I began playing baseball when I was fourteen, very late for a sport that most kids start playing in Little League. With zero experience and less than zero athletic ability, I was pretty terrible at first. But I practiced and persevered, getting a lot better and eventually becoming a starter on my high school team.
As I struggled on the field, I also struggled with my sexual orientation. I always knew I had crushes on other boys, but I hesitated at first to label myself, hoping I might become attracted to girls, too. When that didn’t happen (despite my best efforts!), I finally accepted that I was gay and came out to my family. However, I remained closeted to my peers. This was in large part because baseball was so important to me. I craved my teammates’ acceptance and respect, and it couldn’t have been clearer that these would never be extended to anyone other than a cisgender, heterosexual man. I had a female teammate, and the way she was treated—frequently mocked, never included, never taken seriously as a player—was only more evidence of the team’s exclusionary culture.
Because nobody knew I was gay, I was not a target of direct homophobia, but crude comments about sex, invasive questions about which girls I liked, and frequent homophobic and misogynistic jokes defined a social environment in which it felt unwise and unsafe to come out. I’d worked too hard to earn what little skill and acceptance I had; I wasn’t going to risk losing it.
Considering where and when I grew up, I can sometimes hardly believe that I felt such a need to be in the closet. It was the San Francisco Bay Area during the Obama years—all things considered, an extraordinarily safe and welcoming place and time to be queer. The fact that the Bay Area was, and still is, such a queer haven makes it easy to forget about the challenges the local LGBTQ+ community was facing at the time. When I was a freshman in high school, California voters approved Proposition 8, amending the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Marriage equality wasn’t legalized in California until 2013, the year after I graduated. Sure, I wasn’t surrounded by Prop 8 evangelists in San Francisco. But because I was on a boys’ sports team, I existed in a weird, primitive bubble within a progressive sea. If you asked my teammates—whose parents were stalwart Democrats—if they were in favor of legalizing gay marriage, I’m sure they would’ve said yes. And yet, once they stepped onto the field, everything they did and said made me feel unwelcome as a gay person. My teammates either didn’t see or didn’t care about the contradiction between their ostensible political beliefs and their casually homophobic behavior.
Have things gotten better for queer athletes since I was in high school?
Yes and no; it depends on the context. It may be true that queer cisgender female athletes are more readily accepted in certain sports and in certain places. On the other hand, things are particularly hard for transgender athletes, not just in red states but in blue ones like New York, where, for example, Nassau County banned trans athletes from using facilities that align with their gender identity. And you don’t have to dig too deep to find proof of persistent homophobia in historically men’s sports like football, hockey, and baseball—especially at the professional level. This is evidenced by the extremely low number of male professional athletes who have come out. To take baseball as an example, to this day, there has never been a Major League Baseball player who, during his playing career, has publicly admitted that he’s anything but a straight, cisgender man. There have been a few major leaguers, like Glenn Burke, who have come out after retiring, and there have been several minor leaguers who have come out while playing, but never an active MLB player. This sad fact—along with many MLB players’ continued, outspoken hostility to wearing rainbow logos on their uniforms for Pride Night—speaks to an environment wherein LGTBQ+ players still feel they need to hide.
If male sports culture is going to change, I think it’s going to change from the bottom up. In April of this year, I did a book event at my high school and was fortunate to meet a current captain of the baseball team. I asked if today’s team is a better place for queer kids than it was when I was on it. He replied that he and his fellow captains have consciously tried to make the team a more welcoming environment than it was under the previous captains, who were, as he said, “toxic.” A few days later, a mom from my hometown reached out to me on Instagram to ask what she can do to help her son—who’s just starting to play competitive baseball—steer clear of the “bro culture” that’s so deeply suffused with sexism and homophobia. We got coffee and I told her that, by fostering awareness and empathy in her son, she’s already doing the most important things. I can’t be sure to what extent these two small interactions represent larger trends, but they made me feel optimistic.
My debut graphic novel Out of Left Field is based on my high school experiences. Writing this story helped me unpack powerful memories and emotions and to identify the “moral” of my story: That you should be your authentic self no matter what others might think. Had I been brave enough to be out in high school, I wouldn’t have poured so much emotional energy into pretending to be someone I wasn’t. I wouldn’t have wasted so much time pursuing the approbation of toxic dudes whose opinion didn’t matter. I would’ve been, I’m almost sure, a lot happier. Of course, being authentic is easier said than done, especially when you’re in high school and nothing feels more important than others’ opinions of you. But I hope my story will inspire others, especially teens, to be more genuine. We all deserve honesty and to be and love our true, full, and unique selves.
Jonah Newman is an author, illustrator, and editor. His debut book, Out of Left Field, was published by Andrews McMeel in 2024. As an editor at Graphix, Scholastic’s graphic novel imprint, Jonah has worked with Dav Pilkey, Jamar Nicholas, Angeli Rafer, and many others. When he’s not creating, editing, or reading graphic novels, Jonah enjoys playing in an LGBTQ+ softball league and getting way too invested in his fantasy baseball team. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his husband (who’s a human) and two kids (who are cats).
Discussion1 Comment
Well done, Jonah! “I existed in a weird, primitive bubble in a progressive sea.” Great image. I enjoyed reading about your sports experience, especially the impact of your story on others.