The Queerties were announced recently at a star-studded party on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip, and among the honorees were two out athletes and a film that featured an appearance by soccer’s last gay American man.
Favorite Follow honors fell to Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy, who is an outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ community and super active on Twitter and Instagram. But it was his kiss with his boyfriend Matt Wilkas live on TV that turned heads during the Winter Games. We called it “the gay sports moment of 2018.”
Jake Bain is an out college football player from Missouri, attending Indiana State as a freshman, who just happened to be a guest on Ellen in January. He won the Up & Coming award, after ignoring Westboro Baptist Church protesters who demonstrated against him and boyfriend sweetheart Hunter Sigmund when they attended prom together in 2018.
If you saw Greg Burlanti’s Love, Simon, no doubt you also saw retired soccer star Robbie Rogers, who made a brief appearance in the film. The rom-com won the “Blockbuster” award. Berlanti wrote, directed and produced Love , Simon. Rogers played four seasons in the MLS after coming out as gay. He also won the MLS cup.
His retirement in 2017 left U.S. soccer without a single out gay man competing, until Collin Martin of Minnesota United came out in July 2018. Although Martin was known to be out when he played four seasons for D.C. United, he is now believed to be the only openly gay athlete in any of men’s Big Five sports.
Click here to view the entire list of winners chosen by readers after more than 900,000 votes were cast.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated to include mention of Collin Martin, and again to correct the spelling of Hunter Sigmund’s name. We regret the error.
