In a cover interview with Gay Times,
out professional wrestler Anthony Bowens talks about coming out
twice.
Earlier this month, the 28-year-old
Bowens, who often wrestles under the name “Vigilante,” announced
in a YouTube video that he identifies as gay, roughly two years after
coming out bisexual.
“Around six or seven months ago, I
was developing a new wrestling character, so I started to go over all
the media work I’ve done over the past couple of years, and each
article would describe me as ‘the bisexual pro wrestler’ and at
the time, when I first came out two years ago, I felt that label was
what closest represented me,” said Bowens. “Reading it in the
current day, it just didn’t seem to fit anymore. As the months went
on, I started to feel a lot stronger about that label.”
“I didn’t want them to think I was
turning my back on anything, but I did want people to understand that
as you get older your views of the world and your views of yourself
change. I’m sure anybody who’s looked back on their younger
self, they can all recognize a difference in the way they think, and
I definitely notice a difference. The closest thing that I want to be
referred to as now is gay.”
Bowens said that the response has been
overwhelmingly positive.
“They like the fact that I can openly
be myself. I’m not gonna sit here and say that homophobia is
completely gone, because I’m sure it still exists, but it’s kind
of contained now because people know if they are to say something
they shouldn’t there will be a lot of negative backlash. We have a
lot of support in this industry,” he said.
He also called on other athletes to
come out.
“There needs to be more openly LGBTQ
athletes so we can normalize everything,” Bowens said. “And as
time goes on I think that will slowly happen, but only if we have
more representation.”