consuming the caloric intake of a 190-male athlete, and taking mild steroids. She also starred in Lady Gaga's "Telephone" video.Earlier this year Cassils told The Huffington Post:"If you're not going to exist as your biologically-assigned gender or you're not operating [as a transgender person] on one end of the gender spectrum, then you end up in that in between space, inviting that scrutiny... I'm trying to push or create a kind of visual language for my subjectivity -- trying to create visual options. You can tap into people's psyches and have them imagine things that they don't yet have words for. I think that's very powerful. I'm trying to create a slippery language, one -- much like my body -- that doesn't fit."
In 1995, the Olympic diving hero (who became the first man in 56 years to win two gold medals in diving when he captured the platform and the springboard events in Los Angeles 11 years earlier) shocked fans when he decided to come out as both gay and HIV-positive on The Oprah Winfrey Show. "People who were close to me -- family and friends -- they knew about my sexuality," he said in 2006. "I just did not discuss my personal life, my sexuality with the media. That was my policy."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMEf9xnfmRU
Former World No. 1 tennis player, Amelie Mauresmo, was the first openly lesbian on the WTA tour since Martina Navratilova. At only 19, the frenchwoman surged into the 1999 Australian Open finals and with much speculation about her sexuality, Mauresmo also took the opportunity to come out to the national press after she jumped into her girlfriend's arms for making the grand slam final down under. Mauresmo is a two-time grand slam singles champion, winning the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2006. She also holds an Olympic silver medal from the 2004 Athens summer games.
Kye Allums is the first openly transgender athlete to play NCAA Division I college basketball. He was a shooting guard on the George Washington University women's basketball team until he decided to no longer play.Allums is now busy speaking about his life around the country.
Esera Tuaolo, former NFL player, came out in 2002 in an interview on HBO's "Real Sports." The 6 foot 3 inch, 300 pound athlete became the third former football player to acknowledge his homosexuality after David Kopay and Roy Simmons in 1975 and 1992, respectively.
Ian Roberts is an Australian actor and former professional rugby league footballer. Roberts came out in 1995, making him the first professional Australian athlete and rugby footballer to publicly come out and continue to play in the league.
