a japanese volleyball player just came out as gay, and he says his superstar little brother is the reason. we're fine. we're totally fine.

via The Japan Times (AFP-Jiji), Jiji Press, GMA News, StarNews, Attitude and Gay Times

For about two seasons, Rui Takahashi played on the same team as his little brother, who happens to be one of the stars of Japan's national team. On Tuesday he called that time together the biggest thing in his life, and then he told everyone why.

Takahashi, 26, an outside hitter for Suntory Sunbirds Osaka in the SV.League, came out as gay in an Instagram post on the morning of Sept. 29, Japan time, alongside a black-and-white photo of himself. His brother is Ran Takahashi, 25, the national-team star AFP describes as "hugely popular," and the two were teammates at Suntory until last season, Jiji reported.

what rui takahashi wrote

The post is in Japanese, and the wire services each translated it a little differently, so here it is in substance. Since childhood, he wrote, he had been afraid to face one part of himself, struggled with it, and denied who he was: that he is gay. Talking with Ran, AFP and Jiji both report, was what finally let him accept himself for the first time. Putting it into words helped him sort out his thoughts, and slowly he came to feel it was fine to be exactly who he is. He said he hoped that speaking in his own words might help anyone struggling to accept themselves, and, per GMA's translation, thanked everyone for reading "until the end."

Somewhere there is a younger brother who said exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment and has not posted about it. As of Tuesday afternoon, none of the outlets we read had a comment from Ran, Suntory or the league. He may simply be letting his brother have the day, which, frankly, is also the right thing.

why it matters in japan

Takahashi is, in AFP's words, one of "a very small group of openly LGBTQ+ professional athletes in Japan," where footballer Shiho Shimoyamada became the first to come out as gay in 2019. Attitude says he appears to be the only active male pro volleyball player in the country to have done it. Japan still does not recognize same-sex marriage; six cases on the question were sent to the Supreme Court's Grand Bench in March, with a ruling possible as early as next year, Jiji reported at the time.

and then there were two

It took less than a day for it to work. On Sept. 29, Reon Arao, 25, who plays for Voreas Hokkaido in the same league, per Attitude, posted on Instagram that if he had to pick a letter from LGBTQ+, his sexuality is closest to Q, for questioning. He wrote that he has never felt the need to put himself in a fixed box, and that it was Takahashi's courage, from someone at the top of the same sport, that made him decide to say so in his own words, according to translations by Gay Times and Attitude. That is the whole point of going first, and it usually takes a lot longer than a day.

The internet, for once, behaved. The reaction we saw, in English, Portuguese, Thai and Korean, was overwhelmingly warm.