Ben Cohen and Hudson Taylor: Two Straight Athletes with Balls

Ben Cohen, Hudson Taylor

Last Friday, the New York Times had a fascinating profile of two straight athletes, English Rugby star Ben Cohen and former college wrestler Hudson Taylor, who have definitely done the unexpected:

They've both taken a major stand against anti-GLBT bigotry, specifically for equality and support in the world of men's athletics.

In a world where no active American athletes in a major male team sport has declared his homosexuality, it remains rare for athletes to chime in on the issue of gay rights. Recent exceptions, beyond [Sean] Avery [who recently endorsed same-sex marriage], include Grant Hill and Jared Dudley of the Phoenix Suns, who recorded a public-service announcement decrying gay slurs in sports.

Cohen and Taylor are going much further.

Cohen, 32, just retired from a rugby career that included a World Cup title for England in 2003 and more than a decade with the Northampton Saints. Despite being married with 3 ½-year-old twin daughters, he has long had a huge following among gay fans.

“They probably see me as a sex object, I suppose,” he said. His shirtless photographs have done little to squelch his popularity.

The initial gay interest in him — admittedly as a sex object — inspired Cohen to speak out in favor of GLBT rights. As a result of that, he started hearing from grateful GLBT people, who started sharing their stories with him.

His eyes were opened, and an activist was born. Through May 31st, Cohen is touring the U.S. on the Ben Cohen Acceptance Tour, doing interviews and benefits, and raising awareness of GLBT issues, especially in sports.

And this is just the start of his work on this issue. On his blog, he recently announced his retirement from rugby and his decision to officially launch the Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation, to which he will devote the next phase of his life.

Taylor, Cohen

Taylor, meanwhile, is the guy who made headlines a few years ago as a college wrestler, wearing a sticker for the gay Human Rights Campaign on his headgear.

In college, he said, he was struck by the disparity in how gay students in his theater classes were so warmly accepted and how easily gay slurs were tossed around the wrestling mats. ...

Earlier this year, he launched Athlete Ally, asking athletes of all ages to sign a pledge to help end homophobia in sports. Several thousand have made the pledge. Taylor suspended plans for law school and spends much of his time speaking at schools, mostly colleges. ...

Taylor said that heterosexual athletes rarely get involved in the issue because they do not see how it affects them. He called it a “chicken-or-egg problem.” Most male professional athletes, as far as they know, do not have gay teammates. And people are less likely to fight for a cause when they do not have personal connections to it.

Of course, we all like to believe that all our voices are equally important in society, and that what matters most is the message, not the messenger.

But let's cut the crap, shall we? GLBT people can talk till we're blue in the face, but there's always going to be a faction of people who will never hear our plea for tolerance and understanding. And — for whatever reason — they're often the folks who most need to hear it: straight guys, especially straight athletes.

It seems to me to that Cohen and Taylor (like Avan Jogia, who founded Straight But Not Narrow and who we profiled last month) are doing something incredibly important here — something we GLBT people could literally never do on our own: they're talking directly to other straight men as peers and (maybe even more importantly) they're making it okay for other straight guys to stand up too, without being worried that people will think they're gay.

Let's face it: Cohen and Taylor don't have to do this. This isn't "their" issue. And they're taking real risks: the article alludes to rumors that both must obviously be gay.

They're not. They're just two straight guys with serious balls.

Read the article.