Olympian Gus Kenworthy Comes Out, Skiing Now Gayer

Gus Kenworthy, the 24-year-old Olympic skier who became every Jezebel employee’s imaginary boyfriend after adopting all those puppies in Sochi, came out as gay today. He made the announcement on Twitter Thursday morning, after which people shared their support, love, and, of course, unquenchable thirst.

I could play the cynic card and groan out things like, “Oh wow how hard it must be for a young, rich, handsome, successful, cisgender white man to come out as gay in 2015,” but I won’t. Because it’s great that he came out, just as it’s great when anyone comes out and shares their identity—whatever it is—with the world. He’s another person for a closeted queer person to look up to. Another person to open the mind of a bigot. Another person for teens to breathlessly and publicly beg to fuck.

Every time a famous person comes out, I think about my favorite line from one of my favorite documentaries, The Celluloid Closet. During a discussion about “sissy” gay characters common in early Hollywood films, many of the subjects agreed they were harmful to the gay community, but not Harvey Fierstein.

He said:

I liked the sissy. Is it used in negative ways? Yeah. But my view has always been ‘visibility at any cost.’ I’d rather have negative than nothing. That’s just my particular view. And also because I am a sissy.