Ryan Levey On LGBTQ Documentary 'Out In The Ring'

Photo credit: LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP/Getty Images

Over the last few years, LGBTQ+ wrestlers have been able to move away from being seen as cheap site attractions or heel gimmicks that relied on homophobic slurs for cheap heat into just being a regular part of the wrestling world.

Names like Lucha Underground’s XO Lishus (Sonny Kiss) and Mike Parrow of the NWA come to mind when thinking about the new era of LGBTQ competitors who are shattering stereotypes and making waves in the world of wrestling. A new documentary is in the works from Ryan Levey titled Out In The Ring. Ryan recently spoke to intomore.com about the documentary and what the journey of making it has been like. Currently, you can fund the documentary here, the campaign ends on January 1st. Below are some highlights of Ryan’s interview:

Ryan On When His Interest On This Subject Began:

I had grown up in Alberta, around Calgary. I had always been a fan of wrestling. It was something I always gravitated towards. I drifted in and out of watching it, though. I now have a 20-year career in film distribution, working a lot with LGBTQ films and documentaries. When it came time to start working on my own projects, I decided to work on something I had a connection with. Being a fan of wrestling, I was starting to think about why—at the time, about four or five years ago—there hadn’t been any out pro wrestlers. I knew vaguely about [openly gay Hall of Famer] Pat Patterson. The project was going to be focused on a kind of hidden history of queer professional wrestlers. That changed in 2014 when Darren Young came out on TMZ. So then we had the first openly gay WWE active roster superstar and eventual champion.

That kind of opened the doors for a lot of other wrestlers to start coming out. Parrow came out last year. Six months before that, Charlie Morgan had come out in an in-ring promo. I was seeing more and more out wrestlers at indie shows. So [the documentary] starts from the 1940s example of exóticos to today where we have numerous promotions for out wrestlers, we have at least four or five dozen openly gay active wrestlers, a bunch of whom are now on TV, including in the WWE, where we have Sonya Deville.

So we can see this huge shift happening.

Ryan On How Wrestling Has Dealt With Gay Stereotypes In The Past:

Look, pro wrestling has always appropriated gay culture. You can’t look at the Road Warriors costume and tell me that isn’t Tom of Finland. Or Adrian Adonis in the ‘70s in leather. That’s total appropriation. And the link between pro-wrestling and drag isn’t really a stretch. The robes. The sequins. The spandex.

But now you can have a gay person as a face! Sonny is a totally positive representation of a femme person. The crowd pops for Sonny. He’s got charisma. I love this idea that he’s breaking this stereotype. He’s a femme, gay man who can get in the ring, twerk, flip, punch, and work as the underdog. Sonny takes out men that are 275 pounds! And that’s exciting to see.

Ryan On Wrestling Not Having More Of A ‘Gay Following:’

Well, it wasn’t a safe space for gays. Listening to some of this old ‘70s and ‘80s stuff: there’s Jerry Lawler calling Jimmy Valiant a fag. Right there. Or Owen Hart on a television show encouraging the crowd to chant “Faggot!” at an opponent. And it still happens at shows!

I did a podcast interview last week and they posted a photo of Darren Young. And the people on the podcast’s [social media page] were commenting, “Enough with this gay shit.”

And I tried to say something like, “This is the 21st century. Maybe you should try discussing equality.” And they just responded with the same statement. And we just can’t allow these people to have these spaces. There’s a difference between criticism and homophobia. And this is a show that had just had me as a guest, they had Darren as a guest, they had AC Mack as a guest. The optics of allowing us on the show and then allowing those posts on their page with no moderator addressing it: that’s a problem to me. We’ve got to try and change that.

And that’s why I love when wrestlers like Pete Dunne, who will stop a match when he hears an audience member using the word “fag.” He got that person kicked out of the show. I admire that. The times have changed. We don’t use certain things anymore. It’s still there, but using outright homophobia as “heat” – the moment a person feels unsafe in these spaces, it’s different. It’s only been in the last few years that out wrestling fans have been vocal about this.

I always felt comfortable being in these spaces, and I know a lot of people don’t. It’s better! And you never know what things can shift politically.

The women of the industry have always been years ahead in terms of acceptance and inclusivity. But that’s always been kind of the case. Women have always been in that space for gay men, specifically straight women.

To read the full interview, click HERE.