Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - R.K. Russell: Debunking the Myths of Bisexuality

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

R.K. Russell (former professional NFL football player, author, advocate) breaks down what it was like to be the first active NFL player to come out of the closet, the complexity around bisexuality, and compartmentalization as a survival mechanism. He reflects on his football beginnings, his close relationship with his single mother, and his struggles with internalizing society’s flaws and feeling “othered.” Russ opens up about his watershed moment when he first realized he was bisexual and his internal battle that ensued, juggling both his masculine and feminine tendencies, and how society’s incorrect views about sexuality impacted the conversation around his own within the football world. He explains why he strives to debunk myths around bisexuality, the intersectionality of being a queer person and a person of color, curation vs creation, and the importance of representation and inclusivity in sports. Russ reveals why he finally decided to make himself and his happiness a priority over football and his advice to those holding big secrets. R.K. Russell's book, The Yards Between Us: https://books.disney.com/book/the-yards-between-us/ BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My terminology was just not straight. I was like, I don't, I was like, dang, I guess I'm not straight. But bisexuality and the bit that I had heard about it sounded transitional. So my mind immediately went to football, of course, because that was what was paying for my education also, what was going to help lift us up out of poverty. I was like, well, football is a little more important. It's also a shorter span of my life.

If this is a true transition, I just need to stop it. I was like, I just need to kind of stop it where it is and back pedal. I was like, I need to just go back to being straight. And everything will be fine. So really, that was kind of my mindset. I think that's also having a relationship where I felt cared for and where I felt attraction and where I also had a lot of emotion with the woman helped because I was like, see, I'm already like, I'm already halfway here.

It's like, I'm just, I'm already good. Like, I just need to stop doing all this other stuff. Commit over here. And everything would be fine. And so I didn't even really dissect my life like that because I was just like, it's happening, but I can stop it. I think it also created that turbulent hot and coldness in all of my relationships and all my friendships, because I was battling with something I also wasn't sharing to a lot of people. So in a situation where I was with my girlfriend and I was happy and we just won a football game, I should have been happy.

But internally, I'm thinking about while I still have this attraction or will someone find out, will I lose this football career or this relationship because of this part of myself that, even at my best and hardest, doesn't seem to be just going away like I thought it would. And then I kind of reverberate that energy back into my surroundings. And people are like, whoa, what's wrong? Like, you should be happy. And I continued that way for a long time, actually, just kind of trying to continue to compartmentalize. But as my life experiences got larger, the boxes that I was trying to put them in weren't growing. And they were overfilling and kind of making life a bit of a mess.

But the process for me, I mean, it was, I look back at it and I'm like, how did that person survive? How was that person really able to make it to the NFL, able to pass college, able to have relationships? Because they just seemed like they were in such a overwhelming place. And I think that's also when, you know, spoiler alert, I came out. And everything, I was like, oh, my God, the weight was lifting. I was like, I did not realize that I had been underwater for so long. Breakdown, she's going to break it down for you. Because you know she knows a thing or two.

And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down. Hi, I'm Myam Bealeck. I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to our breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so you don't have to. Got an exciting day here today, Jonathan Cohen.

Never a dull moment. Never a dull moment. We are going to be talking to a full moment. former NFL player, which makes me very excited because I do love my football. A decorated defensive end. He has sacked Hall of Famers. He's gone up against the fiercest competitors at the height of their game. He's a very, very special person to the queer community because R.K. Russell is the first active

NFL member to come out of the closet. He came out as bisexual, which also has a lot of really beautiful complexity that he talks about in this book that he wrote, he's also a writer and has been a poet for much of his life. It's called The Yards Between Us, a memoir of life, love, and football. He writes in a tremendous amount of detail about really his experience of really learning kind of what queerness was and then sort of stepping into his full identity and eventually coming out, which was huge news. Jonathan, do you remember hearing about this when it happened? Yeah, I do. I mean, it sent ripple effects across the sports community.

People really lost their minds. They were like, but was he playing in a way that was compromised by his sexuality? Like people lost their ever-loving minds. Yeah, it's amazing to hear him describe how he wasn't even aware of what the conversation would be. And he was just focused on what it meant to him and how he was compartmentalizing aspects of his personality. and then how he discovered that, you know,

maybe there was something more than he even realized to himself. Yeah, and I think also he's really not shy to talk in great detail about, you know, the complexity of the identity of bisexuality, which in many cases is misunderstood or mischaracterized. He also talks a lot about this notion of compartmentalization.

And I think it, I think no matter your identity or your politics or where you fall on any number of spectrums, the notion of compartmentalization, how he talks about it, I think, is really important for any conversation, especially when it comes to kind of stepping into who you are and what you'd like your voice to be. So he's done incredible work. He's been honored by the human rights campaign by gay times, a sportsperson of the year in the UK. He was also selected to the prestigious Out 100 list in 2019. The book literally just came out.

It's such a pleasure to welcome R.K. Russell, Russ, to the podcast. Break it down. Thank you. Thank you for having me. You said RK is more of like a technical, like a work name. It's a little more professional. Yeah, it just gives a different vibe. Russ is very friendly. We'll go with Russ.

And the RK stands for? Ooh. Names that I do not want to. out in the universe. Wow. So have you always been Russ? I have. I think football, honestly gave me to. I mean, there's a lot about your name in this book. Yeah. So I don't want to act like, sorry, the book we're referring to is the yards between us. But, but for now, you're happy being Russ. Oh, yeah. So happy. Okay. So do people call you like Russ, Russell or just Russ? Just Russ or R.K. Okay. Okay. The names are a thing. Yeah. No, the name. Well, the names are, it's important.

I read your book, a memoir of life, love, and football. And I think that this is, it seems like probably the way that you at some point viewed your life as well as kind of three separate things, meaning you have had so many incredible experiences as an athlete that is worthy of its own kind of book and story. and then you've had so many, you know, interesting relationships that became like the person that you are and the friendships that you made, one of whom is sitting behind you, you know, the people that make up your life. That also could be its own story. And then there's the love component, which you weave so beautifully into the book. You're really, you're a beautiful writer and that is one of your talents is you are a writer. But maybe you can tell us a little bit because, you know, for people either who are football fans or maybe people who don't know much about football, how does it come to be that you're this kid who you were always big for your age? But it wasn't really until later that you sort of like bulked up into what we think of as kind of NFL, you know, dimensions. What were you like as a kid? Were you athletic naturally? Oh my gosh.

I definitely was athletic naturally. It's also like a frame thing. Like coaches, especially in Texas at that time, just had an eye for like a frame. And of course my frame wasn't filled out. I was a young adolescent boy. But you just, you kind of know. You're like, yeah, he can put a little weight on him. He's going to be, you know, possibly, you know, a football player, athletic.

But I definitely had the athleticism. My biological father played basketball, so I knew that that also was a part of my genes and who I am. But yeah, it was kind of like a shot in the dark because you also see some big, you know, some people who are bigger or you think would be four players or they're clumsy or they just don't like it or they're, you know, all of these things. But it was a gamble and it paid off for me. So you weren't necessarily naturally like, I want to play football. Like you liked other sports. I mean, you were a big kid. Yeah, I think I like, I mean, I liked soccer until soccer no longer liked me.

Just being pigeonfoot and then, I mean, you can't see now for the people on audio. I have big feet too. You do. You have very large feet. Being pigeonfooted with big feet, I was like tripping over myself like in trying to dribble the soccer ball. It was just a lot. It was a lot happening. So that was kind of exed out.

I didn't want to play basketball because to me at that time, it just brought on memories of my dad. that kind of caused pain and all that. So football was kind of like the last resort. I mean, it's unbelievable to me because, you know, it's an incredibly, you know, elite kind of community, you know, that you ended up being part of. Talk a little bit about sort of what it was like growing up with your mom and the man you call dad who passed.

away when you were quite young. But talk a little bit about sort of growing up with your mom and sort of what your home life was like. Yeah, definitely. My mom, I will say to this day is my best friend. We talk pretty much every day, definitely every weekday for at least an hour. It's like clockwork. And that's something that didn't just like come out of nowhere. That's something that she definitely prioritized early on, no matter how exhausted she was from working two jobs and going to school or when my my dad did pass away, you know, raising me as a single mother, she balanced so well being this authoritative figure with also being a mother, with also being like a best friend. I don't know to this day how she did it. I mean, I have neat like nephews.

My brother has two kids and I'm struggling finding the balance just as like an uncle. But she was always an amazing woman. So I really didn't even know that my family, maybe was different than the traditional, quote, air quotes, traditional family until I got into school, into grade school and kids start asking questions and, you know, poking fun and kind of doing the comparison game. But growing up until then, like, we didn't have much. That just comes with having only one form of income coming in a household.

My mother also had me, she was 20, so she was young. She's a kid. Yeah, she was still finishing college and, you know, getting her life kind of on track for her, let alone for someone else. But that really just made us very close. It also made me appreciate things, even if I didn't appreciate them and those moments being like a little snotty-nosed brat.

I look back and I'm like, oh my God, my mother did so much with so little. Was it just the two of you? It was a lot of the time. We moved, I was born in Buffalo, New York. After my stepfather passed away, I think I was around six, we moved to Dallas, Texas under kind of the thought that we would have

a little family support. My aunt was there and my mom's older sister. And she was very much like, come, you know, you have someone here, there's great opportunities here. And, you know, that was true. But with my aunts and with that relationship, I think for my mom and her, they realized that they weren't as close as they had thought. Just my aunt had been in Texas for so long before. Like, I, you know, she would visit Buffalo a little bit. I was really unfamiliar with her until we moved. So I think their sister relationship was already trying to find exfooting and then having,

like, a young kid in the house with two adults who have not tailored their life for young kids. I mean, as anyone knows or even can kind of see or assume, once we have a kid, it kind of everything changes. And their life was not built for that. So there was some friction there. Right. And then you ended up being then in Texas. And you also said an interesting thing that you went from living in a predominantly black

neighborhood to a not predominantly black neighborhood. And I wonder if a lot of people don't realize how significant that still is, even as young as you are. Can you talk a little bit, and you talk a bit about it in the book, you know, about sort of that awareness of otherness that you hadn't previously explored? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely the best way I could put is kind of like a culture shock. You're used to people kind of like understanding you and you having shared experience and feeling this bond and this connection that you feel at a young age, there's just innately human until you, like you said, experience the otherness. And you realize that not only,

am I not like everyone else and I don't look like everyone else, but that I am a minority, that I am a voice and a person that not only is not represented, but a lot of the times are systematically erased from places or are looked at as subhuman or less than. And as a young person, you know, to not really have vocabulary for that is very hard because you really do take a lot of that personally. And it's hard not to attribute kind of society's flaws as your own internal like shortcomings. So in Texas, specifically being in, I believe, the last state to abolish slavery, it was. It just took them a minute to get around to it.

They were busy with other things on the docket. But no, it is such a culture shock. And it's something so hard to process at a young age when you're not even fully aware of who you are. And you don't even have really time to figure that out before you understand that the world kind of feels very negatively. Well, and one of the things that's really a throughline of the book, and I'm so grateful that we no longer live in a time where anyone would even think to ask if your mother made you the way that you are in terms of your sexual identity. But one of the things that I think is really sweet is what a through line you had with your mom, where she was a constant reflector of both your experience and that. the reality of your existence, meaning, you know, what was really cool is like your mom seemed to be the person that you could go to. And she had this keen awareness of what it was like for you

as a young black man, you know, as a kid growing up in this culture. And she couldn't always fix it or make it right. Yeah. But what I heard was that you were kind of constantly listened to by her. Is that what it felt like? Oh, for sure. My mother would come back. Like I said, from working all day, literally being gone kind of around the time I wake up and not coming back to like around the time where I go to sleep. And she would sit on the couch and I'm this excited kid who just loves his mom, is happy to see him. And I just want to tell her all about my day. And she would lay there and close her eyes.

And she'd like, okay, you can tell me like go. And I would go, go, go, go, go. And then I would blame her for not listening. I'm like, you're sleep. You're not listening to me. And she would repeat back everything I had pretty much said. She said, I'm just resting my eyes. But I am listening.

Like, please go ahead. And she would ask me questions, you know, about the things that she heard. She would follow up with things like, oh, whatever happened with Little Johnny Who, A, B, C, D. And I'd be like, oh, my God, this is actually what happened. So she was very intentional in our relationship. And she cared so much about me as a person and not just kind of checking off a box of like doing the things that she felt mothers should do, which is incredible. Because like I said, I look back at it now and I'm like, if I would have had a kid around the time my mom had me, I would have an 11-year-old. What would I have done?

you know, who would that person be? And I just, I cannot thank her and praise her enough for doing something that people, regardless of age, find very challenging and very hard to do. My Ambialx breakdown is supported by superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful. Maybe they're like, you're fine. Drink more water. There's no real data. There's no game plan.

This has happened to me many, many times, especially on the people. perimenopause journey. That's why we're fascinated by what superpower is doing. They send a licensed professional to your home or you can visit a nearby lab. One simple blood draw with over 100 biomarkers. That's way more than you usually get. It unlocks a true understanding of your body. Their app has detailed information on heart, liver, thyroid hormones, metabolism, vitamin and mineral levels, even environmental toxins. From disease prevention to treating that annoying brain fog or simply optimizing your gym game, superpower is the most comprehensive and advanced. system out there. I've been super tired of constantly guessing or just trying to read articles online

about what to do for health. Superpower gives you an actionable health plan based on personal results. It's a real game changer. Plus, they have an on-demand clinician team to answer questions. Supplement or prescription suggestions can be directly bought through superpower, so you don't have to go anywhere else. They also have nutritional guidance, tips for lifestyle and behavioral adjustments. You even get your true biological age that you can track over time. Superpower used to cost $499.99 for the full experience, which is much more affordable than anything else out there. Make this the year you stop guessing about your health with superpower. Superpower. Not only did Superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them.

Make sure to mention my and Bionle's breakdown to help support the show. Before your your kind of, you know, football career properly took off. Your family kind of continued to expand. You made some really special friendships, and you write about them really, really, you get a really good picture in the book for sort of what your journey was in terms of coming out of your shell. You experienced a lot of bullying, which I was, I'll be honest.

I was kind of surprised. I was like, oh, the big kid never gets that, you know? And you also, it reminded me of the movie about Mike Tyson where they show kind of his transformation from what it feels like to feel like you can't have any power

to you kind of finding that power which for you did come with learning kind of your strength but I wonder if you can talk a little bit and hoops is behind you I wonder if you can talk a little bit about sort of some of the chosen family

and kind of like that chosen community that that you both kind of formed around you and that sort of just came to you. Yeah, well, and I'm glad that you added that part because I do feel like the universe or the forces to be or whatever you believe in. I think the unifying bond of just love and humanity really did give me things and give me people that I didn't even at the time know I really needed. Hoops being one of them, that even though I was, I would say, say maybe even reluctant to continue to just have friendship just because our friendship or our brotherhood, really, our family started off in a bit of a rocky patch. I met him in a time where I was doing something I should not have been doing, which was stealing. But it's so interesting that two people, because he's the best person, one of the best people that I know, and that two

people could really just do something not so great together in the time of adolescence and just all of these things and really find that bond. So I definitely think that was the universe. looking out for me and hopefully that I've given to him in his life as much as he's given to mine. And some of the other choices were a little more, I think, intentional, where me being a young man. I talk about my best friend, Joe, Joseph Gilliam, who I met at Purdue. And that was a thing where I saw someone who really checked every box, just being this fully realized person, this very self-confident person, but also being intelligent, and also striving to be better, wanting to take care of his family at a very young age.

And I was intentional in being like, okay, well, let me just be this person's friend. Let me stick close to this person. Let me kind of go down the same path that they're going because I know that they're going towards something great. But the universe is so interesting. Once you know what you need and you know what you want or you put that out there,

it does find a way of returning it to you as long as you do right by those people. the fact that, you know, we've gotten this many minutes into this conversation, we haven't talked about, you know, sexual, well, football or sexuality. Well, I mean, we talked about football. You know, I was very interested in how you wrote this book because you obviously start with sort of like, you know, the what most people know about you, right? And then you go back and, you know, we all have a story that leads us to wherever we're at.

today. But what was really interesting is, you know, you talk about girls. You talk about your interest in girls like most people are expected to, right? There's a certain, you know, in a heteronormative society where we favor boys and girls dating. You know, your story, like if I had stopped, you know, at page, whatever it was, I would have had. had, you know, a really interesting, well-written, you know, great story. And what you talk about is all the things that attracted you to, you know, the first girl that you dated and then eventually, you know, the relationship that you had later that was a little more flushed out, you know, with a woman. And there's no question in my mind that you absolutely are communicating what

at that time in your life felt like a completely normal for you, like a natural organic process of attraction. And you proceeded to have that kind of interaction with women like people do. And I didn't expect what came up in this book. And I'm a suit. I like feel emotional to ask you to talk about it, but I also know that you chose to talk about it. And so like, here we are.

You talk about how when you first looked at porn online, which is how, I don't know. Jonathan, you want to guess a percentage? I don't know. I'm a million years old. I'm a dinosaur. There weren't computers. These days, too many. Right.

Okay. Well, there's Jonathan's perspective. But normally that's where I go. I go to like, oh, too many people look at porn on the Internet. But the way the – and I'm not saying this is an argument for, like, why porn? needs to exist. But what you describe, and I'm going to go ahead and say it, you as many people are, you were curious, and you looked at something, but you had a distinct reaction to what you were seeing in that, okay, like we are biological humans and there's a attraction thing that happens

and there are physiological things that occur when you look at naked people and when you look at certain situations. But you had like what I see as like a watershed moment of like, something seems different in my brain about what I'm seeing. Yes. I hate to ask you to talk about it. And also like, I think it's really important. So can you please talk about what happened for you?

Yeah. No, of course. And don't feel bad asking. I don't feel bad. I just like, what it is. Like you said, I wrote about it. I will say that also before, before I clicked that website and that part of the book, I was 18 and it says 18 and over, click it, and I clicked it.

So in no way am I telling people, if you're confused, watch porn. Right. But for me, I think, and especially at that time when the conversation was being had around sexuality, that it is very kind of sex-driven and sex-based, which I'm trying to kind of, like, get away from now. Or like, because that isn't, you know, for a lot of people and for me as well, an adult-ish conversation. Yep. You know, outside of like the health parameters around outside of just being informed and like the education of it. Sure.

When we're talking about the actual act of sex, for me personally I view that as an adult conversation. He thinks I'm a child. No. No, no, no. No, no. I get it. No, but I'm just saying, like, I would love to also talk to a younger audience and like young people about identity. And I think that is the phrase that is a little less, seems a little less adult.

For sure. But in this instance of me watching porn and finding attraction and having a physical reaction, I did need that moment where my body literally was kind of telling me like, hey, yo, we're not straight. Like, I don't know what you're, you know, I do know what you're thinking and I know what you've been told. But like, that is not your truth. And it took that for me to kind of look at all the indifference that I had prior to. too in terms of men and in terms of the different types of bodies that people have and the different types of just forms that we all come in and be like, oh, yeah, I guess I can find

attraction in all of these forms and in all of these people. That doesn't just make you, you know, this super kind of cool, progressive straight guy that that makes you someone who is on a kind of a spectrum of sexuality or of identity. And I found later that I did have a greater capacity to love people both into, and romantically, which to me forms the start of my bisexuality in that journey and realizing who I was. But I did need kind of that physical moment of like, hey. I think what's also important to give a nod to, and, you know, as a person who is scientifically trained and I studied, you know, neuroendocrinology and actually part of, you know, my graduate work

was learning about gender and sexuality, like, in an academic sense, meaning like it wasn't part of the vernacular. We were just, there was already research about it for a long time, and we were already talking about it in very progressive ways. But I think what's important to point out is that not everyone who feels aroused from looking at a person who is the same biological sex as them is gay or bisexual, right? So I just want to, and I'm sure you would argue that as well. It's not just like, oh my gosh, something's happening down there. I must be gay. Like, it's not that. You describe something really specific that I give you so much credit for talking about

because you admit that you even had bias and stereotyping about what it meant to be gay. And can you talk a little bit about sort of like what you thought gay men are? Of course. I mean, especially growing up in this male sports. culture. Any time that gay was really brought it was not in, you know, in an educational or scientific way that she described that she was. Like, it wasn't like that.

It was very much like the anti-of-manlyhood and the anti-manness and the anti-of-sports. And everything came in opposition to something that in sports specifically was praised. So to me, it seemed like such this weakness or this frailty. or this, I don't even know, just the opposite of the things that had brought me in my life at that time so much joy and brotherhood and happiness and opportunity with scholarship. And even there was even like a physicality to it. Yeah. You picture, like I think what you said is like you pictured like thin, delicate, feminine, effeminate men who did not exude masculinity or, you know, things that I think in the patriarchy, we all kind of grow. you know, to revere.

And I think that was one of the most interesting things that you talked about is that when you saw what exists in terms of the spectrum of what the gay experience is, what you saw was like, oh, there are masculine men who also are gay. Or it's not so binary, you know, even within the gay community. Which in 2010 blew my mind. I was like, what? this is not what I've been told. Right.

But it's also just even in, you know, there were things I think developed at that time in media and entertainment in terminology, pop culture, whatever you'd say. That was kind of steering away from that. But everything that I had gotten before was, yeah, the more like of a high-pitched voice and more like these very, which it's perfectly fine to be a man and be feminine and have those characters. It's perfectly fine to be a man and not have those characters. Or a woman for that.

Yeah, exactly. But I grew up such in that, you know, that heteronormitivity, the sports culture, the binary, where things were even my bisexuality at that point in how I thought about or how I was coming and think about it is different than how I think about it now. Like it's just the more you learn, especially the more you open yourself up to different people in different stories in different a different world, you see the layers on top of yours and the intersection that you might embody or that you've always kind of felt had a place in you that maybe you. like me, compartmentalize them put away. So how do we get from where you were, where you start to think, like, wait a second, there's something about me that isn't totally the way I think it is. Yeah.

But you bump up against these gender identity and stereotypes of what it means to be not who you think you are. To that exploration. Like, how does it go from like that first, realization, like what's the process? Yeah, I think it's, I think it's a, for me anyway, it was a bit of a cocktail of curiosity. It mixed with kind of now that the question had come up and I had this moment, I really wanted to know.

Right. I actually, I was like, I need to know. I need to know either just for me or also under the guise of like colleges when you, you know, can experiment and figure things out. And I was like, okay, I was like, well, then I kind of need to know because this is big. Like I said, especially with everything I've been told in sports, I was like, I need to know what's going on with me. Mixed with then finding people attracted and kind of being open, my eyes open to what, how male bodies could please other male bodies. That's the most frank way.

That was actually, I mean, I kind of like, I both laughed and also like, you know, I felt like a deep, like tug at my heart because I think. think for many people. You literally, you were like, how, what's the, what's it? I was like, how does this go? And there's also, you know, a completely different, you know, set of terminology and understanding of just like the culture of what it's like to have two male people together or even two female people together for that part, for that matter. I want to ask something that I thought of, which could just be my own fear and protectiveness of you as a human. I wonder if when that happened, Like before we even get to the part of like, let's try this out, which also the way you wrote about it is, it's really, it's so cool. Like just, it's very, it's very special how, how deliberate you are with the words that you choose about, you know, this very personal thing.

But did you have any fear like about, I mean, I'm sure there was lots of fear and I'm happy people to talk about all the fear. But I wondered if all of a sudden, you know, all of the men around you, you know, all of the men around you, in some way felt like, oh my gosh, what if? What if this is not a friendship? What, like, what am I feeling? Yeah. Oh, I mean, that was a fear for me in and of itself because I had been so close with so many men in my life

and really starting to get close and make friendships where I did take a moment to assess within myself, which honestly didn't take long, what I really thought about because I was like, I'm not attracted to these people. like in any way, shape, or form. Right. Oh, you mean you can control your sexual urges?

I was like, oh, my God. Am I? Then I thought about it. I was like, ew, no. But yeah, no, I mean, it's, it was also just like looking back at it. I was like, oh, I was really braver than I, like, gave my credit, myself credit for. And I just also happened to find someone, and I talk about it in the book, who also kind of held my curiosity or my journey or my discovery with the same kind of care, which. looking at so many people and seeing so many stories now, they don't have that.

And I feel very fortunate to have had that. And really, absolutely. And I think for me, and this is just the type person I am too, I don't really spiral a lot of the times about things that aren't that are future things. So for me, I was like, let me figure this out. And if I am, then I'll spiral. You know, I didn't really question a lot of things. I was just, for me and myself, I wanted to know more about that part of myself, especially if it's a part that had. been there the whole time and I just had not been really aware of or not even been kind of

conscious of. So to then meet someone who kind of had that same care and that same understanding really was what brought me to the first experience. Because if it had been in any way shady or I think if you had had been in any way just out for whatever, had any motives, I don't think I would have wands, where it went. Well, and so what's also interesting is kind of the, you know, the timing, which we don't always choose, the timing of life. I mean, you were at an incredibly important part of your career, you know, as a professional football player, right?

And also, you still were engaging at that time with a woman, meaning you literally were holding everything all at once. Yeah. What did that feel like? Scary. But also, to my own detriment, like, I am a compartmentalizing king. Like, I can literally have a blow-up fight with, like, a dear friend. And the alarm bell go off and like, oh, I have plans to dinner with another friend.

And go and, like, have a great time. Like, it's a survival mechanism. I think that I brought on very young being someone in kind of tumultuous and traumatic situations, but also being someone who was experiencing joy and celebration and just trying to like enjoy life. Also just being black in America, I think creates that within yourself because it's always the constant fear of whether it be hate or racism or attack

or more harm in any way, but also, like I said, trying to enjoy your life. So there was that. But yet, I kind of was hoping also to have another like aha moment. Like I would be with a man and I'd be like, oh my God, That's what, you know, that the stars would align and an eclipse would happen and doves would cry and all of these things. You know, I thought that the world would open up beneath my feet and swallow me and I would have felt home. That didn't happen.

It was a positive experience. But at the same time, I was like, this is apples and oranges, really. Like, I enjoy that. I enjoy this. I don't feel differently about either because of the other. And it wasn't what I was expecting. I was expecting to have an answer. and I think I just had more questions.

This notion was brought up to you that bisexual men are just men who are gay who haven't admitted it yet. I'm going to ask you to speak to that. Not for all gay men or all bisexual men, but I think this is something

that comes up for a lot of people and I'm curious where you land with it. Oh, yeah, I mean, that's false information. No, it's false information. And it's also, I mean, to anyone's credit that I asked, I was also asking either straight or gay people seeing through straight or gay lenses in a world that was at that time very black and white. Actually, still is very black and white.

So I also, you know, I look back at it with a little more care and a little more grace in my heart. One, because I'm at the place I am now with it. And two, because, you know, people don't know what they don't know. I was getting information from kind of skewed sources about topics that they didn't understand. So I think that's also why, like, writing this book, having my story, having more, you know, bisexual people's story, pan people's story, queer people, LGBTQ plus people's stories is important because there needs to be resource and information for the many varied identities of society and identities of human beings in this world. But at that time, my sources were limited. I was

trying to get math from a science book or math from an English book. And it didn't work out for me. people often hold anyone on the queer spectrum to this bizarre standard of needing to have more definition about on any given day what turns them on what they love or what they want to identify with meaning you know while some of us choose a certain type over and over again a lot of people also date a lot of different kinds of people some of whom are more masculine than others some of who are more feminine you know like there's no there's no reason that we should expect anyone in the queer community to have any more idea of the type of thing they always are going to want to resonate with or have sex with or love.

You know, any more than we would as someone in the heterosexual community. Here's another question. I find you fascinating in case you could tell. When that moment happened or when this series of moments happened where you kind of realized, and I don't, you know, I don't know what your terminology was, but that you were different, as Jonathan said, than you thought you were. What else made sense in your life to you? Oh my, my, what made sense in my life at the moment?

Like, you had always been a deeply, you know, feeling, you know, a poetic, which is not to say that all gay or bisexual men have to be. But I'm curious in your mind, did you start putting things together? Like, oh, different, different, different. Not at all. I think at that moment my terminology was just not. straight? I was like, I don't, I was like, dang, I guess I'm not straight. But bisexuality and the bit that I had heard about it sounded transitional. So my mind immediately went to football, of course,

because that was what was paying for my education also, what was going to help lift us up out of poverty. I was like, well, football is a little more important. It's also a shorter span of my life. If this is a true transition, I just need to stop it. I was like, I just need to kind of stop it where it is and back pedal. I need to just go back to being straight. And everything will be fine. So really, that was kind of my mindset. I think that's also having a relationship where I felt cared for and where I felt

attraction and where I also had a lot of emotion with a woman helped because I was like, see, I'm already like, I'm already halfway here. It's like, I'm just, I'm already good. Like, I just need to stop doing all this other stuff. Commit over here. And everything would be fine. So I didn't even really dissect my life like that because I was just like, it's happening.

but I can stop it. And I'm not laughing at the process that you're describing. The way that you talk about it, you know, feels very approachable. Like, it feels like I get, I get how you're communicating it, but and all the things. From the perspective that you have now, what is that like? And I'm also thinking, like, if someone's listening who's like, people choose, like, whatever. What would you say about sort of what that internal battle felt like? Oh, my gosh.

For me, it was so confusing. And I think just so hot, cold, I think it also created that turbulent hot and coldness in all of my relationships and all my friendships. Because I was battling with something I also wasn't sharing to a lot of people. So in a situation where I was with my girlfriend and I was happy and we just won a football game, I should have been happy. But internally, I'm thinking about, while I still have this attraction or will someone find out, will I lose this football career or this relationship? Because of this part of myself that even at my best and hardest doesn't seem to be just going away like I thought it would. And then I kind of reverberate that energy back into my surroundings and people are like, whoa, what's wrong? Like, you should be happy.

And I continued that way for a long time, actually, just kind of trying to continue to compartmentalize. but as my life experiences got larger, the boxes that I was trying to put them in weren't growing and they were overfilling and kind of making life a bit of a mess. But the process for me, I mean, it was, I look back at it and I'm like, how did that person survive? How was that person really able to make it to the NFL,

able to pass college, able to have relationships because they just seemed like they were in such a toxic, overwhelming, overwhelming place. And I think that's also when, you know, spoiler alert, I came out. And everything, I was like, oh, my God, the weight was lifting. I was like, I did not realize that I had been underwater for so long. But yeah, at that time, it just felt overwhelming. Let's take everything you've said, which I think a lot of people can probably relate to,

you know, especially those who find themselves somewhere on that spectrum. That is not, you know, even one or the other side. I mean, I think a lot of gay people might be like, what? Both either? What? No. And I have gay friends who are like, nope, that would never be an option for me. But I'm curious, was there any conscious or even unconscious sort of need to like lean in to that dude bro's side? Because like you're surrounded by like this extremely like hyper masculine, hyper aggressive culture of football and NFL and the cheerleaders. And like, it's so dude. Like, it's so, so dude.

And I wonder, like, did you feel like you had to either tone down parts of yourself or amp up other parts of yourself? I think, I mean, it's interesting also, like, because I am, I do have a lot of masculine tendencies as well as well as feminin tendencies. But people had always praised and focused on the masculine. And there was times where I knew I had it, so I used it, so to say. like times where I felt a lot about what I had learned about masculinity and one of the most important things about masculinity

was defending masculinity and proving your masculinity and continuing to assert your masculinity. So those were all things I was already kind of doing and comfortable doing. I think it was until later where I looked at it and I was like, okay, what is curation and what is creation? What are things that came from me and felt very natural to me? And what are things that I picked up in a way to fit in or survive? or to thrive even.

And masculinity, I think, is constantly one of those things, especially in our society where it is so heavy on, it's so misogynistic, sorry to say. And we do pride masculinity, at least in men, and even kind of in women, I do believe, especially in sport, that queer and LGBTQ plus women are looked at as like, okay, well, yeah, of course you would be, you play sport, and that's okay.

And, you know, it's probably helpful for you as an athlete. Whereas for men, it doesn't have that same connotation because you're kind of moving away from masculinity in their mind. And they're like, oh, this must be a detriment to not just your sport, but also your manhood. So I will say that I constantly kind of look at that. And I'm like, am I being this way because I feel I need to? And I don't think that was the case a lot of the times for me. There was sometimes where I felt, for lack of better words, tried or challenged.

And I knew I ramped it up because that was just the mechanism that I had been taught. And that had worked for me. But it didn't feel, I didn't go away from that. Like, oh, my God, now I can stop. Like, that was such, like, that was so heavy. I'm picturing you putting on like a rainbow boa as soon as you get home. Like, thank God. I can be me.

Anyway. Yeah, no, it wasn't that. But to your, to your credit, too, there were definitely things I toned down. Like, I can, I can say to that. Things that I even kind of just never engaged with. because like I said, I was in that transitional phase and I was trying to not... I was trying to go back to being straight.

So I was like, okay, I guess I'll just stop writing poetry for a while because we're stopping in all this stuff. One of the, I would say, you know, highly irrational fears that people have around people who have a sexual identity or gender identity that, you know, normative society is just not comfortable with. One of the irrational fears is like,

that you're, that, not you, but not you personally, but that, that those people would not be able to, like, control themselves. Like, there's this notion that, like, that, like, queer sexuality is, like, it's out of control. Like, you have to have sex on the street. Like, you can't help yourself. You know, and it even extends, I mean, in all honesty, it extends into some people's, you know, distorted and vulgar perceptions of what pedophilia is. I mean, like, you know, it's like a really, a very, very disturbed, you know, kind of line of thinking, which I think, you know, for me, I grew up in Los Angeles. So, like, I've been sheltered from a lot of that because, like, I just grew up in a city where, like, it's all good and whatever. And that's just how I was raised.

You know, I was raised by very progressive liberals. But I wonder, I wonder what you would sort of say to that because I think that that's part of that outdated fear of like, well, if he's potentially attracted to men, what if he can't, like, tackle the guy? Or if he tries to touch his butt while tack, I mean, I'm like being, like, it's absurd. But like, was that something that, like, in the back of your head, you're like, this is a thing that people are going to think? Honestly, at that time, no. It wasn't until I started kind of sharing with people in small ways about it, that I got that feedback. And I was like, oh, this is the conversation around it. You know, like when you walk in a room on people talking and you don't really, and then you jump and you're like, oh, and then you kind of want to, like, Homer Simpson into the bush your way out of the conversation.

I think that was me. That's me in every conversation. And I think it's only amped up when you add in something like bisexuality because then people, for lack of better words, just look at you kind of like a sexual deviance or this feral sexual person who just, like you said, can't control themselves. And I will say for me personally that I am not a. attracted to people also that aren't attracted to me. Like I like some reciprocation. I also, is someone who is played one of the most hardworking and, like,

dedicated, like, focused sports in the world. So I don't think, like, focus is an issue for me. I don't see those as being problems. And I think that the issues that people have with any type of sexual fluidity or even promiscuity are deep rooted into our society and then translate into how we view sexuality and identity. identity, which are more conversation for like those people who have those views than for someone like me.

I think it's perfectly fine if you want to have sex with people that consensually want to have sex with you and are adults and make that decision as much as you want or as little as you want. That isn't anything other than just being human. But there are people who are also just looking at ways to police other people. I think we use sexuality and sex specifically as one of those things. And I think it just attributes to a larger conversation. It wasn't something I was afraid of, but now that I'm like in the space,

and especially once I started sharing about bisexuality, I'm like, I need to kind of debunk this for people, at least if you're going to be in my life, because this is not anything other than kind of reverberated misinformation. And can you also talk a little bit, because you alluded to it before, you know, you mentioned that beyond sort of, a sexual attraction to same-sex individuals in this case. You mentioned a romantic and emotional component to this kind of relationship.

And I think that's also another misnomer people have, I think especially about bisexuality when you hear people talk about it, that the idea is not simply that you just can't control your sex drive and just want to have sex with anyone. that you mentioned, and this has been a part of your life, being in a committed, loving, romantic, emotional relationship with a person is distinct for you. It's not like, oh, I like women because I like to talk to them,

but when it comes down to it, what it's really about is this kind of sex. Can you talk a little bit? Because I think some people may not have a lot of opportunity to hear from someone, you know, especially the way you are comfortable talking about it, like what that's like. Yeah, I mean, it's funny that you bring that out because I hear it even in the just the conversation now or Twitter or wherever where people will, you know, identify maybe as bisexual, but say, you know, well, sexually, yes, but romantically, no. These kids today with their, they just dissect every term there is. I'm to the point, too, where I'm like, we're all on our journey.

We're all defining and redefining ourselves constantly, whether we know it or not. if that feels true for you. Sure. That feels true for you. For me, I found myself not just beyond the physical, but less that emotional and romantic attraction with varied people. And it was kind of the most shocking thing for me because I felt like it made it a little more real. I felt like if it was just sexual, especially being young, I was like, you know, Hopefully my hormones will like balance out at some point and I won't.

You know, I'm like, maybe that attraction will just fade off and I won't see a future. But being able to really be in relationships with multiple people and being in such different relationships. I think a lot of dating, especially for a young person, hopefully is also just finding what feels right for you and what feels good for you and what you bring to a relationship and what you also need in a relationship. and I found different things from different partners that made me the person I am today and that really built who I am, just not as a partner, but as a man. So I think that was very important for me

and it's very important for me to be distinct. I think people want the 50-50. I think people want the, well, it needs to be the same. You need to be as attracted to women as you are to men. And I'm like, I'm not as attracted to anyone as I am to anyone else. You know what I mean? Like that's just such a varied thing. Like even if you like just women or just men

or non-biting, you know, whatever you like, I don't think it's the same with everyone. Like, I don't think just because you like women, you like all women the same, or you feel attracted to all. And that's the same thing with me. Just being a man or a woman doesn't put you over the other person. It's like, what type of person are you? Also, like, yeah, it's just, it's so many different variables. And I think people want the equation.

They want the answer. They want the definition. And I'm like, I can give you one, but it might change. It might be very loose or might be, you know, it won't be to your satisfaction. And you just, it's something that I can only continue to express, I mean, experiences that I can only continue to detail in things like this book. And you do it so well. You were not the first NFL person to wade into these waters, but you were, you were and are the first active member of the NFL to have this kind of attention around your sexual identity. in particular.

And I want to talk about, I want to talk about that, but first I want to talk about your mom because that part of the book just like hit me in the gut. And I think, you know, especially like I was almost all the way through the book and I'm like, this is going to be amazing.

She's so awesome. And she would like lift him up on the sink when he was little. And like, it's going to be this moment. And what has, happened was your mother had a lot of fear and it was completely appropriately placed. Can you talk about that phone call with your mom? Yeah, it was, I think in my mind and in my heart of hearts, I knew we would be okay. Sure. Like you said, I'm like, I mean, I wrote in the book and I lived it. My mother is an amazing person. We've always been so close. And I think that on the flip side,

attributed to some of the shock because how can someone so close to you, you know, kind of had held this from you or you not been privy to this or where, you know, how can we go on? Mom's want to believe they know everything. Yeah, that they know everything. And, you know, my mom to this day kind of like goes back and the Gordorfoam like, I knew. And it's like, I didn't know. And I was devastated and I didn't. And, you know, it is, you know, and I think there were things there where she can look

through different lenses and see different things. I think that's just the gift of being a mother, also seeing someone in. so many different layers. Like, she sees me as a 5-year-old, as a 15-year-old, as a 30-year-old, all at once, which is crazy. But that initial phone call,

I kind of also set it up where, like, it had to happen. I had already filmed the ESPN coming out segment. I had already written the letter that was going to go on ESPN.com. I had already put things in motion where I was like... She was the last.

Yeah, I was like, you gotta tell her. Like, she can't find out on TV. You're going to be an asshole. I picked those phone. I have that call. And I think... What I got, the initial kind of reaction in the words, I really, they hurt me. They were devastating.

But at the same time, I was, I think, so happy in my personal life in such a good place. And I knew that, one, it had taken me so long to get here in such a journey to get to where I wasn't to be comfortable with who I was that I had kind of given her five minutes to go on her own little mini journey herself. and that that wasn't that fair. And also that, you know, she was worried. Like, nothing that she said was disgusting or nasty or, like, you know, she didn't attack me as a person. She brought up a lot of things that, to me, we talk about that mirror that were mirrored,

a mirror of the things that I had valued over herself, like football, when she said, what about football? That was me. Like, I had said that to myself for years. Well, she was afraid that it would ruin your career. I mean, she spoke about intersectionality, really. I mean, I don't know that your mom would have been like, let's discuss intersectionality,

because I don't think most moms would. But what she talked about is she said, essentially, if I can paraphrase your mama, it's hard enough being black. It's hard enough being a black man in this culture. It's hard being gay. And now you're both of these things and where are you going to throw your life away, your career?

I mean, that's enormous. No. And the pressure that I would imagine you felt like, as you said, it was already in motion. And of course she ended up, it's a really beautiful kind of, you know, how she kind of came around and the set of conversations you could have. But what was your fear kind of? Well, I'd like you to speak to both of those things. I'd like you to speak to the intersectionality of being black and gay, being a black man who's also, you know, gay or bisexual or, you know, anything that's not, again, heteronormative.

And also to kind of speak to the football piece, like what you thought might happen or where you're, you know, you tucked those fears? I think, well, first, to go at, to talk about the intersectionality of being a person of color and also a queer person and a person of varied identity, sexual identity as well, to me and how I viewed it really at that point when I got to tell her, I was like, I'd live my whole life black, that shit was hard. You know what I mean? Like, I had already gone through a lot of hate and a lot of stigma and a lot of racism.

I was like, I've done it. I'm not new to this. You know what I mean? Like, that's kind of the armor of just who I am in my experience and also something uniquely, both tragic yet beautiful about being black, is that I did already have a defense mechanism and a heart exterior and understand what being discriminated against would be like.

So to me, the just another thing was just another thing. I was like, okay, I already kind of get hate from random people that don't know me at all. I'll get different hate from different random people. who still don't know me at all, that's fine. I was also already grown at that point. And my survival and things weren't so dependent on other people. So that's where I was at with that.

But it also, for me, was a great opportunity to kind of bridge communities that for a long time as a young person I didn't see. Like, I didn't see a lot of black queer representation. One, because of the fear, I think, of what that meant and the struggle of what already being black was and learning that because that was going to be the initial kind of lens that people saw me through in this society.

You know, I can't hide my skin color. I can't hide my race regardless of anything. So I think everything was focused on giving me you prepare for that. And I was like, oh, these skills are transferable, sadly. I was like, okay, great. I'll just use this with this as well. And then to speak to the football piece of it, I kind of knew in my heart,

I knew that being bisexual wouldn't help. Like I, and I'd never done anything, you know, I had always grew up, especially in sport, to hear, like, if it isn't helping, it's hurting. So I kind of already had that in my mind. I was like, but I was to the point where I had to prioritize football over me for so long. And it got me to such dark and dangerous places that I knew that football would come to an end, either of my own tuition or not. And that being me would not, you know, that I would be me for as long as I had existed here. And that that had to become a priority because it also, it almost got to point where I wasn't here. longer. You know, I was in such a dangerous and volatile place. So when I thought of the football

component, I was like, I tried it that way and I was miserable. I had reached the height of success. I had been drafted by my hometown team. I had sacked Hall of Fame quarterbacks. I had won. And I was miserable. Or I also looked at myself and did not love who I saw back or did not see myself the way that people saw me in the positive life that people saw me. And so the football component was really about survival. I was like, I can continue to try to chase this game. And it might come back to me, but I don't know if I'm going to make it there. Like, I don't know if I'm actually going to get there. So I have to choose me.

And the end of that story is sort of where the book sort of ends. Can you tell people a little bit about where you are kind of career-wise? And this book is a really, you know, a really powerful indication of how much of you there still is that you're, you know, kind of exploring. Definitely. I think for The Yards Between Us and the end of this book, specifically, you kind of come to a place where there are still questions. You know, that's life. Like, what is R. K. Russell's life going to look like after this?

But I also think you come to a place where the opportunities are so bright, you know, where you have writing, where something like this book can come out of this journey. And even to take that to another level, the book now being optioned by Sony Pictures and co-executive produce. Go-executive produce people like Gabrielle Union. who I grew up idolizing, not just for her talent on screen, but for her activism outside of that. And also kind of taking on a model like that and of myself, of seeing football as something that has so many positives. That just brought me so many connections, so many brothers, and so much

opportunity, but also I can look at it as kind of like that loving sibling or loving parent or whatever relationship is and be like, you know, there are still things that can be worked on, that there are still places to grow, that though this has such light for you that it, that light isn't reaching certain types of people, specifically queer people. And how do we bridge that gap, that intersectionality that I talked about earlier being the bridge between these communities that for a long time have been held divided, kind of bringing those two closer together. And you see me do that with the NFL.

You see me also doing that collegiate level and beyond, because I do also think a lot of the things that sports that are inherently hobophobic or misogynistic or sexist or all these things start at a very young age. No one, you don't get drafted in the NFL and they're like, okay, well, now that you're here, we don't do A, we don't do me, when it was, you know, these are things that you heard as a young kid and that you bring into that league. There are a lot of queer athletes, young athletes that we are losing in sport because of their experience on the amateur level and on the, you know, the smaller levels of the

younger levels. I think that's important. You see me in a place where I kind of have nothing but myself, my family and my love, and I'm so much happier. And I think people are going to wonder where that's going to take me. But all I know is that there is a future for that person that he sees, and he didn't see that before. And, you know, I'm going to continue to do those things.

I'm going to continue to champion these fights. I'm going to continue writing, even though this has taken literally like three years of my life. I'm going to continue to do those things and shine the light. And I think that people after me, people before me, too, are all continuing to hopefully make sport specifically a more inclusive place. And I hope that that gives that this message, that the things that you maybe are putting over yourself do not equate, even if you add them all, they do not equate to the love of self. Life, love and football, all very important. But that love is not just romantic. That love is a love of self. And you cannot have the two

without that. So beautifully said. You know, and also just kind of to put a finer point on it, there is no reason to think that everyone in professional sports, you know, football, basketball, like name the sport. There's no reason to believe that all those people are straight and we don't have to. And I think that's such an interesting thing to realize that like while there are many, you know, beautiful opportunities for young people who identify as queer to have their own spaces, what I hope is for an integration of an understanding about how you don't need a separate. like we we can all exist together in this kind of space because people that you probably already don't know are queer are already the people that you're cheering for because we already

do like you said I mean I think that conversation is attributed to a lot of the conversation that we're having now where it's like this fear of of equality for some reason I mean also just a segue like giving everyone equal rights doesn't take away from your rights let's just I put that out there for anyone who needs to hear it. And also that we've been existing. We've been cohabitating. We've been teammates. You know, like, this has been happening. This is not a new venture or a new thing. This is, this is our everyday thing. And seeing each other and respecting each other and loving each other, there's nothing wrong with that. It's how things should be. And it's how things probably were before you were maybe privy to another part of this person.

I guess before we let you go, and you know, you talk about this in the book and it's in the epilogue, but I wonder, I want to hear it just in your voice, you know, if you were to speak to people who are holding something, you know, who are holding a secret, a fear, you know, about their true identity, whatever that may be. Can you talk a little bit, you know, sort of about what, what that freedom means, you know, and what also the, it's hard work. Like, you describe it. It's very hard work. It's not just like one day you're like, okay, I'm ready to be free. Like, I'm coming out. Can you talk a little bit about sort of that struggle and what the work that you've put in has sort of reaped for you? Yeah, definitely.

I will say that there's also dedication at the beginning of the book to people who are queer people and people who have lived a life in secret or are living a life in secret. And, you know, that that message is that, you know, the time is precious. The time that you carry the secret that you harbor that you use to kind of. fit in, whether it be fit in or the things that you think you have to do or think, those are the parts. That is the time that you'll never get back. And that, you know, when the time is right, it'll be right, but that there is no time like the present, that you are life and your tomorrow is not promised. So also don't put it off. The dedication is, I offer this to those still reluctant to come out, that, there will never be a perfect time. Only time you waste living a lie.

No. and time you cherish living your truth. We don't know how much time we have on this earth. So cherish it really beautifully said. Russ, it's been an absolute honor to speak to you. I know you hear so many things about you from so many places, but I remember when I saw what you wrote that article, I never thought I'd get the opportunity to sit with you.

And I just remember thinking as a person who's a lifelong sports fan and a dedicated fan of all the beauty and masculinity of sports. and in particular of football, I remember thinking, what a fucking bad ass this person is. I mean, it's like a level of publicness about something that should not have to be made public, meaning it's yours and yours alone.

It's nobody's business, who you have sex with, who you love or how. But the fact that you've used your life as such an example, you know, especially in a league that has seen Colin Kaepernick, step the fuck up. Like, it's just, it's amazing. Sorry to throw an F-bomb. But it's really incredible that we live in a time when this is possible.

And you've made it so. So thank you, really. And on behalf of everyone listening, it's just been such a fascinating conversation. The book is The Yards Between Us, a memoir of Life, Love, and Football. Thank you so much for being here. Oh, my God. Thank you for having me. The book doesn't exist without conversations like this.

I'm so glad that. he was able to be here in person. Jonathan, I'm sorry that you were not able to be here in person for this one. But he's a very tall man. Like he's a, he's a football player. He's got football player dimensions. But he's a really beautiful, he's a beautiful person to watch speak. You know, he's very expressive and he's not afraid to talk about, you know, so many intimate

things. I really thought that the way that he described compartmentalization, was so helpful. I mean, I think we all have bits and pieces of that, and I don't mean to compare work life with notions of sexual identity or gender identity or any of the complexity that he's dealt with. But, I mean, John, can you speak a little bit to like this notion of compartmentalization? Well, he talks about it as a coping mechanism and actually a survival mechanism. And I'm wondering if you can talk about the stress on the system of having to have to have. have these boxes and keep things separated like that?

Yeah. I mean, it's kind of a, it's a state of kind of active cognitive dissonance, you know, where you're sort of actively knowing that there's things that don't and shouldn't mix, or your perception is that they shouldn't mix. And the stress and anxiety that comes up when you think about combining them is such that you separate from it. And, you know, compartmentalization is a very useful tool. You know, this is one of those things that's like, it's an asset in many regions of your life. You know, you think about people who work in hospitals. You people, I think, you think about people who

work in trauma or who are the ones, you know, going into places torn apart by terrorism or by natural disaster. You have to be able to compartmentalize. It's a skill that allows us to to function as humans. But when it obviously becomes something that is preventing you from kind of owning all of yourself, that's when we sort of need to look at it really in the light of day. He also mentioned something that I forgot to ask him about. He can sleep anywhere. That's one of my skills. And I was wondering if like that's... We didn't ask him the strangest place he's ever slept. Oh, it's in the book. He's slept some pretty strange places. But what's What's interesting to me is that that kind of ability to, like, shut your nervous system down,

which he mentions and which I know that I have, it's also a form of compartmentalization. It's like whatever's happening here, nope. And for me, you know, I really, I think a lot of my strange sleeping is often overwhelmed. Like, I specifically can sleep and choose to sleep, like in the middle of very loud, airports. One time on the floor. I'm a very loud airport. Oh, I've slept on many floors of airports. You've only seen it once. But it is, it's a form of compartmentalization. But I think, you know, the real, the beauty of Russ as a person and also the way that he has chosen to share his life in this book, The Yards Between Us, is he kind of shows like some of the dangers of that compartmentalization.

And also some of the places where it served him well. But I feel very moved. You know, I can't help. I didn't want to say it to him. But in the back of my head, I'm like, but all the hard work that you put in and all the money and all the things and like your whole life is about being an NFL player. But that is how powerful the need is to step into your identity. Nothing. Nothing is more important. And for so long, people who are queer could not do that. It was not an option. And it was horrible. I mean, it's still horrible for so many people. He talked a little bit about the dark place he was in and that he wasn't seeing himself the way others were seeing him

and he had all his success, but he couldn't enjoy it. But we didn't sort of really explore the depth of the pain that he was in that would motivate him to potentially risk something. Now, his intuition was that it wasn't going to be a risk and that he was going to persevere and he was going to be accepted and he was going to be a champion to shine light on this and to help others do the same. But in order to come up against what, you know, his mother brought up as a perceived threat,

you know, he really did have to be in a lot of discomfort, a lot of dysregulation, and just overall difficulty to face that. Well, and he does talk about it a bit in the book. And there was, you know, that moment where he was told he wasn't going to be signed, you know, His body already had taken a beating from the years that he had been in. But I think there's always kind of that question, you know, when you take that kind of risk. Even if you anticipate the fallout, it's still very painful, you know. And I think that's something that he's really still processing.

And I look forward to seeing more from him, especially in terms of his writing. Yeah, follow us at Biolic Breakdown for more. And we really hope you enjoyed this episode. I was a real thrill to get to speak to him. So from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we'll see you next time. It's My and Beaulix Breakdown. She's going to break it down for you.

She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down.