Former All Black Campbell Johnstone speaking to TVNZ's Seven Sharp. Photo / TVNZ
Former All Black Campbell Johnstone speaking to TVNZ's Seven Sharp. Photo / TVNZ
OPINION:
When I came out, the people I was most anxious to tell were my teammates.
I had played alongside some of these women since we were teenagers but found myself avoiding the conversation. I never ended up making the announcement, instead let my relationship declare it for me.
Oneof my teammates bailed me up weeks later at an aftermatch to ask why I hadn’t told her directly. There were a few reasons but loudest among them was that I was scared.
The stereotype, the slur, is that all of us rugby players are lesbians. It was the word that was thrown at me as an insult on the playground when I would square off with the boys.
The only conceivable reason — in their minds — that a woman could be interested in playing this contact sport is to get handsy with her teammates. Speaking more to their fantasies than my reality, innocuous actions were assigned a sexuality of their own.
I would walk the tightrope, allowing myself to love the game but not admit that I loved women too. As a teenager, I could only endure standing out for one thing at the time.
Slowly, I would bring together the parts of myself I had compartmentalised. The labels meant to shame me, I now wear with pride. Fully embodying the laziest of stereotypes, while still knowing my sexuality has little to do with my interest in rugby.
These connections which some people are intent on drawing between the two is why coming out is important. To show that while they may in some cases be true, it is nothing to be ashamed of. The things I love about my partner are many and varied but ultimately pretty boring were I to list them to my teammates. They certainly have nothing to do with our next lineout call or how I decide to hit a ruck.
This was my experience in the part of the game that has many role models. Woodman-Wickliffe is now one player on the pitch rather than a pass out wide. They are one of the many couples that have played in the Black Ferns jersey. Portia, also a member of the queer contingent that represented us at the last Olympics.
And yet I was scared to come out. Scared to hand back the words that had been used in this context to hurt me. Unsure how they would land now that I knew that it was true.
In life, there are rooms we encounter with closed doors, ones we cannot open.
It felt for many years that this was the case for gay men in rugby. They may have been knocking but nobody would answer. Then there are those rooms with open doors that make it plain that there is no one like us inside. We stand on the threshold and at moments like this, the decision we make is not about coming out, but coming in. Bringing with us, our whole vulnerable selves.
Former All Black Campbell Johnstone speaking to TVNZ's Seven Sharp. Photo / TVNZ
There are many that will see this announcement as self-indulgent and may view this column the same way. They will ask, what does this have to do with winning and why are you bringing this conversation into sport?
To them I say, you started it. When you called me a dyke or a lesbian for wanting to play a game as a kid. For using the word gay as an insult when someone messed up on the paddock, or for the way he did his hair in the changing rooms after.
