Straight Rugby Player Wakes Up from Stroke as Gay Hairdresser

It might sound made up, but it's what Chris Birch calls “experience.” After breaking his neck during a freak training accident and suffering a stroke, the former straight rugby player woke up to find out he was gay.

Birch is coming forward with his incredible story, telling the Mirror the accident that nearly cost him his life changed him in ways he never even thought possible.

While training, he tried to do a back flip for friends, fell and broke his neck. He suffered a stroke and he lied on a hospital bed for days on end, fighting for his life.

Family and friends eventually saw him come to, but he woke up a changed man. For one thing, he was no longer interested in women, so he and his fiance had to call it quits.

Secondly, he didn't derive any pleasure from the things he used to do once and that he loved so much, like hanging out with the boys for a beer, watch sports on TV and play rugby.

In fact, he didn't like anything about his former life.

“It sounds strange but when I came round I immediately felt different. I wasn't interested in women any more,” Chris says, as cited by the Mirror.

“Suddenly I hated everything about my old life. I didn't get on with my friends, I hated sport and found my job boring,” he recalls.

Consequently, he set out to change the things he didn't like anymore, including himself and his job.

“I started to take more pride in my appearance, bleached my hair and started working out. I went from a 19-stone [265.9lbs / 120.6kg] skinhead to an 11-stone [153.8lbs / 69.8kg] preened man,” Birch says.

Not only is he slimmer and with a new career, but he's also in a new relationship, with a man, this time.

“I had never been attracted to a man before – I'd never even had any gay friends. But I didn't care about who I was before, I had to be true to my feelings,” he explains.

Joe Korner of the Stroke Association tells the Daily Mail that, while, of course, the possibility that Birch is lying exists (in the sense that he was gay before but simply didn't know it), his case seems to be a clear of rewiring of the brain.