It's a big, wacky and extremely wide world of sports as seen through the bizarre lens of SB Nation Outsports. It's also an expanding world, as Outsports just recognized its first-ever "Non-Binary Person of the Year": Dominique "SonicFox" McLean, an esports superstar and also a "furry." Not to mention the Republicans' worst friend.
This new award recognizes "someone in LGBTQ sports who identifies as non-binary or gender non-conforming," writes Outsports Dawn Ennis. Actually the "offensive" and singular term "someone" should not have appeared in the story because elsewhere McLean is referred to as "they" and "their." Even Outsports editors get confused about the hyper sensitive issue of pronoun protocol!
In 2018, McLean won the Best eSports Player Award, but most importantly to Outsports, he then came as not gay, but “super gay.” In his acceptance speech, McLean said:
“I want to give a super shoutout to all my LGBTQ+ friends that have always helped me through life. Obviously I’m a furry, so shout out to the furries…. Guess all I gotta really say is I’m gay, black, a furry — pretty much everything a Republican hates — and the best eSports player of the whole year I guess. Thank you so much!”
The "super gay" phase didn't last long. In September, McLean recalibrated to non-binary, demanding they/them pronouns. Close friends will be permitted to use “he” or “they” ― without getting busted by pronoun cops.
"They" described themselves on their Twitter account:
“I’ve always found myself enjoying things that were typically considered ‘not masculine. I’ve always thought of myself as 50% masc and 50% feminine. But I always felt ridiculed and made fun of for liking the more 'feminine' things of life.”
SonicFox isn't just a useful PC pawn to the Left. The furry's got a great game.
Earlier this month, Forbes named McLean to its 30 Under 30 In Games list. According to Ennis, this distinction allowed McLean to cap a year in which "they cemented their position as the best Mortal Kombat player of the last decade. In August they took home the EVO 2019 Mortal Kombat 11 championship."
McLean also won the 2019 Mortal Kombat Pro Kompetition as the top qualifier for Final Kombat, advancing to competition scheduled for March 2020.
When Ennis interviewed McLean about being an LGBTQ advocate in a world of discrimination against people who are different, "they" said being out and proud is his way of fighting the haters.
“Honestly, you’re going to have to really stand up against these guys,” McLean said.:
“We just got to show that we’re everywhere, so that they won’t be able to deny us, or who we are, because of who we love or what we like. I’m a true believer that everyone should be whatever they want to be.
“I hope that my influence over the next couple of years will help people.”
Researching McLean and the furry thing revealed that Wikipedia also has a "Wiki fur" section, which says of McLean: "Their[2]fursona is a blue fox. They always attend tournaments by wearing a blue fox tail and a hat with blue fox ears. Their eSports team is referred to as 'Echo Fox' since 2017. It used to be referred to as 'Critical Reaction' ".
Who knew the wide world of sports could get this wide?
