OLYMPIAN Ian Thorpe has revealed that he was taunted about his sexuality when he was a teenager which led him to be too frightened to come out of the closet, fearful of the reaction of his conservative parents.

The five times gold medal winning swimmer made the comments at a forum on Tuesday night where he shared a stage with Jim Obergfell whose court case led to the US legalising gay marriage.

“When I was about 16 I was accused of being gay and because it was in that tone, I always thought of it as a negative, of not being equal,” he said at the Australians 4 Equality event held at Twitter’s Sydney offices.

“It was frightening. I knew I should have come out earlier but I never thought that I could, I didn’t have the confidence to do it,” Thorpe said.

“When I did come out it was to close friends and then my family which was the most difficult for me.”

Thorpe first publicly acknowledged his sexuality in a 2014 TV interview with Michael Parkinson. He is in a relationship with law student and model Ryan Channing.

“I struggled to come out but I don’t struggle with being out,” he told the audience.

He initially told his sister who suggested he tell their parents together.

“I come from a conservative family and my heart was racing. I had prepared for it and then I blurted it out and they quite simply told me that they would love me and always support me.

“It was overwhelming and I was so pleased I would be accepted by my own family,” Thorpe said.

Once he’d come out to his family, revealing he was gay to Australia was a cinch, he said.

“The way the country responded to me coming out was better than I could have hoped for. I was proud how the majority of people in Australia said ‘that’s great, no big deal’ and the nonchalant response is how it should be.”

Thorpe also said he supported the controversial Safe Schools program which aims to address anti-gay bullying in schools.

“There needs to be an understanding what Safe Schools is to the community and show people that it’s a non-threatening discussion.”

Thorpe shared the platform with Mr Obergfell whose book, Love Wins, details the steps towards the gay marriage in the US.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in his favour in the landmark court case, Obergfell vs. Hodges. It meant states such as Texas, which had ruled against allowing gay marriage, were forced to start issuing marriage certificates to gay couples.

Mr Obergfell told news.com.au it still didn’t feel real that a court case with his name on it changed the law across the country.

In 2013, he and his long term partner John Arthur travelled to Maryland to wed because their home state of Ohio still had a ban on gay couples marrying.

At the time, John was suffering from the degenerative condition motor neurone disease. He was in so much pain he couldn’t leave the plane when it landed in Maryland and the ceremony was performed on the tarmac.

He died three months after the wedding.

Mr Obergfell was shocked when he found out that on John’s death certificate his marital status would be recorded as single. While Ohio recognised most marriages performed outside the state, it had created a specific law barring the recognition of gay relationships.

“In Ohio first cousins couldn’t get a marriage licence or people underage but if they got married elsewhere and then moved to Ohio they would be immediately recognised,” he said of the hypocrisy of the law.

“Our argument was you are creating two classes of people and that is wrong.”

Mr Obergfell begrudgingly took on the state.

“There I was in a courtroom while my husband was at home dying”.

His case eventually went all the way to the highest court in the land. That the case got that far, he said, “reinforces that John and I made the right decision to fight”.

During the US presidential campaign Donald Trump said he would consider taking steps to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision and hand gay marriage back to the states which would almost certainly see the reform wound back in some areas.

However, in a US TV interview on Sunday, the President-Elect said he was “fine” with gay marriage and “it was settled in the Supreme Court”.

Mr Obergfell said he wasn’t so sure.

“I don’t trust anything Trump says. His Vice President Mike Pence is one the most anti-LGBTI politicians in the country and just the fact he says ‘it’s settled’ does not make me feel comfortable,” he told news.com.au.

“And Donald Trump says things all the time that are the exact opposite of five minutes ago.”

Mr Obergefell said he supported the decision made by Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras members to uninvite Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull due to the lack of progress on gay marriage.

“It makes a clear point that this is a celebration of our community and we should invite people who support that and are on our side.”

His experience in Ohio, where a public vote had knocked back marriage equality, had convinced him a plebiscite in Australia would be a bad idea.

“The surest way to deny the rights of a minority, right we should all have, is to ask the majority.”

The key to breaking the marriage equality impasse in Australia, he said, was for gay people to keep telling stories of their relationships and why marriage was important.

“We need to keep talking about how marriage carries so much meaning and when you allow people to say, this is my husband or this my wife, that is something so profound.”

It’s a sentiment Thorpe agreed with saying the public were clearly in favour of a law change.

“Where marriage equality is right now does not represent our values and the notion of a fair go. We need to change this as soon as possible so we can get on with other things.”

benedict.brook@news.com.au