Being gay in a ‘macho’ sport: ‘You put on a mask to try to fit in’

In 2012, Orlando “The Phenomenon” Cruz was 31 years old. He had a backpack full of relationships with women, fear and uncertainty weighing on his shoulders. That year, he decided to change his life. He didn’t know if it was for better or worse. No one before him had done what he was planning to do while actively competing in a “macho, tough guy’s” sport.

Cruz was ranked No. 4 among featherweights by the World Boxing Organization (WBO) when he publicly came out as gay: “I had been living a lie for years, a life that didn’t belong to me,” he told EL PAÍS. Raised in one of Puerto Rico’s poorest neighborhoods, Cruz represented his country at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and pursued a career in the ring until 2019. Since his leap into the void, he has become one of the main symbols of the LGBTQ+ community in Latin America.

A similar situation occurred in Spain for one of the most recognizable faces in the sport of water polo. In 2016, Víctor Gutiérrez became the first athlete on the elite Spanish team to publicly acknowledge his sexual orientation. “I decided that I had to share my story to become the role model I never had. I wanted to be for someone what no one was for me,” he explains. Today, he’s the secretary of LGBTQ+ policies for the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) and a deputy in Congress. However, during his adolescence, his response to his identity involved “a lot of fear” and “self-rejection.” According to Anna Vilanova, a sports sociologist and co-author of a study on the subject, this is very common, especially among athletes who grow up under the yoke of sporting disciplines that have “a very marked hegemonic masculinity.”

“I tried to distance myself as much as possible from any trait, gesture, or mannerism that would identify me with what people have in their minds as a homosexual,” Gutiérrez explains. “Since you’re little, you hear ‘don’t throw like a faggot’ every day, so you put on a mask and try to fit in with what they expect of you.”

According to José María River, the founder of Spain’s first LGBTQ+ soccer team, after having been part of teams with predominantly heterosexual players, when you’re in the day-to-day life of a locker room, “you take these comments as something natural.” However, Vilanova warns that this language has a clear impact on athletes: “It’s not a way of speaking; it puts [LGBTQ+] people in a position of inferiority and weakness, making them think: ‘If that’s bad, I don’t want to be that.’”

In the sports arena (although not in the personal arena) this problem isn’t as serious for men who play historically feminized sports, since “society assumes they are [gay].”

“For example,” Vilanova clarifies, “traditional gender roles mean that this situation is different for a man who does figure skating or synchronized swimming.”

This social construct, in turn, translates into a notable difference in the types of sporting activities practiced by each gender, depending on whether these activities are perceived as being “for men” or “for women.” Thus, in the latest Survey of Sports Habits in Spain (2022), published by the Ministry of Culture and Sport, 23.8% of men reported playing 11-a-side soccer or seven-a-side soccer, compared to 3.8% of women. In contrast, activities involving music — such as light gymnastics — attracted 41.5% of women, compared to 13.3% of men.

In any field, making your sexuality public when it isn’t the norm requires time and an arduous process. Vilanova breaks this down into three phases: “The discovery phase, the acceptance phase and the going-public phase.” As she explains, in the case of athletes raised in a high-performance environment with a marked heteronormativity, catharsis often comes after adolescence, when they begin to move into other environments.

“It was with the passage of time and going to university that I saw that there are homosexual people and that it is possible to talk openly about it. I began to embrace myself and to understand that there is nothing wrong with me,” Víctor Gutiérrez recalls.

A Leap into the Void

However, the period of going from self-acceptance to coming out is one of the most difficult paths to navigate. “Generally, this is because of the catastrophic scenarios the athlete imagines in their head,” Vilanova argues. “In the end, you could be putting your livelihood and your job at risk,” Gutiérrez confirms. However, the study conducted by the sociologist — LGTBIQA+, Mental Health and the Sporting Context: A Systematic Review — concludes that most high-level athletes who come out receive a positive reaction from their sports environment. This was certainly the case for Gutiérrez, but also for Orlando Cruz: “I thought [everyone] would be against me, but it turned out to be the other way around. Obviously, it was difficult… but we’re in the 21st century and there’s more open-mindedness. The boxing world supported me,” he tells EL PAÍS from Florida, where he currently resides with his husband.

However, José María River experienced a radically different situation in the world of amateur soccer. At the age of 17 — given his open and casual nature — he decided to tell his teammates (who were also his close friends at the time) that he was bisexual. “At first, they took it well, but then they started to exclude me. I started hearing certain comments, being left alone during drills…” Faced with this new situation, he decided to quit soccer.

“It was a very hard blow, because at that age, you don’t understand these things,” he laments. “For me, Monday to Sunday was all soccer, soccer, soccer. And that life suddenly changes. I even thought I shouldn’t have said anything,” he admits.

Although it’s to a lesser extent than a few decades ago, the violence suffered by the LGBTQ+ community is still noticeable. According to data from Spain’s Ministry of the Interior, 68.6% of hate crimes that occurred in the Western European country in 2024 were related to the victims’ sexual orientation and gender identity. “The first time I was called a ‘faggot’ was when I was eight… and the last time was yesterday, in response to a tweet I posted,” Víctor Gutiérrez sighs.

José María River also frequently receives homophobic insults on social media: “Comments like: ‘You’re faggots,’ ‘You should all be killed,’ ‘You should stop existing...’” Still, despite everything, he values his decision to speak out, as it allowed him to be himself. And it became the seed of everything that came years later: the 2020 founding of Rinos F.C., the first LGBTQ+ soccer team in Spain, and, with it, the creation of a “safe space.”

“Soccer clubs consider LGBTQ+ visibility to be a political issue”

Along with other media-focused sports, such as basketball and tennis, men’s soccer is one of the disciplines in which being gay or bi is given the least visibility. “Ultimately, the players represent clubs that are international brands and have to sell worldwide. They don’t get involved in religious or political issues… and, unfortunately, they consider LGBTQ+ visibility to be a political issue,” Gutiérrez notes. This results in a lack of role models, which, according to Vilanova, is one of the main reasons why few active professional soccer players have recently come forward. “When I said I was gay, the only role model I had in the sports world was soccer player Justin Fashanu, who came out in 1990 and committed suicide in 1998,” Gutiérrez points out. However, in recent years, this trend has begun to shift, especially in competitive sports that don’t receive as much media attention. “There’s starting to be a change, a creation of new masculinities. If you search online, you’ll find these role models,” Vilanova notes.

Orlando Cruz — who is frequently thanked by gay men for his courage — agrees on the need to take a step forward: “We have to have more courage. We have to say, ‘This is what I am, so what? It’s my life, so what?’” However, Gutiérrez warns that the responsibility shouldn’t be placed on the athletes’ shoulders: “Oftentimes, the focus is placed on athletes when it’s really the federations, the clubs and the politicians who have to oil the machinery so that we, naturally, feel supported when it’s time to take this step,” he maintains.

To achieve this, there’s still a long way to go. José María River can’t count the times when sports institutions or political bodies have reached out to support his inclusive project, only to subsequently back out. Amateur teams have retracted offers of affiliation, while professional clubs have cancelled awareness-raising events.

“It’s the trend we constantly face,” River asserts. “You realize that, when it comes down to it, they always back down. They don’t want trouble.”

Therefore, according to Gutiérrez, the rising number of LGBTQ+ role models in sports “must be backed by institutional support, by prior education in clubs, by preventive policies [and] by disciplinary policies.”

“It’s not bad to love,” Orland Cruz concludes. “It’s not bad to desire.”

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