Troy Deeney Quotes

In the 1980s, there weren't a lot of role models for gay teenagers.

I've got lots of problems. Being gay isn't one of them.

Statistically, there have to be more gay men in rugby than we know about and I would hate for them to be going home from training and feeling depressed or feeling like they need to live a lie.

It's important for closet gay athletes everywhere, not just at the professional level, but more importantly athletes at the younger level in high school and college, to understand they do have support around them and that they can come out and feel comfortable. And honestly, that is going to help save lives.

I'm the only gay person my parents know.

I think younger players probably just think they are who they are-they don't think about coming out. Unless you're number one in the world, nobody cares, usually.

It's kind of a shame that it's even an issue. Not being gay, I can't fully appreciate how complicated that is. In the article, the interviewer asked me, and I said that if I were, I would just say it.

The gay thing has always been hard for me.

I do have a lot of gays in my family now, but some will never come out.

Our intention is to really explore this transition and, beyond that, explore the particular things that someone comes up against when they're gay or lesbian.

I don't particularly like going on about being gay or making a big thing about it, but I think it's a bit of a pain to be secretive about it.

I had a hell of a time convincing people I was gay - which was so annoying!

I'm in my mid-40s now, and I came out in 11th grade, so I must have been 17. So that's quite a long time ago, and the temperature and the culture was different.

Gay people - generally speaking - have a responsibility to our own community and to future generations of gay people to come out, if and when we feel that we can.

Though gay lifestyles have certainly moved into the open, there's little evidence that society has become more open in its basic attitudes or that entertainers should feel cozy in emerging from the velvet underground.

I've had so many interviews where the last question is, Are you gay? I had to find very creative ways to say that I was gay, but that I wasn't going to talk about it.

Growing up in Fife, you were aware that there were these creatures called lesbians, but it was in the realms of complete freakishness. And I didn't feel like a freak.

Ironically, when I've asked my straight friends to join me in hanging a rainbow flag, they answer, 'But someone might think we're gay,' not realizing that is exactly the point. To be mistaken for the oppressed is to momentarily become the oppressed.

If I was gay, why wouldn't I admit it? It wouldn't harm me.

My gayness became quietly accepted and, shock of all shocks, life went on.

The truth is that I am a gay American.

Someone actually asked me once if I used coming out as a publicity stunt. It's cool that we live in a time when being gay could be seen as helping your career.

If every gay person were to come out only to his/her own family, friends, neighbors and fellow workers, within days the entire state would discover that we are not the stereotypes generally assumed.

The whole principle of coming out is that everyone knows someone who's gay. The minute someone comes out, no one can be a bigot, because someone they love is gay.

I knew that I was different when I was six years old, but it wasn't until I got to about 10 or 11 that I realised I was a gay man.