ANTHONY BOWENS
The professional wrestler on coming out to the world... again.
Coming out once is hard enough, but for professional wrestler Anthony Bowens, it’s a process he’s gone through twice. He first publicly identified as bisexual in 2017, after a cute YouTube video of him and his boyfriend Michael Pavano came to the attention of his fellow wrestlers. Then, after two years of being a voice for the bi community, he decided it was time to come out as gay.
“Around six or seven months ago, I was developing a new wrestling character, so I started to go over all the media work I’ve done over the past couple of years, and each article would describe me as ‘the bisexual pro wrestler’ and at the time, when I first came out two years ago, I felt that label was what closest represented me. Reading it in the current day, it just didn’t seem to fit anymore. As the months went on, I started to feel a lot stronger about that label,” he tells us.
“It was a bit scary at first, because I had spent the previous two years in some pretty major publications defending the label bisexuality, so I didn’t know how people were going to react. I didn’t want them to think I was turning my back on anything, but I did want people to understand that as you get older your views of the world and your views of yourself change, I’m sure anybody who’s looked back on their younger self, they can all recognise a difference in the way they think, and I definitely notice a difference. The closest thing that I want to be referred to as now is gay.”
The prospect of coming out again – this time as gay – left Anthony with a “moment of fear” as familiar feelings of sharing a personal truth came flooding back, although he says it was brief. “That kinda dissipated because I was like, ‘I’ve been through this before’, and I’m living so authentically now that it really wouldn’t bother me. Even if people react negatively, I still know that I’m representing people and helping them be themselves, so I just look at the greater picture.”
For some gay men and women, the label of bisexuality is used as a stepping stone to coming out as gay – a way to soften the blow when telling family and friends, or even themselves – while others find themselves shifting along the sexuality spectrum as they progress through life. In his case, Anthony says the latter is true. “I truly believe that sexuality does exist on a spectrum,” he says. “There are so many different people with so many different descriptions of how they identify. I’m friends with a lot of people who identify as bisexual, and some are 50/50, others lean towards guys, and others lean towards girls. That’s why I don’t like labels in general, because everybody’s so unique. You can’t really pinpoint one specific thing to a person.”
Though his heart was certainly in the right place, it didn’t stop some from criticising his decision to announce that his way of identifying his sexuality had changed. “I try to stay away from looking at the comments, but every now and then I’ll get curious and look,” he says, referring to accusations of bi-erasure. “There was one person saying, ‘Oh, now you’ve turned your back on us’, but I didn’t turn my back, I still completely advocate for the bisexual community.
“That was probably one of the bi¦est issues I saw when I originally came out as bisexual, I was expecting a negative reaction from people who identify as heterosexual, but I really didn’t get any of that, most of the negative stuff I saw was from people in the LGBTQ community arguing with each other over labels, over gay vs. bisexual, which really confused me. Before I came out I wasn’t very caught up on LGBTQ issues, so it took me by surprise and I was kind of disappointed because I thought,
‘This isn’t why I came out, for people to argue over labels. I came out to help people.’ And I think it’s very hypocritical. We get judged by so many people in this world, so to take that judgement and turn it around on somebody within the community who’s already struggling with other issues, when they’re looking for support, I think that’s horrible.”
Anthony recalls how the revelation of his samesex desires came to him half-way through high school, when he had an “interesting” dream about a male friend. “Those kinds of dreams kept recurring, not specifically with him but with men in general,” he says. From there, he began to notice his attraction to men in everyday life. “I would look at a woman walking down the street and think, ‘Oh she’s really pretty’, and then if she was walking hand-inhand with a man I’d take a glance at him and think, ‘Well, he’s kinda cute too’. Admittedly my love life in high school was very, very poor. It was terrible. Almost non-existent. It got to the point where those feelings were strong enough, and the other side of my life was so terrible, that I was like, ‘I think this is something I need to explore’.”
Although he felt “comfortable” exploring his sexuality, managing to evade the shame that often accompanies LGBTQ teens discovering who they are, he still felt the fear that goes hand-in-hand with the coming out process. “Of course I was scared, because I didn’t want people to know, and I didn’t know how they were going to react so I kinda kept it to myself for a while. Eventually I told my friends on a need-toknow basis, and they were all very accepting and supportive, and honestly they played a big role in helping me become comfortable with myself. As the years went on, I almost got to the point where I was ready to say something, but then I began a wrestling career, and that was my biggest fear of all, because I didn’t know how the other wrestlers were gonna react, I didn’t know how the fans were gonna react, I didn’t know if it was going to completely derail my career. So that was my biggest fear of all.”
From the outside, wrestling appears to be a very stereotypically macho environment; a buffet of ripped muscles, aggression and quasi-violence. It’s also no secret that the sports world in general is severely lacking in LGBTQ representation. So it’s understandable that Anthony was cautious of coming out to his fellow wrestlers, but when they discovered a video of him and his boyfriend on YouTube, in which they acknowledged their relationship for the first time, they were nothing but supportive.
“If anything, it’s made my relationships with a lot of my co-workers and the other wrestlers a lot stronger, because I’m not hiding anymore. They like the fact that I can openly be myself,” he says. “Also, there’s actually a decent amount of LGBTQ wrestlers out there who are pretty successful on the independent scene, and I think there’s a lot of support for them. I think the culture in wrestling has changed a lot as far as how it’s looked at in locker rooms. I’m not gonna sit here and say that homophobia is completely gone, because I’m sure it still exists, but it’s kind of contained now because people know if they are to say something they shouldn’t there will be a lot of negative backlash. We have a lot of support in this industry. However, I do think there needs to be more representation on TV, because it’s a bit lacking there.”
So why aren’t there more openly LGBTQ athletes in mainstream sport? “I think it tends to be because of locker room culture,” Anthony suggests. “I was thinking about this the other day, because obviously your sexuality doesn’t have any effect on how you perform or your skill level. I think sometimes organisations may fear... it’s more ignorance than anything. It’s that ignorant thought that if an LGBTQ athlete is in the locker room, it may make one of the other athletes uncomfortable in the sense of, ‘Maybe this person isn’t here just for baseball, maybe he’s here because it’s a locker room full of men’, which is an absolutely ridiculous thought, but there are people who actually think like that. I can’t for the life of me think of any other reason why there would be any discomfort on a sports team.”
Throughout his journey of selfdiscovery, Anthony’s most loyal supporter has been his boyfriend, who’s there for him “every step of the way”. The couple met on Michael’s birthday in May 2016, and say they “immediately clicked” after staying up all night talking. “I knew something special had just happened,” recalls Anthony. After two months of dating they decided to make it official, but with the wrestler still in the closet, they had to keep their relationship a secret.
“I had to tell him, ‘It’s not gonna be forever, but just please can you bare with me until I’m ready to say something, because I don’t feel comfortable enough to do it right now’, which is kind of a horrible thing to do, and I feel guilty about it to this day,” he admits, “but to his credit he loved me enough to put up with it, he supported me through it, there were a couple of times where I could see the disappointment in his face that he couldn’t share a picture of us or something. That’s why I decided to come out once people saw the Laughing Challenge video we had put up.
“When I first made my coming out post, I didn’t tell him, I didn’t tell my friends, I wanted the decision to be mine and mine alone. I didn’t want
any influence over me. So I went ahead and did that when Michael and I were having a fun game night with our friends. I remember I took out my phone, posted the message on Facebook and sent a relationship request to Michael, then turned my phone off and threw it aside. About 45 minutes later, I told him to go check his phone, so he did, and I saw the brightest smile on his face. We had a tight bond already, but that really strengthened it. So he’s been my support system from the very beginning.”
Having spent the past two years referred to as ‘the bisexual wrestler’ by many, Anthony expresses a level of “annoyance” that his sexuality has become one of his defining factors to the general public. Now that he’s out as gay, he’s somewhat concerned the same will happen again – although he understands that, as the push for equality and acceptance rolls on, it’s a small price to pay if it helps to inspire others.
“I’d like to get to the point where an athlete can just be a really good athlete without having to have some sort of label pinned on them. At some point down the line, that would be great,” he explains. “However, in the current time, I do think labels are important specifically for visibility. There needs to be more openly LGBTQ athletes so we can normalise everything, and as time goes on I think that will slowly happen, but only if we have more representation.”
Representation, as essential as it is, can only come if brave LGBTQ people make the decision to be open, unapologetic and (most importantly) proud about who they are. So, as we end our conversation, Anthony shares some advice for anyone who wants to follow in his footsteps.
“As an athlete who was once closeted, I understand all the fears that an LGBTQ athlete would endure,” he assures. “I would say, ‘Don’t let the fear dissuade you from pursuing your dreams’. Stay the course, and when the time is right, say something. It’s very scary, but it’s also very liberating to be yourself. It’s hard to give advice sometimes because not everybody is in the same situation. There are parts of the world where your life may be in danger if you come out, and if you simply say, ‘Go out and be free’, some people could get hurt from that. So I think it’s hard to give advice sometimes. But from my experience, I can tell you that it’s not as bad as you think. It’s very rewarding to be yourself, so stay the course. It doesn’t last forever.”