LGBT student-athlete support group founded at Yale

by Austin Stallings
Journalism Intern

Six male LGBT athletes have come together to form a strong support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning athletes. OutSports reports, “The athletes, spanning across several sports, met each other casually through mutual connections and quickly realized the need for a support.”

While all six of the founding athletes are men, they have told the Yale Daily News that a top priority is to bring more LGBT women into the group as locker-room issues and other hurdles exist across genders.

In addition to two athletes who are not fully out to their families (but they are out to their teammates), four of the group's founding members are:

Timothy Cox, running, '17
Jake Leffew, golf, '19
Luc Ryan-Schreiber, rugby, '17
Wayne Zhang, diving, '18

According to OutSports, “Ryan-Shchreiber has experienced support from his teammates, but he said the head rugby coach during his freshman season used homophobic language and slurs on a regular basis. That coach is now not with the team.”

Schreiber went onto say, “When I got connected with Jake, who was struggling with the identity of a gay athlete, we talked it out and afterwards I realized there was no resource around currently.”

OutSports commented, "The courage to come out and be your true self doesn't come from straight people telling you you're OK, it comes from having a support structure of other LGBT people in sports and seeing the support they receive from their teammates, coaches and fans."

The athletes’ initiative should pave the way for other LGBT athletes at other universities to take the same measurements in order to ensure that their LGBT athletes are properly represented.

The Gayly – 4/27/16 @ 1:00 p.m CDT