Poker, as far as I'm concerned, is not a sport. Yeah, I'm glad it's on ESPN, but I'm sorry, if steroids aren't going to help you take home a trophy, you're not really playing ball nowadays, now are you?
That being said, there are definitely some similarities between the sports and poker realms. One of them, is the lack of visible gay and lesbian poker players.
It's not entirely clear how many people in the global population are LGBT, some say one-in-ten, others one-in-twenty, Mr. Ahmadinejad says that there aren't any, well at least not in Iran, anyway.
However, with as many professional poker players out there today as there are, there's not a doubt in my mind that there are gay poker players out there, simply based on the numbers alone. The real question is, why are none of them out of the closet?
Hell, I don't know, or at least I'm not qualified to pinpoint the issue. What I will say is that the game of poker is a game that is played mainly by men, and those men are not always the most educated and tolerant out there. Sure, to win at poker, you need to have some brains, but people don't go to school to become poker players.
Homophobia is definitely still around today, and it probably won't be going away anytime soon. Whenever major religions around the world give you the red flag, you're probably not getting off the blacklist that easily. In the meantime, though, poker of all things should be an egalitarian and bigotry-free playing field. After all, when it comes down to it, does the orientation, race, ethnicity, gender, or creed of the people you take money from at the poker table really matter?
For the extremely thick amongst you, let me assure you: no, it does not.
Until then, remember your Freud.
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