Wanted to add a perspective following a few recent posts on this thread.
Whether people appreciate it or not people who claim to be allies of a community will be held to a higher standard than those who do not.
Henderson went out of his way to show allyship to the LGBTQ+ community and personally I appreciated that, but when it became inconvenient for him he walked away. I am afraid he cannot have it both way, in my opinion it is immeasurably more damaging to the community as a queer person to see a supposed ally walk away when the going gets tough. Walking away when the going gets tough is not an option that is available to minorities of any group, which is why allies are so important. He was an ally until it might cost him a huge pay day, what kind of ally is that really?
He might not have enjoyed the negative attention, perhaps the money will help him get over it.
I don't agree with you on many things here but that's a very well written and framed post.
My biggest area of disagreement is that Henderson has willfully turned his back on the LGBT community and what I consider misled priorities and even hypocrisy.
An ally is not the same as a martyr. An ally has limits on what they can do to support you and ultimately, will need to serve themselves first.
What you and the rest of the LGBT community are looking for is a martyr. A self sacrificing individual in the name of the movement. That should be someone from within and it is both reckless and less meaningful to hold your allies to that expectation and then excoriate them for not falling on your sword.
Henderson is going to Saudi Arabia for his career - monetarily driven or not is moot - not to shun the LGBT movement. Frankly, you are not in the equation. Homophobia and transphobia are rife in the western world and in that arena, which is Henderson's home, he has actually supported you in (meaningless) ways that made you feel good about yourselves. If you're part of the movement it's absolutely a waste of time to focus your attention on this mediocre sporting figure going to a country that is back asswards for a thousand reasons expecting them to become enlightened in an area that even the US is failing miserably with, just because a few athletes shun their contracts?
I don't see LGBT folks leaving Budweiser and other major corpos in droves for reneging on their public U-turn on flying the rainbow flag. So many of my friends in the community still treat themselves to Chik fil A because "it doesn't really matter ", and yet these one or two athletes the barely speak English do?
The priorities need to be realigned.