Famed Olympic diver and occasional TV star Tom Daley has announced via a YouTube video that he is bisexual and currently in a relationship with a man. This coming out announcement follows months of speculation by various tabloids, including
a September article in the Mirror. In that article he said he isn't gay and would love to be in a relationship with a woman. Neither of these things appear to be untrue. He also said that he was single, something which we now know to be untrue. But, hey, if we held it against someone for lying in a celebrity puff piece, then our society would never get anything done. It was apparently this cognitive dissonance about saying he was single while he wasn't that caused Daley to decide to out himself, and if I might editorialize for a moment, I think this is nothing but a good thing. I'm bisexual myself, and growing up I had exactly zero sports figures to look up to as role models for people like myself. Come to that, growing up in the 1980s, I didn't really have gay or bi role models of any sort. It's especially vexing when you're younger and bisexual, as many gays tend to claim that bisexuals aren't actually a thing, and use dismissive comments like "bi now, gay later". Here in the States, not many people have heard of Daley. Diving isn't that big of a deal here, and unless you're Greg Louganis (who came out many years ago after his career was finished), it's very likely most of the public hasn't heard of you. But I do understand that Daley is fairly big over in the UK, and it will be interesting to see, over the next few months, what this does to his career path. Will he gain more endorsements? Will he lose whatever ones he has? At one point in the video, Daley says that in an ideal world, he wouldn't have done his video, because his sexuality shouldn't matter. He's 100% correct about that. But it does matter, and I'm glad that he was strong enough to come out and talk about it. I hope he inspires not just younger people who are still coming to grips with their sexuality, but also inspires other celebrities, especially famous sports stars, to come out as well.