Gay rugby player fears he’ll never play again after brutal homophobic beating

LGBTQ Nation

A brutal homophobic assault has left an openly gay Irish Rugby players uncertain whether he will every play the sport again. A over a month after the beating, which occurred in Dublin in April, Evan Somers appeared on Irish chat show Claire Byrne Live to talk about the attack that may have jeopardized his career.

“We were trying to get a taxi,” the 23-year-old said, recalling the incident. “I just remember this guy coming up and kinda singling me out and calling me names.”

Somers says he does not remember much after being punched. He sustained a fractured eye socket, a dislocation of his left ankle, and two fractures. Ireland’s Sunday Independent reported in April that several others joined the initial attacker. This group committed another unprovoked attack that same night, though they had no connection to Somers’s attacker.

“Last night a stranger called me a fa***t before beating the shit out of me,” Somers tweeted the day after the attack along with photos of his injuries. “He left me with a fractured eye socket, 2 fractures in my ankle, a dislocation in my ankle & some other minor injuries. We’ve come a long way but still have such a long way to go in terms of…