Venezuelan Olympic diver comes out as gay

“I understood that this was and would be my truth forever, and my own self-acceptance was only in my hands,” he continues to write. “Yet even as I found those answers, I worried about how my family would feel. What would my brothers say? How would my friends react? Or people out there watching me from the stands?”

“Many times we as gay men, fearing who we really are, find a girlfriend to make our family believe that we are what they call a ’real man,'” Páez continues. “I wish I could show other gay men that we are not deceiving anyone, but we are cheating ourselves of being faithful to who we are as people.”

Paez came out to his mother when he was 18, just before heading off to compete in the 2012 London Olympics. He writes that “although she cried, and it hurt a little bit, in the end, she took it very well.”

He finishes his essay by writing: “Accepting ourselves and respecting ourselves are big first steps. Life is too beautiful to be hidden in a closet.”

Tim Gibson - mygwork

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