#beartoleto

Even though I don’t know anything about their relationships or personal lives (fiction in real person fiction) I do feel confident that there are/have been queer F1 drivers, both based on statistics and a bang-on gaydar.

And when I think about that in an honest way, outside the confines of fanfiction and edits, I get quite upset. Because they are stuck.

Being a queer man in a big sport is one thing, with all the homophobia in fans and even higher ups (see the comments on Lando’s posts and the Williams scandal). It’s another when half the places you work in don’t even allow queerness. When one of the countries you work in deems it a crime punishable by death (Saudi Arabia).

I can’t even imagine the mental toll that would take. F1 as an institution is holding their own stars hostage from themselves by allowing this. They cultivate an emotionally violent environment for the sake of cold, hard cash. Unfortunately, it’s just another instance of insurmountable corporate greed that has proven itself time and time again to be a virtually immovable object.