Japanese volleyball just got gayer.
In back-to-back spikes this week, not one but two prominent players came out as LGBTQ+, the first serving as an inspiration for the second.
Related
On Tuesday, outside hitter for Osaka’s Suntory Sunbirds, Rui Takahashi, came out on social media. The popular player cited his brother, a teammate in the same top SV League lineup, for having his back and giving him a push.
Takahashi had been “afraid to face a certain side of myself” since he was young, the 26-year-old wrote.
Never Miss a Beat
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
“I struggled with it and ended up denying who I was,” he added.
“That is the fact that I am gay and that I am one of the sexual minorities,” Takahashi said.
With an assist from his brother Ran, a star player on Japan’s national volleyball team as well as Rui’s teammate, he’s come to terms with his sexuality, Takahashi said.
“Talking with Ran became the trigger that finally allowed me to accept myself for the first time,” the younger brother wrote.
“By putting my feelings into words, I was able to sort out my thoughts, and little by little I started to feel that it was OK to be just the way I am.”
Takahashi then shared his hope that he’d be inspiration for others.
“I would be happy if my decision to face myself and speak in my own words could, even in a small way, become a catalyst for them,” he wrote.
His decision had just that effect.
Just hours later on Tuesday, Reon Arao, who plays for Voreas Hokkaido in the same premier league, came out as well.
“Please allow me to make an announcement that represents a major step in my life,” Arao shared to Instagram.
“If I were to choose my sexuality from LGBTQ+, I believe it is close to: ‘Q (Questioning)’,” he wrote.
Describing a childhood spent playing with girls as well as boys, Arao said his time with girls brought out feelings of being “cute,” “cool,” and “beautiful.”
They “all became important to me,” he said.
“Those feelings were not just an admiration of ‘wanting to be like that myself,’ but eventually connected to feelings of ‘love/like,’” he wrote.
“Because of this, without setting strict boundaries regarding my own gender identity or the gender of the people I come to like, ‘I am who I am,’” he wrote.
Arao added that at times he was “confused and troubled by the many feelings inside me.” He said the term “coming out” itself “felt heavy to me, like a thick wall.”
“Even so, encouraged by the courage of Suguru Takahashi, who is active on the front lines of the same sport, I decided to convey this in my own words like this,” he said, referring to the Sunbirds’ Takahashi by a nickname.
“I am someone whose back was pushed forward by someone else’s courage,” he stated.
“So next time, I hope my words and actions can serve as an inspiration for someone else, even if just a little,” Arao said.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.