Time for the summer Olympics

I can't believe it's been four years since the Olympics in Beijing it seems a bit surreal that the years has gone by so fast, it kinda feels like just last year. Start of with how many out athletes that participates in this year Olympics, out of 12000 athletes, 22 are out as gay or lesbian. I was pleased to see that three are from Sweden since it is my home country. The list are dominated by women, I guess that they are more at ease to be out and proud with their sexuality. Sure, sexuality shouldn't be an issue but it is and always gonna be until LBGT people are excepted in all countries. This might be wishful thinking that this might happen sometime in the future were who you love and sleep with won't be an issue or something that are not accepted. I will say that 20 out athletes are a small number and if you go by what the statistics say with 5%-10% of the population being LBGT that means there should be about 500 LBGT athletes participating in this years Olympics. I know it can't be easy being an out athlete due to expectations from fans, sponsors, being an idol to so many and so on plus the image you want to have or being advised to have. It seems to be a complicated situation that an out athlete could find themselves in. I believe that there are more people who are LBGT but don't want to be open about it and that's okay, it has to be because who are we to say to anyone how they should live their life. That is just as bad when straight people say how I as a gay man should live my life open or not open my about sexuality. The only thing I would say is that we have to give people space to be who they are and when they feel ready to say something about it we listen and be understanding because everyones situation is different.

I am really impressed by any athlete that has the curage to be out and proud in any sport. Hell, anyone who has the curage to be themselves deserves to be celebrated for their curage. It's really hard to explain to anyone who is straight how it feels to be normal in a different way than them. I mean being gay might have been the best thing ever happen to me since it forced me to be honest with myself and to others and in my case i got to know myself so much better which made me stop beating myself up for stupid mistakes that I've made. Many things gets to be so insignificant in the long run when you evolve into a person you want to be and I realized that I was being to hard on myself. I understood that I needed to be true to myself and what I was feeling about stuff because I wasn't happy and I wanted to be happy and feel good.

So the Olympics this year are being held in London. I hope that all Swedish athletes do well and of course that we win a few medals:)