ESPN’s Israel Gutierrez has publicly come out as a gay man in an emotional blog entry. Gutierrez will get married on September 12 and said, “it would be annoying to tell my story every time someone sees my wedding ring, it just seemed like a natural time to get this out in the open.”
Gutierrez is a columnist for ESPN.com and a regular panelist on both The Sports Reporters and Around the Horn. He also appears on a variety of other ESPN platforms.
Here is an excerpt from this blog:
I’ve been agonizing for months trying to figure out how to do this.
It’s been incredibly difficult, to the point where I usually talk myself in circles and end up making very little sense.
So I decided on this simple blog entry. No formalities, no restrictions, just me letting you into a portion of my life I’ve kept largely separate from my professional career.
I’m gay, which plenty of people, I’m sure, have either deduced or just guessed as much over the years.
But this isn’t me “coming out.” The truth is, I’ve been out to friends and family for more than six years.
The reason I’m tackling this now is, primarily, because I’m getting married on September 12. And besides the fact that it would be annoying to tell my story every time someone sees my wedding ring, it just seemed like a natural time to get this out in the open.