"In 2016, Rhys Chapman's short film Wonderkid appeared to break new ground. Featuring a young Chris Mason, now a star of Dune: Prophecy, it followed a football prodigy gradually coming to terms with his sexuality. "It really shone the light, I think for the first time, [on] all the various pressures that a closeted, gay, professional athlete might face, particularly in men's sports," recalls Jon Holmes, the editor of LGBTQ+ sports publication, OutSports."
"From then, queers became increasingly visible in sports media. After Wonderkid came In From The Side and Nicholas Galitzine's Handsome Devil, both about queer men in rugby, followed by Alison Brie's wrestling series, Glow. But ten years on, and the community's presence in sports stories has gone supernova. Of course, there's Heated Rivalry, the buzzy gay ice hockey romance so sizzling hot it's a wonder there's any ice left for players to tussle on."
Wonderkid foregrounded the pressures facing closeted gay athletes and received support from mainstream football institutions and anti-discrimination groups. Queer visibility spread from rugby and wrestling into ice hockey, tennis, swimming, bodybuilding, soccer, boxing and wrestling, among others. Contemporary projects include intimate coming-out dramas, raunchy romance adaptations and mainstream ensemble series, generating both cultural conversation and institutional engagement. The trend has produced multiple high-profile titles and broader representation, with queer sports stories increasingly treated as commercially viable and diverse across sexualities, genders and sporting contexts.
Read at PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBTQ+ news
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