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“You can reach the elite of sport being gay”

BarcelonaThe world of sport is still one of the bastions of LGTBI-phobia. The athletes who have come out of the closet in history do not represent the reality of a group that fights to make their cause visible and break many stereotypes. Víctor Gutiérrez (Madrid, 1991) is the first Spanish team sports athlete to come out publicly. A year ago he left elite sport to become the PSOE’s first LGBTI policy secretary. The former water polo player, who publishes Yellow ball, rainbow flag, he tells the ARA how his life as a professional athlete has been conditioned since childhood by being homosexual.

In the book you start talking about scars. Have many opened telling your story?

– Totally. The scars that have left me the deepest and most marked are those of my childhood and adolescence. We are all the result of the experiences we live, and when things happen to an LGTBI person like me at a very early age, they define you and set a path for you in your identity. Experiencing certain things at the age of eight or nine, with almost no tools to manage what I was experiencing, caused him to begin to develop a total rejection of me. It was a repulsion towards who I was, towards my identity. I took this path with shame, with fear, and I took it alone. The first wounds are the ones that hurt the most and the ones that, looking back, you realize you haven’t gotten over because of everything you went through.

The first time you were told “fagot” he was in the schoolyard at the age of eight. That marked a before and an after.

— It is the word that is repeated the most in the book, and it is because it is one of the words that has marked my life. At the age of eight and not having my sexual identity established is when I first received this insult and it made me understand that being an LGBTI person is something that others can attack you with and hurt you. This causes me to build a suit of armor, a character. When I’m growing up and developing my sexual instinct and I realize that I’m attracted to men, for many years I’ve associated that it’s a bad thing that I can’t afford.

At eight years old you have very few tools to deal with this internal rejection.

— The situation is very unfair. When they tell you “fagot” o “ball” they do it based on your identity, but I hadn’t even had sex at the time. In fact, I didn’t have sex until I was 18. That completely dismantles what people say about, “I don’t I don’t care who you sleep with; why are you explaining that?” No, no, I wasn’t going to bed with anyone when I was eight! When I was told “fagot” it wasn’t because of who I liked, but because of my identity. It’s very difficult to love yourself if all you’ve been taught in life is to reject certain behaviors and situations.

Do you have many painful memories from that time?

— My childhood and adolescence have been stolen from me. I haven’t been able to live it like any other boy my age, being able to ask the boy I liked in high school out, hold his hand, kiss him…

It is a very deep and unconscious pain that even makes you blame yourself for your father’s cancer.

— I thought it was divine punishment. I fell into self-blame and it’s horrible. In itself, being a teenager is very complicated, as well as feeling rejection towards yourself because of who you are, blaming yourself for it. In such a painful moment as my father’s death, this feeling of guilt was present. No one should punish themselves for being who they are or feel that the things that go wrong in their life have an explanation and a reason for being the way you are.

The first line of the book is a question: is gay born or made? Do you have an answer?

— One is born feeling it. I did not decide to be born measuring 1.94 meters, having blue eyes and in Madrid. Well, not being gay either. I was actually raised to be straight and I’m not. It is not a matter of how you are raised, but of who you are.

Víctor Gutiérrez to the photos to the magazine 'Shangay'

As if accepting yourself in a heteropatriarchal world was already complicated, you do it within the world of sport, one of the least evolved in this aspect.

— They are two completely opposite realities that go hand in hand. I want to take refuge in sport, where I feel best and where the boss is thinking about other things such as competing and being the best. I look for the recognition that I deny myself through the esteem and admiration of others, whether in classes to be the delegate or in sports, where I feel very respected. On the other hand, I am aware that my identity can make it difficult for me to fulfill my dream, which is to reach the elite of the sport.

You had no positive reference in this aspect to guide you.

— True, I don’t see homosexual athletes, and then what a fifteen-year-old boy does is gossip. What I do is look up “gay athletes” on the internet, and the first story I come across is that of Justin Fashanu, a soccer player who ends up committing suicide. Then I ask myself: “If this has happened to an adult, is this the path that awaits me if I make myself visible?” I see that to reach the elite of the sport I will have to embitter who I am behind a mask. I dedicate myself to growing athletically, but in the personal sphere I repress this part of my identity.

Has sport been more of a prison or a refuge?

— Oysters, so I hadn’t thought about it. It’s been both, I think. A prison, because for many years I had to hide who I am, but I think it has more shelter. In the most difficult moments of my adolescence it was where I always felt the best. Even if it couldn’t be me, it was my escape route. Today, with a completely sporty reality, in fact, it still is. I ended up turning my little prison into the place where I do activism to change things.

In the book you confess that you led a double life.

— It’s something I’ve had to experience, but it’s a reality shared by many LGTBI people. When you get to 18 or 19, if you haven’t come out of the closet, you lead a double life. You tell parents one thing, friends another, teammates another… The problem was remembering the lies so I wouldn’t get caught! I remember that when I went to Chueca, I didn’t get off at this metro stop, but I did it earlier, at Gran Vía or Callao, and I kept walking in case someone saw me. Despite this, I don’t have a bad memory of it, because it was the time I started to love myself.

Víctor Gutiérrez and Pedro Sánchez when the water polo player is appointed secretary of LGTBI policies of the PSOE

At what point do you feel ready to come out of the closet?

— Publicly, at 25 years old, but at 23 he had started to take small steps in everyday life. I would explain things or, if I was meeting someone, I would tell them to come and see me at the games. They were small gestures that any straight person wouldn’t even think about, but I, for the life of me, hadn’t explained it. I stop lying and tell my reality.

How was the news received in the world of water polo?

— It’s a morbid topic, and the world of water polo is very small. What I get is normalcy and respect. It gives me a lot of confidence and I feel legitimized once and for all to live my life without fear. The consequences of not being invisible what they give me is normality, until I reach a point where I decide to share my experience to try to help other people. You can reach the elite of sports by being gay.

What process do you follow to decide to make it public?

— The possibility arises in a conversation with the director of the magazine Shanghai. At first I didn’t see why it was necessary to expose myself in that way, but the idea stayed in my head and for a year and a half I matured it. I realized that it was a topic that went far beyond me, that could help a lot of people. I came to the conclusion that I was a privileged person who had not fought for the rights I enjoyed and that it was a way to change other people’s lives. I threw myself into the pool, never again.

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