Out Team GB Olympian Tom Bosworth Is Disappointed That Coming Out Is “Still News”

One day, he hopes "people [won't] have to come out publicly, people can just live openly."
From: NewNowNext

 Professional race walker Tom Bosworth made history in an interview on the Victoria Derbyshire show last October, when he became the first British track and field athlete to come out as gay.

The 26-year-old athlete told Attitude at the time that he came out because he knew the media would eventually discover his sexuality, and that he didn’t want the information to be used as some kind of sensational tabloid fodder.

Now that he’s qualified for Team GB at next month’s Rio Olympics, Bosworth is holding the same sentiment in a new interview with the BBC.

“It was a great reaction, I was expecting even just a little bit of slight negativity straight away afterwards, because, you know, not everyone sees the world through my eyes,” he said, noting that the only negative responses he heard were along the lines of ’this isn’t a story, why do we care?’

“That didn’t bother me one bit,” he responded. “That’s exactly how I wanted people to feel.”

Though he’s disappointed that coming out is “still news” and lives for the day when “it won’t be a thing in which people have to come out publicly, people can just live openly,” he understands the responsibility he now carries as an openly gay public figure.

Said Tom: “Whether I can support and help one person or 100 people, that is a job for me now, and that for me personally, not everyone might think like that and that’s absolutely fine, but what I did that last October, I now have to deal with the consequences – and all of them have been positive.”

If you’re in the UK, you can watch the full interview at bbc.co.uk.