(Image via Gay Times)

Gay Times (January 2019) is available for pre-order, and it's covered by this New Year's babe ...

 

The issue's cover star is soccer jock (for Minnesota United) Collin Martin, who came out and now speaks with fellow out athlete Robbie Rogers for the issue.

 

 

He says:

 

One of the cool things about soccer is that it's such a multi-cultural sport so you're going to have people that have different religions, different backgrounds, completely different educational experiences growing up, and so you have to take that with a grain of salt. Within each locker room that I’ve been in, there was certain guys that might have been further behind in terms of acceptance than others, but for the most part, I think even when there were some misunderstandings, there was always respect.

 

 

On his learning curve regarding coming out:

 

It took me a while to get comfortable with the idea of coming out even though my teammates have always been very supportive. I feel, and I have had amazing friendships in general, but it took me a while to then trust them with letting them know I was gay, and having that courage to not only be open with them but open to the rest of the league. I remember when Michael Sam was coming out, we had ESPN on the TV after training and I remember a bunch ofguys being like, “Why do we have to have him on the TV? Like, what has he done? We don't need to see that.” Certain stuff like that kind of upset me and took me back for a while because I guess people don't want to hear these things.

 

 

He's big on the sport embracing LGBTQ people publicly, noting:

 

I think Pride nights are huge. I know that if I had gay friends come to the games in Minnesota, the Don’t Cross the Line initiative they did and having the biggest stars on each team talk about how homophobia is not to be accepted and racism is not to be accepted, those videos they play before the game I think go a long way for the casual fans. 

 

The issue is out globally on December 28 — order yours here!