Gay rugby league star Keegan Hirst recalls male attention after coming out: ‘I’m not a piece of meat’
Hirst said in a recent podcast interview that his decision to come out on 2015 came out of desperation: "It was either that or kill myself"
By Gary Grimes
Keegan Hirst, the first openly gay professional British rugby league player, has spoken out about his experience of coming out of the closet in 2015.
In an upcoming interview on the All Out with Jon Dean podcast, which Attitude had an exclusive early listen to, Hirst was asked by host Jon Dean if he faced many questions from his teammates at that time. He explained that he suspected his teammates viewed him as being much more together than he actually felt at that time due to the press around his coming out.
“I was doing interviews as well. That was something that I found really difficult internally at the time, I was being asked all these questions and touted as this role model and this, that and the other, and I was like, I have no idea what I’m doing,” Hirst explained.
The athlete, who now co-hosts the podcast Happy Healthy Homo with boyfriend and YouTuber Joel Wood, said that his decision to come out was a result of reaching “rock bottom.”
“I don’t know what I’m talking about. I dunno what I’m doing. I feel like a complete fraud here. All I’ve done is come out because I was at rock bottom. It was either that or kill myself, and they’re all now saying I’m a hero,” Hirst said. “I feel like an absolute loser. So it was a bit of a weird time.”
Later in the interview, Dean asked Hirst how he viewed the gay world prior to coming out. “Flamboyant, effeminate, camp men – and I don’t say that in a derogatory,” Hirst answered.
“For me, the pinnacle, which again is naive and wrong, was like Louie Spence’s gay,” the former player recalled. “I remember when Louie Spence used to come on TV, I used to freeze or turn it off because I was so terrified of someone seeing in me, Louie Spence.
“He was so comfortable in his own skin, whereas I was ashamed and repressed and in denial. Whereas now when I look at someone like Louie Spence, I’m like, fucking good work you are. You do you and don’t give a shit about other people.”
Hirst, who now also works as a personal trainer and life coach for gay men, also spoke about the male attention he received after coming out, and the complicated emotions he had around it.
“Once I’d come out publicly, I remember my mate saying to me, ‘You are literally someone’s fantasy, as in a porn search for rugby player’. And I remember saying to him, ‘I don’t give a fuck, if I’m getting laid and everybody’s a winner’.
“I appreciate this coming from a very privileged position as I say this, but it just became very apparent that people just wanted to fuck me just fuck the rugby player. Fuck Keegan Hirst,” the father of two recalled.
“At first it was like, yay me, I can shag who I want and do what I want. But then it became quite… I remember saying ‘I’m not a piece of meat’. It was more to me than that and it felt it more transactional. So yeah, that made me quite wary.”
You can watch Keegan Hirst’s full interview on All Out with Jon Dean on the podcast’s YouTube channel from 5pm on Sunday here.