WALES – A 226 pound rugby player from South Wales, who went into a coma after suffering from a stroke and broken neck during a freak training accident, has “woken up gay.”
The Medical Daily reported that before the stroke, Chris Birch had been a beefy, beer-drinking athlete working at a bank and loved motorbikes and his girlfriend and he was engaged to be married. But since the accident, a year ago, the now 27-year-old has quit his bank job, slimmed down 72 pounds, become a hairdresser and moved out of his home in the Welsh valleys and started dating men.
“It was a weird experience,” he said in a BBC3 documentary, reporting his attempt over the past few months to grapple with his new identity. “You walk into somewhere and you go from liking that girl to liking that boy.”
He admitted that he found the changes traumatic and said that he struggled with a period of loneliness when he was afraid to tell anybody about his changed sexual orientation.
“It was quite a scary process. Being with the first guy was a very odd experience. I didn’t know what I was doing,” he told the film crew.
Within a few months of moving out from home he met his then boyfriend and now fiancé Jak Powell.
Powell believes that Birch has always been gay and the accident just helped him to realize it.
“People grow up not knowing they are gay and have families and then they realize they are gay, but they don’t have a stroke to realize it,” Powell said.
However, Birch said he wouldn’t want to alter back again.
“I’m happier now that I ever have been; why would I want to change?” he asked.
