Seems like every gay athlete has a book these days. Just released: Inside Out: Straight Talk from a Gay Jock by Mark Tewksbury.

From the Amazon.ca write-up:

This could be an interesting book. Has anyone ever "outed" the written about in this 1998 article? Isn't Calgary in a relatively conservative CN province?

I think I will pick this up on Saturday at Chapters, should be an interesting read.

I will probably pick this one up too.....thanks for the heads up

Swim...you're in Toronto? Cool....

Well I bought it and read it cover to cover. Interesting story. Mark deals with being in the closet, the pressures of being an elite athlete, struggling to come to terms with being gay and wanting to come out, being pushed back in the closet by sponsors and sport officials, the business and politics of amateur sports,family dynamics, finally coming out, internalized homophobia of closeted gay men, dealing with the media, the IOC and ends with the whole Gay Games / Outgames story.

I'll be reading Tewksbury's book too! I've always admired Mark, not only as a great athlete, speaker, and his willingness to come out of the closet, but for his condemnation of the politics, greed and corruption in the Olympics' inner circles...I still recall his criticism of Juan Antonio Samaranch's arm-twisting to ensure China's victory in securing the 2008 Games which Mark correctly called a 'pre-determined outcome'.


Yes, that's true Sportinlife, although compared to many, if not most US states, Alberta would be considered liberal. It really isn't bad at all for gays in the largest cities of Calgary and Edmonton. Even in rural Alberta, the times they are a-changin'...after all a certain film, which has a gazillion posts on another thread, was filmed here with little or no backlash. As I posted elsewhere, 'Brokeback Mountain' tours are being promoted here. And gay marriage is perfectly legal here now; even some conservatives have dropped their opposition to it. Also, it shouldn't be assumed that the 60% of Albertans who voted for the Conservative party are necessarily anti-gay; a great many of them were simply fed up with the Liberals for a variety of reasons.

Excerpt from the article posted by Sportinlife:

But it was no laughing matter to grow up gay in Calgary, which Tewksbury described as "not the most diverse of cities in the country," although he refused to be baited into describing it as redneck. "The voice inside my head for years was focused only on the things about me that I hate. Because I've been coming from a place of fear, of half-truths. When I was growing up, I used to stand in front of mirrors and think about killing myself because I was gay. And that's still the number one motivation behind teen suicide. That little part of me remained locked up for 30 years, and finally at 30, I am free of that. I am open to who I am. I've never felt freer, better, more whole as a human being than in the last couple of days.... My worlds are finally integrated. It's too painful to live a double life or a triple life."...

Although Calgary gays and lesbians have celebrated pride for some years, they've done it without a proclamation from the city. Tewksbury said in his televised interview, "I'm looking forward to the day gay pride is proclaimed in Calgary -- it's letting people be who they are." Mayor Al Duerr, who thinks Tewksbury is "a great guy" and says he's known for years that Tewksbury is gay, said, "The issue is very straightforward -- it doesn't fit the policy simply because it's a divisive issue within the community." The city's policy bars proclamations on controversial matters...

Keep in mind that the article was written eight years ago, and the reference to the proclamation goes back even further---1991, I believe---when then-Mayor Al Duerr did in fact proclaim Gay Pride Week but ran into some vocal critics, mostly religious-types. However, Duerr was re-elected as Mayor of Calgary the following year, which shows that most voters didn't see it as a huge issue. Since then, there have been no 'official' proclamations by the city (and frankly, I don't really have a problem with that, since other minorities don't receive proclamations either). But there is certainly still a Gay Pride week every June with plenty of events including a parade (albeit on a considerably smaller scale than Toronto), and there has been virtually no protests at all for the past several years. The current mayor (Dave Bronconnier) has been quite supportive of gay rights, without feeling the need to make any official proclamation.

Unlike Mark Tewksbury, I didn't grow up here, but have lived in Calgary for 24 years (and 'out' for most of that time) and can honestly say I've never personally experienced any discrimination as a gay man. While I won't pretend that Calgary is as 'open' as say Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver (all of which are larger cities to begin with), it's home to many diverse cultures, and far from being a redneck backwater anymore.

The best part of the book, to me, was how brutally honest Mark was about everything, including living in a three-way-relationship, drugs, and the horrible sin of Barbie dolls. There is very little in the book about swimming, so if you feared reading race after race, it won't happen. His gold medal comes early in the book. Most of the book is about his media work, olympic involvement, gay games and out games involvement. Enjoy.
Eric Anderson

Thanks Marc, for the clarification about Calgary's attittudes toward gays. I have never thought that "conservative" in Canadian meant homophobic.

But it would not surprise me if a sponsor would drop support for an openly gay athlete for being too politically active, even in Canada. Corporate culture tends to be cautious to avoid annoying any potential customer.

I've admired Tewksbury for a long time as well. Especially since his battle to get Canadian citizenship status for his Swiss partner.

I always associate Barcelona as much with Tewksbury's Olympic medal as with La Sagrada Familia.

The Montreal Mirror has an interesting interview/article on Tewksbury...talking about how he (to this day) plays with barbie dolls in the bathtub and does drag.

http://www.montrealmirror.com/2006/041306/news1.html

The threesome with the female and male swimmer is more intriguing; would have been my fantasy at one time. Now it is two guys.

That was an interesting article. I didn't realize Mark is now living in Montreal, I had assumed he was in Toronto. Even before his official coming out in '98, Mark's sexual orientation wasn't exactly a well-kept secret here in his hometown.

Yesterday morning, I was tuned into the Calgary Eye Opener (CBC Radio One's popular morning show) and caught Jim Brown's interview with Mark Tewksbury. To hear it yourself (interview runs about seven minutes), go to this page and scroll down to:

Inside Out, Straight Talk from a Gay Jock

[ April 19, 2006, 10:49 AM: Message edited by: Marc ]

Thanks Marc, it was a good interview. I would question the interviewers comment about the back cover pic. Since when is it unusual to see a pic of a swimmer without a shirt on holding his olympic medals and why should that stop a straight person from reading the book.

I'm glad you enjoyed the interview, Swiminbuff. As for the comment about straight men reading the book, I think Brown was just having some fun with Tewksbury, and at the same time poking fun at self-conscious (but not necessarily homophobic) straight males who might be nervous about being observed in public carrying the book with the back cover visible (*to clarify, "C-Train" is the local nickname for Calgary's light rail public transit system). Transcript from interview:

JB: "With that picture of you on the back, I don't really feel a lot of heterosexual men will be taking this with them on the C-Train*"

MT: (laughing) "They'll be reading this in the privacy of their own homes!"

I haven't seen the back cover of the book yet, but of course now I'm curious!

Toronto Star piece on Tewsbury's book.

A sort of bombshell from Mark Tewksbury, in what I assume is the second part of the Toronto Star article that canmark already linked. Tewksbury claims that he was part of a "small team" assisting a still-active NHL player to come out a couple years ago, but the guy backed out at the last minute (don't remember hearing any rumors of this before, but might have missed a thread). Wonder if it's the same guy as in the Page 6 item in the other thread on this topic?

Gay still not okay in sports

I think Tewksbury nails it with his list of reasons no pro hockey player has come out - obviously speaking from first-hand knowledge.

Oddly enough I think that hockey, because its players are still heavily Canadian and predominantly white, has a better chance of seeing an open active pro come out, precisely because (for a white player at least) the rejection by conservatives and homophobes in the hockey community would be more tolerable without the double-whammy of also enduring racial taunts.

And there is a built-in sophisticated community that might offer support. I doubt either would exist for a USA player or a non-white player.

The Globe and Mail did an article on Tewksbury on Wednesday, this is following the two different book reviews they already published.

In his book he talks about being closeted and hiring an "escort" in Toronto, and then seeing him more than once. He says while he was at the escorts apartment the guy took a call from "the 3rd biggest action star in the world" and that the actor was a regular customer. I'm kind of curious about who it could have been.

W.ill initials S.uffice?

Or so I was told by a man I dated a number of times who also turned out to have had a past as an escort. Given his sexual abilities, I believed him on that account, and probably on the movie star account too. When his neighbor died, I stopped seeing him.

LOL, guess I never thought of WS as an action star, I was thinking more along the lines of TC. Anyway, we will never know for sure.

Mark Tewksbury will be speaking at the Proud Voices stage at the Word on the Street book and magazine fair at Queen's Park in Toronto on Sunday.

Finally found (and read) Mark's book. Very interesting read. Too much of the Outgames stuff. I skimmed over most of it. But I learned so much from this book.