Jason,

Great job. I am sure if you knew how positive and supporting the responses were going to be, you would have come out much sooner.

Glad you're happy. My wife and I are very proud of you.

See you soon,

Bax

is the existence of a closed, competitive community i.e, MLB, the nba or high stakes poker players just a natural breeding ground for homophobic behavior? like a bunch of dudes competing against each other for a living dont want to think the guy they lost to is gay so they make it nearly impossible for someone to come out, or is it just that there arent many people in these communities and the percentages match with society? I hope its the latter. props to jason

was expecting 100 posts about Jason somerville being a "high profile" poker player. im quite the poker nerd and had no idea who he was.

OT: good for Somerville he's coming out, im guessing that's easier for him.

+1 to ra Z boys post, spot on. and sadly not how it is, yet.

cool. The level of homophobia in poker has always bugged me.

Obviously we can't really know that, because if they are hiding it it's pretty difficult to study.

Sadly, I suspect it's probably more of the former than the latter, but that's just my opinion based on what I know of the research and my general experiences in male dominated/high competitive environments.

Glad to hear. But it really doesn't matter if he's gay.

A straight man who spends time in a female dominated profession is often suspected of doing so purely to get his end away with the women. A gay man who chooses a male dominated profession....

It's certainly bull**** but I guess there's just an underlying distrust that their motive for being there is not just a 'pure' competitive spirit.

congratulations on coming out, it's a brave step in the poker world and I hope it leads others who might be in your position to follow suit. best of luck.

People are dumb, sometimes.

Good point. It goes back to the narcissistic notion where homophobes think that gay guys are all out to seduce them.

NEWS FLASH: Don't flatter yourselves. Let's wake up people.

yeah dude. who wouldnt want to have their way with all these fat smelly middle aged 2/10 *******s?

I've never considered that as a cause for possible homophobia at the table, and i doubt i'll consider it after i forget this thread. it seems kinda goofy, to say the least. there's better places to hit on guys! most of the time, it's not the motivation for being there. it's just being there.

yeah this, pretty stupid post tbh (the quote).

If you think this thread is pointless, then just exit and don't post.

Yeah let's try to keep this civil. We don't want it to get derailed and closed.

Ummm you're relying on homophobes to be rational about it, and almost by definition they're not. I've for sure seen fat old men complain about being in close proximity to gays because they are afraid of getting hit on. People can be really stupid, and it's the stupid ones that usually discriminate.

There's probably some ego in there too. Point is that of course that's not why gay people play poker, but some ******s will think it is and that's all that matters in this context.

Great read. Takes a lot of guts to write that. Tons of respect for you.

Unrelated but in a way Jcarver helped change my life drastically many years ago too. First major score of my life came when he beat me HU in the UB 200k in the summer of 2006, which encouraged me to take MTT's more seriously. I dropped out of school after the fall semester to be a pro. Maybe if Jason was a worse HU player, I could've not wasted the tuition money on that subsequent semester.

Who cares who he effs. Is this really a big deal now? It's not like its 1955.

it's not the motivation for being there. it's just being there. the post i responded to made it seem that gay people would play poker BECAUSE it's a male dominated profession, and that homophobes are aware of that motivation. i said homophobes wouldnt think that. they'd just be offended by the presence. the proximity, as you put it. problem?

I guess it's still difficult, maybe not so much in the poker world, but in athletics, when the vast majority of players are very religious and not exactly all that bright and you still have several outspoken bigots like Tim Hardaway in the NBA for example, or others who still think of it as a "sin". Also, the fact that they're sharing a locker room and probably feel insecure thinking that another player would be checking them out or something. It's certainly not easy, but much easier to do in poker than in sports. It inevitably creates a lot of drama that most gay athletes just don't want to deal with, I suppose.

Glad for OP.

Sad that people still hate and oppress others.

Confused as to why people are allowed (entitled) to vote on what others do in the privacy of their own walls? Gay marriage, smoking pot, coke, sniffing glue... if someone wants to huff propane in their garage why should his or her neighbor have a say? Ironically, to my knowledge there is no law banning someone from mainlining Sudafed but in most places same sex marriage is illegal...? Sadface.

While I'm venting... believing that being gay is a sin makes me want to climb a tower... in fact, religion in general makes me want to climb a tower... however I wouldn't be as hypocritical as a lot of theists who'd tell someone else what they should believe. People need to figure it out for themselves. The best cure I've found is to stay away from people who have insanely illogical/incorrect beliefs and to surround myself w/ like-minded (aka rational) thinkers.

Seems like a good guy. Always enjoyed his teaching videos on pokervt. Well done best of luck to him.

so he's gay? who cares?

There are plenty of openly gay poker players... thread title is misleading.

Good for carver tho, I'm sure it's a very difficult thing to admit

I didn't mean that it had to be a conscious thought process, just like the strong prejudice a lot of people would employ against a man approaching their daughter/sister in an "innocent" situation. But there is undeniably a stronger current of homophobia in poker and sport than there is in general life and that's my theory on the matter.

Who cares? Obv not you. The guy is pouring his heart out about something that even his parents were immature and unsupportive about. Can you imagine what that must feel like? And I'm pretty sure there are not "plenty of openly gay poker players". Feel free to list the elite professionals who are openly gay if I'm wrong.

I'm pretty sure the post you quoted said that gays are suspected of having that motivation, not that they actually have it themselves. He even said 'it's certainly bull****' straight after his first paragraph to show that he disagreed with the opinion.

(no problem except your reading comprehension. u mad bro?)