Former UCLA Cheerleader Randy Boyd Says, "Lighten Up, Dudes" When It Comes to Gay Athletes

Former UCLA cheerleader Randy Boyd, a writer for Outsports.com and five-time Lambda Award nominee, has recently launched a new blog, Randy Boyd’s Blocks. In a recent post he addresses straight college athletes and tries to talk them down from homophobic hysteria.

Boyd writes:

You've already pumped iron with a gay teammate. You've already taken a knee together and listened to Coach. You've already been sequestered together, eaten together, showered together, traveled together, dreamed of a great season together, made a commitment to working together as teammates for the greater good of the team. You've already survived practicing, studying, laughing, smiling, growing, indeed, living with and dreaming with men who think of themselves as gay, bi, homo, swingers, undecided, and so on...

Your dads' generation couldn't bear to think about the subject of gay guys, let alone talk about it. But that's not you, young jock of the 21st century. You've been exposed to homosexuality in ways unprecedented in human history. Today's college football players are part of the first American generation to come of age watching Ellen on television and porn on the Net. The jig is up. You've seen it all. You've all seen men being men and it's not as big a deal to you. You all know any kind of man can be the kind of man that (fill in the sexual blank).

 

You are part of a new generation of jocks who view sex and sexuality in a whole new light. So lighten up, dudes, about your teammates traveling their own unique path through the Sexual Universe

Is our generation as enlightened as Boyd says? I would like to think so, but then again, I’m a New Yorker and can acknowledge that the mores of the city are not always those of other regions of the country. So I ask you, CollegeOTR readers, Can homophobia be overcome through the exposure that Boyd discusses?