ABSTRACT
Finding informants for this research was diffi cult as few gay male athletes come out to the community and fewer still come out to their athletic teams. This scarcity is exacerbated by the fact that once an athlete does come out of the closet he is more likely to drop out of sport because he may no longer feel that he needs the false representation of heterosexuality that being an athlete provides (Hekma 1998). I located 42 informants, of whom 26 were openly gay on their teams, through a variety of means. The majority of informants came to me through the use of the Internet after I posted queries on gay websites and list-serves. I also obtained informants by keeping e-mails that gay athletes sent to me after I published an article on gay athletes in the August (1999) issue of XY Magazine, a national magazine designed for gay youth.
