Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
Esera Tavai Tuaolo, nicknamed "Mr. Aloha", is an American former professional football player who was a defensive tackle for nine seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Oregon State Beavers.
Roy Franklin Simmons was an American football player who played as a guard in the National Football League (NFL) with the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins. With the Redskins he played in Super Bowl XVIII. He became the second former NFL player to come out as gay and the first to disclose that he was HIV-positive.
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 Chicago Pride Parade, also colloquially called the Chicago Gay Pride Parade or PRIDE Chicago, is an annual pride parade held on the last Sunday of June in Chicago, Illinois in the United States. It is considered a culmination of the larger Gay and Lesbian Pride Month in Chicago, as promulgated by the Chicago City Council and Mayor of Chicago. Chicago's Pride Parade is one of the largest by attendance in the world. The event takes place outside and celebrates equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people, which is also known as the celebration of LGBTQ rights.
The Oregon State Beavers football team represents Oregon State University in NCAA Division I FBS college football. The team first fielded an organized football team in 1893 and is a member of the Pac-12 Conference.
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 LGBTQ athletes in the professional, amateur, and recreational athletics communities.
Cyd Zeigler Jr. is a commentator and author in the field of sexuality and sports. Zeigler co-founded Outsports and the National Gay Flag Football League. He had a featured part in the documentary F(l)ag Football (2015).
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.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other non-heterosexual or non-cisgender (LGBTQ+) community is prevalent within sports across the world.
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 came out as gay on June 21, 2021, while with the Las Vegas Raiders. He became the first openly gay player to play in an NFL game on September 13, 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.
The National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame was a hall of fame established in 2013 to honor LGBT and allied personalities, as well as organizations "whose achievements and efforts have enhanced sports and athletics for the gay and lesbian community". It was established shortly after Jason Collins became the first openly gay NBA player. It is located on the grounds of Center on Halsted in Chicago, Illinois.
The homosexual sports community in the United States has one of the highest levels of acceptance and support in the world and is rapidly growing as of 2020. General public opinion and jurisprudence regarding homosexuality in the United States has become significantly more accepting since the late 1980s; for example, by the early 2020s, an overwhelming majority of Americans approved of the legality of same-sex marriages.
Although gay athletes and coaches are increasingly accepted in college sports, they continue to be controversial among some people.
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. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Las Vegas Raiders. In 2021 Nassib became the first active NFL player to publicly come out as gay and to play in a game.
Coming Out Colton is an American reality television series created by Jeff Jenkins that follows Colton Underwood as he comes out of the closet. The unscripted series of six episodes premiered December 3, 2021, on Netflix. Underwood, a former professional football player, starred in the 23rd season of The Bachelor in 2019, before publicly coming out as gay in April 2021.
