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<\/a><\/p>\nA college softball player from the University of Texas shocked the sports world today by coming out as a heterosexual.<\/p>\n
In an emotional press conference this morning, Jennifer Ryan, 23, announced that she was a \u201cproud member\u201d of the opposite-sex community. The senior shortstop is believed to be the first and only openly straight women\u2019s softball player in the history of NCAA athletics.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI would just like to thank everyone who has supported me through this difficult time in my life,\u201d she told reporters at McCombs Field in Austin. \u201cFor years I have known that I was different, but lacked the courage to be open about my lifestyle with family, friends and teammates.<\/p>\n \u201cToday I would like to tell the world that I am straight. It\u2019s not something that I chose. I was simply born this way. And after years of living in the closet, the time has come for me to start being who I really am.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to tell every little girl in America: you don\u2019t have to be gay to be an elite softball player. Straight athletes hit just as hard, pitch just as hard, and run just as hard as everybody else.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully my example will inspire other straight softball players to come out from the shadows. We need to stand up and be recognized for the amazing contributions we have made to this sport.\u201d<\/p>\n Today\u2019s news comes after several high-profile male athletes have come out as gay in recent months. Jason Collins became the first openly-gay player in the NBA this year after the Brooklyn Nets signed him in February. And the NFL is expected to have its first openly gay player when Missouri defensive end Michael Sam is drafted in May.<\/p>\n Just yesterday, men\u2019s college basketball became the latest sport to have it\u2019s first openly gay player when UMass sophomore forward Derrick Gordon came out <\/a>to USA Today<\/em>.<\/p>\n Other collegiate sports have long had openly gay athletes. But some, like softball, have notoriously had a dearth of openly straight ones.<\/p>\n Nevertheless Ryan\u2019s coming-out has drawn support from several prominent gay softball stars. Shortly after the press conference \u00a02008 silver medalist Lauren Lappin <\/a>\u00a0Tweeted, \u201cGreat day for college softball. Jennifer Ryan has proved we are a sport that accepts all lifestyles.\u201d<\/p>\n Source: Daily Currant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A college softball player from the University of Texas shocked the sports world today by coming out as a heterosexual. In an emotional press conference this morning, Jennifer Ryan, 23, announced that she was a \u201cproud member\u201d of the opposite-sex community. The senior shortstop is believed to be the first and only openly straight women\u2019s […] More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[102,11],"tags":[203,380],"adace-sponsor":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/vaticanenquirer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/5359babd393b7.preview-620.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/vaticanenquirer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/vaticanenquirer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/vaticanenquirer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vaticanenquirer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vaticanenquirer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/vaticanenquirer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1808,"href":"http:\/\/vaticanenquirer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806\/revisions\/1808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vaticanenquirer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/vaticanenquirer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vaticanenquirer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vaticanenquirer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1806"},{"taxonomy":"adace-sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vaticanenquirer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adace-sponsor?post=1806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}First Base<\/strong><\/h5>\n