Unlike in freeskiing, where I was the first openly gay athlete to compete at the X Games, I'm hardly the trailblazer in Hollywood. As an athlete, I was so scared to come out because I worried I would lose my friends, my sponsors, my fans. It was hard to find the courage to come to terms with the words "I'm gay" when I'd spent my entire life avoiding them. But when I came out, in a cover story for ESPN The Magazine, I received the opposite reaction.