Historically, men’s pro sports have made Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell look downright progressive.

There haven’t been many openly gay athletes in any major American sports league. Players hurl around gay slurs to emasculate opponents or antagonize officials. In Europe, fans have directed homophobic chants at opposing players. Supporters of one Russian club even released a manifesto saying they’d prefer it if their team was all-white and entirely straight.

Obviously, these are extreme cases. They don’t represent most athletes or most fanbases, but there are a depressing number of people who wouldn’t question the statement “There are no gay men in the NFL.” That’s what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said about Iran.

It’s interesting how far apart men’s and women’s sports are on the issue. The Martina Navratilovas of the world have been leading the way on this for 30 years, but whether they should be or not, things are different in men’s sports and it’s because of the same misguided ideas.

You know how the logic goes: Guys are supposed to be tough and play sports. Girls are supposed to be cheerleaders. If a boy wants to be a cheerleader instead of playing sports, he must be gay, and if a girl doesn’t want to be a cheerleader because she wants to play a sport, she’s a lesbian (It makes sense if you don’t think about it.)

As a result of this, some kids grow up thinking that they need to hide who they are in order to pursue the sport they love, and that is a tragedy. Athletes grow up worrying that their on-field skills and the hours they pour into practice and film study might not be enough for them to realize their athletic dreams.

But it’s important to note that there is progress. FIFA has taken a stand against homophobia. Most leagues will hand out big fines and suspensions to anyone caught using a gay slur. Some athletes have even been outspoken allies, though some have gone on the record saying they wouldn’t be comfortable with a gay teammate.

Most notably, the NHL recently partnered with the You Can Play Project, an organization that fights homophobia in sports. The group’s message — one now endorsed by the NHL — is that if you can cut it physically, nothing else matters. The partnership was met with an almost universally positive response, and that too is encouraging.

It’s an incredibly powerful message on two levels. It’s a message to the countless kids in youth sports programs that if they’re good enough to go pro, that’s all that will matter. Maybe even more importantly, it’s a message to everyone else that intolerance won’t be tolerated anymore.