If your in the public eye, and are different in any way shape or form, you will be ridiculed by the public that you are immersed in, thats just obvious from the society and world we live in.
Simple human fact, homosexuality is becoming more and more acceptable in the modern world, just if your a so called "celebrity" its more of an issue and more exposed.
I go to university on a sports studies course and way over 50% of the girls are gay, many just because their at university "LUG".
Sport is profound to be a production of a masculine society, and a main topic for strong feminist groups to focus on when arguing that the world is still a male dominant society.
What comes with a masculine society is traditional values, i.e. one man, one woman, sociologically its not heard of for competitors of male dominated sports to have tendencies such as homosexuality. In fact the media present sports stars as if we are still living in the Victorian ages, where sportsman were respectable, strong, physically fit, role model christians, and looked up to as the elite of a society. If an athlete of any sports breaks those boundaries they are landed on heavily! The way in which media reflects sports athletes is very much with traditional values so creates issues with a very diverse modern society.
I have just done elements of this in a module...