Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation or gender identity.
Esera Tavai Tuaolo, nicknamed "Mr. Aloha", is a former American professional football player. He was a defensive tackle in the National Football League (NFL) for nine years.
Charles David Whitehurst is a former professional American football quarterback in the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the 8th round of the 1977 NFL Draft. He played college football at Furman.
Gerald Thomas Smith was an American professional football player who was a tight end for the National Football League (NFL)'s Washington Redskins for 13 seasons, from 1965 through 1977. By the time he retired, he held the NFL record for most career touchdowns by a tight end. Smith publicly announced he had AIDS in August 1986, being the first professional athlete to do so. He died two months later. A 2014 documentary from the NFL Network's A Football Life series profiles his career, as well as his "double life as a closeted gay man and a star athlete."
The Gay and Lesbian Athletics Foundation (GLAF) is a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. Its purpose is to increase acceptance and visibility of LGBT athletes in the professional, amateur, and recreational athletics communities.
Tru Loved is a 2008 independent film written and directed by Stewart Wade and starring Najarra Townsend, Jake Abel, Matthew Thompson and Alexandra Paul.
Perry Deane Young was a journalist, author, playwright, historian, and professional gardener. He was the author of Two of the Missing, about fellow journalists Sean Flynn and Dana Stone, who went missing during the Vietnam War and whose fates remain unknown, and the co-author of The David Kopay Story, a biography of 1970's professional football player David Kopay, who revealed in 1975 that he was gay.
Ryan Paul Nassib is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Syracuse Orange. He was drafted by the New York Giants in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL Draft. He was also a member of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other non-heterosexual or non-cisgender (LGBTQ+) community is prevalent within sports across the world.
Wade Alan Davis II is an American speaker, activist, writer, educator and former American football player.
Athlete Ally is a nonprofit LGBTQ athletic advocacy group based in the United States. They focus on making athletic communities more inclusive and less discriminatory and helping athletes to advocate for LGBTQ equality.
There has been only one player who has publicly come out as gay or bisexual while being an active player in the National Football League (NFL): Carl Nassib, who revealed himself as gay on June 21, 2021. He later became the first openly gay player in an NFL playoff game on January 15, 2022. Six former NFL players have come out publicly after they retired. In the 2014 NFL draft, the St. Louis Rams drafted Michael Sam in the seventh round, the 249th of 256 players selected, which made him the first openly gay player to be drafted into the NFL. However, on August 30, St. Louis released Sam as part of a final round of cuts to reduce their roster to the league-mandated 53 players before the start of the regular season. In 2015, he became the first publicly gay player to play in the Canadian Football League (CFL).
Alan Scott Gendreau is an American former college football player for the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders. The placekicker was openly gay to his teammates. He ended his college career as the leading scorer in Sun Belt Conference history.
The homosexual sports community in the United States, like the LGBT rights in the United States, enjoys one of the highest levels of acceptance and support in the world. A vibrant and rapidly growing community, it is enjoying an exponential growth. The public opinion and jurisprudence has changed significantly since the late 1980s; by the early 2020s, an overwhelming majority of Americans approved of the legality of same-sex marriages.
During the lead-up to the 2014 Winter Olympics, protests and campaigns arose surrounding the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Russia.
Carl Paul Nassib is an American former professional football player who was a defensive end and linebacker for seven seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Penn State Nittany Lions, earning unanimous All-American honors as a senior in 2015. Nassib was selected by the Cleveland Browns in the third round of the 2016 NFL Draft, and has also played for the Las Vegas Raiders. In 2021, Nassib became the first active NFL player to publicly come out as gay and to play in a game.
The modern history of American football can be considered to have begun after the 1932 NFL Playoff Game, which was the first American football game to feature hash marks, the legalization of the forward pass anywhere behind the line of scrimmage, and the movement of the goal posts back to the goal line; it was also the first indoor game since 1902. Other innovations to occur in the years after 1932 were the introduction of the AP Poll in 1934, the tapering of the ends of the football in 1934, the awarding of the first Heisman Trophy in 1935, the first NFL draft in 1936, and the first televised game in 1939.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of non-heterosexual conforming people of African ancestry, who may identify as LGBTIQGNC, men who have sex with men, or related culturally specific identities. This timeline includes events both in Africa, the Americas and Europe and in the global African diaspora, as the histories are very deeply linked.
The following is a timeline of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) history in the 21st century.
