25-year-old American. track star Trey Cunningham publicly came out as gay in an interview with the New York Times, discussing his secxuality after the U.S. Olympic Trials for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Cunningham described coming out to his family in private five years ago as the “scariest thing I’ve ever done.” Now, he is revealing his truth to the world.
He explained to the Times that his decision to come out publicly stems from a track training technique he uses:
“We say our goals out loud. If there’s something we want to achieve, we say it. Putting something in words makes it real.”
The athlete, who competed for Florida State University, mentioned that he didn’t “explore the idea” of being gay until he reached college. He attributed the slow exploration of his sexuality to his upbringing in a conservative and rural part of Alabama. He described his hometown of Winfield as “the sort of place where you did not want to be the gay kid at school.”
He added:
"I had certain expectations of what my life would look like, and it took me a little while to get my head around it looking different to that.”
Cunningham also discussed how his parents handled his coming out, recalling that the news received some “pushback”:
“What was true for me was also true for my parents. They had certain expectations for their little boy, for what his life would be like, and that’s OK. I gave them a five-year grace period. I had to take my time. They could take theirs, too.”
He is also one of just a few athletes around the world who has felt comfortable coming out and acknowledged what the Times referred to as the "rarity" of his position:
There are lots of people who are in this weird space. They’re not out. But it is kind of understood.”
Many applauded Cunningham's courage and honesty.
Although Cunningham missed securing a spot in this summer’s Paris Olympics at the U.S. trials last month, finishing ninth in the 110-meter hurdles in a “stacked” field, he remains ranked 11th globally.
He told the Times that he has a "relaxed" personality. In fact, his master’s thesis at Florida State University involved assessing student athletes to determine which personality traits were most strongly correlated with burnout. He applied the psychometric test to himself and found that he was “almost too chill.”
He noted that some friends had “been waiting for me" to come out so his reveal did not impact the majority of his relationships with others. Overall, the athlete said, he feels "really lucky to have a group of people who did not care."
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