Things changed after the first month and it wasn’t good. I had prepared myself for this horrible thing and it just wasn’t. It was very heart-warming, and yet in a strange way anticlimactic. I then said, “If you don’t get it, I’m gay.”Ī ton of people were supportive, even people I thought would not be. I admit that’s kind of cryptic, but I wanted it to be kind of funny in a way. Jake Streder (60) is an offensive lineman who also lines up on defense.
Two weeks after I came out to my parents, right after my football season had ended, I went on Snapchat and posted the gay flag emoji on my story. The rumors at school settled down for a few days but started again the next week and I decided to attack it head on. But my worries weren’t over despite having the support of my parents and sisters. We told my dad that night and he gave me a hug and said he loved me. When she saw it, she came home right away and all went well.
#HIGH SCHOOL GAY SEX STORY MOVIE#
I was so anxious hitting send I forgot that she was at a movie with friends. My sisters thought I was joking at first, but then they said, “Did you tell mom?” I said yes, but she hadn’t seen it yet. On that day, at 8:18 pm, I texted my mom and my sisters with a screenshot of a National Coming Out Day picture. Ironically, that coming Thursday was Oct. My friends were being asked, but no one had the guts to ask me yet. I was terrified someone was going to come up to me and ask the question. I knew that regardless of whether or not I was ready, I was either going to have to come out or lie to people and say I was straight. I had obviously trusted the wrong person. It was someone I had trusted with the information that I was gay and knew I was not out. I started hearing that people outside of the team heard I was gay. I was a freshman high school football player in the closet at Metea Valley High School in Aurora, Illinois, and learned that someone was going to out me. Last year as a freshman in high school, exactly two weeks before the season ended, I was faced with the reality that football might be quitting me. Beth Ebel MadiolĮvery year since first grade I wanted to quit football by the last two weeks of the season. Jake Streder (60) with his Metea Valley High School teammates. Their embrace of me was something I never expected after a year of anxiety and struggle of coming to terms with being gay. I am not the gay guy - I’m just a football player. It was worth it to get to this point with my teammates that I was just one of the guys. Soon it was the whole team and I felt all the fear and anxiety I dealt with in the last year melt away.
I was apprehensive and hoped a couple of them wouldn’t mind. I had never had an actual verbal conversation with any of my teammates about me being gay. I figured that just sending a text in our team group chat would be the best way to ask. I get it and understand that with maturity comes the realization that gay isn’t contagious. There is absolutely a “gay by association” phobia in high school and it’s a big unspoken thing. I don’t really hang out with guy friends. Though I am on the team, it’s still a bit awkward when you are a 15-year-old gay guy.
As I was writing this story, I knew that I had to get some photos of me playing football and ask my teammates if any of them would be in a picture with me.