The match is really interesting, a 100% physical confrontation all based on muscles and power. You have rarely seen Venere forced to make such a great effort to give serious trouble to her opponent. Most people didn’t know Nyla Rose before she signed with All Elite Wrestling. She’d worked with promotions like Covey Pro, Warriors of Wrestling, and Sendai Girls, but she didn’t really have any national exposure in the US. That changed all at once with AEW signing and her debut at Double Or Nothing, where she faced Kylie Rae, Britt Baker, and Awesome Kong in a Fatal Fourway. As a member of the AEW roster, Nyla is the first transgender wrestler to sign with a major promotion, and this fall she’ll presumably be the first trans wrestler to appear regularly on TV.

In a revealing and heartfelt Facebook post titled “ Here Goes Nothing,” Cage detailed how he kept the information from going public for so long because he feared rejection.Paige was raised in a wrestling family and even had her first match at 13 tagging with her mother no less, so you could literally say that wrestling is in her blood.

So, yeah, I take kind of like a personal responsibility to be that openness for kids or young people that are in the shoes that I was in a decade ago.” The significance of that role isn’t lost on Deville, as her push for authentic LGBTQ representation and visibility within WWE remains a goal seven years after her first appearance on WWE programming. Since his release, Fred Rosser has been wrestling on the indies under his own name. In 2018 he appeared in Big Time Wrestling and Chikara, as well as Nuclear Heat Wrestling, where he had a great match against another openly gay wrestler, Jake Atlas (more him in a bit). So far this year he hasn’t been in the ring, focusing on podcasting and working with LGBTQ charities. He hasn’t announced a retirement, however, so there’s a good chance we haven’t seen the last of Fred Rosser.Johns has become a regular with Perth-based promotions Explosive Pro Wrestling and Southern Hemisphere Wrestling Alliance in recent years as both a singles wrestler and with his tag team partner James Hartness, collectively known as Cut-Throat and Then Some. These depictions were damaging in their ability to define lesbian identities to wrestling audiences, but they also masked the industry’s actual lesbian history. Names like Susan Green and Sandy Parker defied women’s wrestling gatekeepers like The Fabulous Moolah that did their best to outlaw LGBTQ wrestlers’ public expression of their identities within their stables.

The image of Deville running through a Pride celebration on Total Divas exclaiming “I’m gay” is a GIF that plays on repeat in the minds of many (including me). The excitement in her voice perfectly matched with the joy on her face is both a landmark and an image that no one with knowledge of any mainstream pro wrestling programming from 1995 onward ever thought they would see. As a result of the growing public and societal acceptance of diverse lifestyles, more and more athletes and celebrities are feeling safe enough to come out and embrace their orientation proudly. The erroneous stereotypes of being gay meaning you’re weak or strange are being shattered every day and that is especially the case in the wrestling world. Kinney’s is the kind of passion needed not just to succeed in wrestling but also to inspire those watching, craving a figure in which they can see themselves. That desire was always there, but her journey in pro wrestling might have found its catalyst later, if not for a childhood VHS switcheroo. The country has made great strides with increasing awareness on the subject of homosexuality and transgender issues through PSAs and through advocacy groups educating the public. The movement by the LGBTQ community was centered on the desire not to be shunned for their differences but to be accepted as part of the fabric of society. What was it like for you coming up and cutting your teeth in an era when women’s wrestling was so sexualized?

As a Mexican American kid growing up in Los Angeles, Jake Atlas was raised on lucha libre. He’s recounted in interviews that when he came out to his family as a teenager it didn’t go well. Nevertheless, Jake knew who he was, and he also knew he wanted to be a pro wrestler. In time his family came to accept and support him, and his dream of pro wrestling has also come true. He came out publicly after winning the 2017 Southern California Rookie of the Year Award, and he’s been on an upswing ever since.