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ESPN sports columnist LZ Granderson encouraged everyone, gay or straight, to come out of the closet on October 11.
He said that National Coming Out Day is not just reserved for LGBTQ individuals, but a day for athletes to stop using gay slurs on the fields, religious leaders to change the subject of their debates and for the allies of the community to confront bullying and rhetoric.
“We’re all in this together, whether the rhetoric of television tells us to or not,” he said October 6 in his keynote address at Fairfield University for LGBTQ History Month.
Granderson said that technology is the reason why people today bully and hurt each other, and that the internet brings people their own sense of entitlement and anonymity.
“We get technology and treat each other like crap,” he said.
Granderson, an openly gay columnist for ESPN.com’s Page 2 and a contributor to CNN, writes a weekly column for CNN.com. A senior writer and columnist for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com, he has contributed to ESPN’s “Sports Center,” “Outside the Lines” and “First Take.”
Born and raised in Detroit, MI, he studied Interpersonal Communications and Journalism at Western Michigan University. Prior to ESPN, he wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a sportswriter and the Grand Rapids Press as a columnist.
Granderson is known for the human social aspects in which he centers his sports stories, writing about the lives of athletes and his own personal struggles. In 2009, he was the recipient of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for online journalism and was honored in 2008 and 2010 by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for column writing.
Granderson spoke to a packed audience, which included students, faculty members and administrators throughout campus.
“It’s important for the University to support every group of students on campus,” said Fr. Michael Doody, S.J., Director of Campus Ministry. “The LGBTQ students need to know they’re welcome here and that the Jesuits accept and embrace them and the gifts they bring.”
And while the audience praised Granderson’s appearance and the effort by the University to pay attention to the LGBTQ community, they did not develop new perspectives regarding the gay community.
“I have always been very open to the gay community, so I learned nothing new,” said Doody. “But I think these events help students…to accept themselves on campus.”
Briana Cronk ’12, like Doody, said that she is open to the LGBTQ community and that the event didn’t show her the gay community in a new light.
“I didn’t have a closed-minded view before hand,” she said. “But it’s great to see different perspective and to hear a new voice.”
Granderson concluded his speech by stressing the importance of LGBTQ allies coming out of the closet. He said the more we talk about the struggles of the LGBTQ community, the more it goes into the past for us to focus on more important things in the nation.
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