Just days after he came out, Olympian Gus Kenworthy was asked a question many gay and lesbian people dread on Twitter by a random user. But Kenworthy handled it so well, and we can’t think of a more perfect way to respond to such a cringeworthy inquiry.  

“Are you the man or the woman in the relationship? That’s all I need to know right now,” the user wrote. 

Kenworthy, 24, followed up with: 

In a relationship I am the man. As is the other man. I’m gay. Not trying to emulate a heterosexual relationship. https://t.co/AJwyskECWf

— Gus Kenworthy (@guskenworthy) October 24, 2015

The professional freeskier, who nabbed a silver medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, revealed his sexuality in a simply-worded tweet posted on Oct. 22. 

“I am gay,” he wrote. 

The tweet was accompanied by a photo of the athlete on the cover of ESPN Magazine. The new issue, which hits newsstands on Oct. 30, features an in-depth profile on Kenworthy, in which he recalls his early struggles with his sexuality.  

“You’re constantly lying and constantly feeling like you’re being deceitful,” he said in a video on ESPN that was produced in conjunction with the article. “I’m just at that point where I’m ready to open up and let everyone see me for me and I hope everyone accepts it.”

Missouri All-American Michael Sam says he is gay, and the defensive end could become the first openly homosexual player in the NFL. In interviews with ESPN, The New York Times and Outsports that were published Sunday, Sam said his teammates and coaches at Missouri have known since August.

“I am an openly, proud gay man,” he said.

The 255-pound Sam participated in the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., last month after leading the SEC in sacks (11.5) and tackles for loss (19), and he is projected to be a mid-round NFL draft pick.

“It’s a big deal. No one has done this before. And it’s kind of a nervous process, but I know what I want to be … I want to be a football player in the NFL,” he said in the interviews.

There have been numerous NFL players who have come out after their playing days, including Kwame Harris and Dave Kopay.

Last year, NBA player Jason Collins announced he was gay after the season. Collins, a 35-year-old backup center, was a free agent and has not signed with a new team this season. MLS star and U.S. national team player Robbie Rogers also came out a year ago.

Division III Willamette kicker Conner Mertens, a redshirt freshman, said last month he was bisexual.

“We admire Michael Sam’s honesty and courage,” the NFL said in statement. “Michael is a football player. Any player with ability and determination can succeed in the NFL. We look forward to welcoming and supporting Michael Sam in 2014.”

A year ago, NFL teams were rightfully criticized for asking potential draft picks questions on the order of “Do you have a girlfriend?” This year, Sam will save them the trouble of having to ask.

If Jason Collins demolished one barrier last year — declaring that he was gay within days of finishing his 12th NBA season — Sam laid ruin to another by coming out before the draft. Where Collins is a Stanford grad from Los Angeles, Sam is more than a decade younger and hails from Hitchcock, Texas (pop. 7,200). And unlike Collins — who surprised his twin brother with his revelation — Sam’s sexuality was not a closely guarded secret at Missouri. Sam says he came out to his Missouri teammates last August. Coaches and classmates also knew he was gay well before today. Multiple sources have told Sports Illustrated that Sam strongly considered making an announcement late last summer and was willing to play his senior season as an openly homosexual athlete. (He decided against it at the last minute.)

Word of Sam’s intentions to come out spread beyond Mizzou. Last month, an SI writer approached Sam at the Senior Bowl and asked whether he would like to collaborate on a piece about his sexuality. Sam politely demurred, but he hardly appeared troubled or surprised by the inquiry. He assured the writer that it was okay that he had asked and added matter-of-factly, “It’s going to be a big deal no matter who I do it with.”

It’s telling, too, that no one in Sam’s orbit “outed” him, enabling him to tell his story on his terms and timetable. At some level this is a story about a generation gap. Sam and his cohort were raised in the era of Will & Grace and Modern Family, not The Brady Bunch, let alone My Three Sons. Friends, coaches and teammates all invoked the same line: It just wasn’t a big deal.

“I didn’t realize how many people actually knew, and I was afraid that someone would tell or leak something out about me,” Sam told ESPN. “I want to own my truth. … No one else should tell my story but me.”

Before coming out to all his teammates and coaches, Sam said he told a few close friends and dated another Missouri athlete who was not a football player.

“Coaches just wanted to know a little about ourselves, our majors, where we’re from, and something that no one knows about you,” Sam said. “And I used that opportunity just to tell them that I was gay. And their reaction was like, ‘Michael Sam finally told us.'”

Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said in a statement Sunday night he was proud of Sam and how he represented the program.

“Michael is a great example of just how important it is to be respectful of others, he’s taught a lot of people here first-hand that it doesn’t matter what your background is, or your personal orientation, we’re all on the same team and we all support each other,” Pinkel said. “If Michael doesn’t have the support of his teammates like he did this past year, I don’t think there’s any way he has the type of season he put together.”

Missouri linebacker Donovan Bonner has been a teammate of Sam’s for five years.

“We knew of his status for 5 years and not one team member, coach, or staff member said anything says a lot about our family atmosphere,” Bonner tweeted.

As for where Sam will get drafted, consider that he is the 11th man to win the SEC Defensive Player of the Year award. Each of the previous 10 winners was drafted prominently, eight in the first round. If Sam is not drafted, LGBT football fans should protest and shout to the top of their lungs about discrimination. There is no tougher conference in the NCAA than the SEC. To be named the SEC Defensive Player of the Year is no small feat, and it shows that Sam is a great player and should be drafted by the NFL. It’s time for the NFL to show that they do not discriminate because someone is out and proud. LGBT youth need to know that they have role models. As proud as I am of Conner Mertens who came out as bisexual, Sam would make a major statement as the first openly gay NFL player.

Sam is a trailblazer and, by definition, that means embarking with no map or template. Nevertheless, he has equipped himself. His team of advisors includes Howard Bragman, an L.A. publicist with experience helping celebrities come out. Sam met with Collins in L.A. and spoke to Ayanbadejo. Last week plans were also afoot to put Sam together with former NFL cornerback Wade Davis, who came out in 2012, and Robbie Rogers, the openly gay L.A. Galaxy midfielder. As more athletes come out, a community of support has formed and fortified.

This we know: All the inevitable homophobic tweets and slurs will be offset by overwhelming support. As state after state recognizes marriage equality and Google devotes its daily “doodle” to protest Russia’s homophobic legislation, and even the sitting Pope appears to accept homosexuality, figures like Sam are respected far more than they’re reviled. For whatever short-term grief or dissonance he may encounter; for however many NFL teams decline to draft him; for whatever catcalls he hears in stadiums and in the trenches; he will be celebrated globally.

“Any stigma is fading,” said Martina Navratilova, one of the first in the lineage of openly gay athletes. “It’s all becoming a question of when not if. The next when is an active gay athlete. It’s happening brick-by-brick, and pretty soon, we’ll have the whole house.” She then took a second to chuckle in happy disbelief. “We’ve hit this tipping point, this flood, this … I don’t know what the term is.”

Actually, there is a word for this: progress.

Chandler Whitney wanted to come out to his Walla Walla Community College baseball team, he just didn’t know how or when. Over winter break he had spent time with his boyfriend, Willamette University kicker Conner Mertens, and his friends and felt acceptance by Mertens’ hometown friends. It was a relief to be open and honest about his relationship with them.

When he returned to school last month, Whitney was more at ease with his sexuality. He didn’t want to hide from his teammates anymore.

“I’d been planning to do it at some point anyway,” Whitney told Outsports, “and seeing the reaction to Conner’s story calmed me down.”

Last week when the baseball team gathered for the first practices of the new year, talk turned to stories from winter break. Because he’d spent much of the break with Mertens, Whitney felt the time was now. He stood up in front of the team, said he had contemplated whether to tell them a secret or not, and shared a “confession” he’d been holding back from them since they first met:

“I’m gay.”

The team broke into spontaneous applause. It took Whitney off-guard.

“Being where I am in eastern Washington, it’s not the response I expected. I’m in Walla Walla, there’s not a lot of open-mindedness on the surface.”

In 2012, over 60% of the Walla Walla County voters rejected a ballot measure that ultimately legalized same-sex marriage in the state of Washington; Barack Obama garnered less than 40% of the vote there.

“I didn’t necessarily expect hostility, but I expected a guy or two to feel uncomfortable or awkward. Everyone on the team shook my hand, gave me a hug and said we’re a family and they had my back. The guys I thought would feel the most uncomfortable said don’t worry about a thing, it’s not a big deal.”

Whitney grew up in a Catholic household in Beaverton, Ore., just a couple miles from Nike world headquarters. He was a standout baseball player, going between first base and outfield.

“I’m a pretty good hitter,” Whitney said. “And my defense is fair.”

He batted .350 in high school with a .461 on-base percentage. He was first-team all-state in Oregon his senior year, leading the team to the state semifinals. He attended Southridge High School, coincidentally the same name (but not the same school) as Mertens’ high school.

Whitney got pseudo-outed his freshman year in high school. Another student started a rumor that Whitney had sent him revealing pictures. Whitney claims he didn’t. The rumors snowballed and he became targeted by many students as “the gay kid” when in fact he was the (deeply closeted) gay kid. As he neared graduation just last year, he revealed only to a couple close friends that the rumors were true, even as he struggled with not wanting to be gay.

“I didn’t accept it myself very well,” Whitney said. “I didn’t want anyone to know, and if anyone asked I would deny it even though I knew I was gay. It took me until I was a senior in high school to see how dumb that was. Now I realize that the most important thing is that I’m happy.”

Part of that happiness is his half-year relationship with Mertens. While it wasn’t because of his boyfriend’s coming out story last week that he decided to take the plunge, he said it’s made it easier to explain his relationship.

“You know that college football player at Willamette who came out?” He asked his teammates last week. “I’m dating that guy.”

In the few days since he came out to his team, Whitney said he has experienced no change from his teammates. Nobody shies away from him in or out of the locker room. It’s business as usual.

“Nobody’s weird about it. They still make the same jokes they did before, minus some choice words.”

He’s already heard one choice word come from a teammate since he shared his revelation with them. The teammate was quick to apologize.

“The immediate reaction from the guy who said it was something like, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m trying to get rid of that. It’s just a habit.’ I got on him a little bit. But I let the team know it’s OK and that they should just watch it. Time to focus on playing baseball.'”

The team’s first game is March 1. Whitney said he will be playing outfield for the Warriors. He expects to play two years for Walla Walla Community College then transfer to a four-year college to earn a degree and play baseball.