The homosexual sports community in the United States has one of the highest levels of acceptance and support in the world [1] [2] [3] and is rapidly growing as of 2020. [4] [5] General public opinion and jurisprudence regarding homosexuality in the United States has become significantly more accepting since the late 1980s; [6] [7] for example, by the early 2020s, an overwhelming majority of Americans approved of the legality of same-sex marriages. [6]
In regard to sports in the United States, in 2002 researcher Eric Anderson found "more openly gay runners and swimmers than football and baseball players." [8] He then hypothesized that this occurred because gay men likely abandoned some sports in favor of sports that were more accepting of homosexuality. [8] In 2006, a Sports Illustrated poll of roughly 1,400 professional athletes found that a majority would be willing to accept a gay teammate. As well, professional ice hockey (NHL) athletes seemed to be the most accepting of such teammates as 80% of its players approved of having a gay teammate. [8]
In 1996, Muffin Spencer-Devlin became the first LPGA player to come out as gay. [9]
In 2018, Tadd Fujikawa came out as gay, becoming the first male professional golfer to do so. [10] [11]
In 2018, Todd Harrity came out as gay, thus becoming the first openly gay professional male squash player in the world. At the time he was ranked No. 1 in the United States out of all male squash players. [12] [13]
In 2018, Abrahm DeVine, a swimmer for Stanford University, came out as gay, making him one of "very few openly gay swimmers competing on the elite level." [14] [15] [16] In September 2019, DeVine said he was dropped from the Stanford team due to homophobia, which team coaches denied in a statement which did not include why they took the action. [17] [18] [19]
American tennis player Billie Jean King acknowledged her relationship with Marilyn Barnett when it became public in a May 1981 palimony lawsuit filed by Barnett, making Billie Jean the first prominent female professional athlete in the world to come out. [20]
Glenn Burke was the first Major League Baseball (MLB) player to come out as gay, announcing it in 1982 after he retired. [21]
Umpire Dale Scott came out as gay in 2014, becoming the first active openly gay official in the MLB, NBA, NFL or NHL. [22]
In 2015, Sean Conroy became the first openly gay active professional baseball player, while playing for the Sonoma Stompers [23] of the independent baseball league called the Pacific Association. [24] [25]
Also in 2015, David Denson, while playing for the Helena Brewers, a minor league team affiliated with the Milwaukee Brewers, became the first active player in affiliated professional baseball to come out as gay. [26] [27]
The case of Jennifer Harris against Penn State, more specifically their women's basketball coach Rene Portland, was about homosexuality. [28] In 2006, a gay rights advocacy group, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, accused Rene Portland of forcing player Jennifer Harris to transfer because of bias against lesbians. The advocacy group claimed that Portland was biased against lesbians for decades and cited a 1986 interview in which she claimed she talked to recruits and parents of recruits about lesbians stating, "I will not have it in my program." [29] There were also claims of Portland telling key recruits—to discourage them from attending another school—that the other team was "full of lesbians." The lawsuit was eventually settled out of court and Penn State found Portland in violation of policy. She was fined $10,000 by the university in lieu of a one-game suspension and warned that another infraction would result in the termination of her employment. [30] Rene Portland eventually resigned from her position as women's head basketball coach. [31]
In 2002, Sue Wicks came out as gay, making her the first openly gay person playing in the WNBA. [32] Many female players have since come out as gay; for example, Brittney Griner came out in 2013, and Elena Delle Donne came out in 2016. [33]
In 2013, Jason Collins publicly came out as gay. [34] President Barack Obama contacted him offering his support. [35] In 2014, Jason Collins played for the Brooklyn Nets of the NBA, making him the first openly gay athlete to play in any of the four major North American professional sports leagues. [36] [37] [38]
In 2014, shortly after the end of the season, sophomore starting guard Derrick Gordon of the University of Massachusetts Amherst came out as gay, making him the first Division I men's basketball player to do so while still playing in college. [39] Later that year, still playing for the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he became the first openly gay player in Division I to play in a men's basketball game. [40] In 2016, as a player for Seton Hall University, he became the first openly gay man to play in the March Madness tournament. [41]
Jesse Taylor, a basketball player at Dakota Wesleyan University, came out as gay in 2015, making him South Dakota's first openly gay college athlete. [42]
In 2015, Bryant University assistant basketball coach Chris Burns came out as gay, making him the first openly gay coach in NCAA Division I men's basketball. [43]
In 2002, the National Gay Flag Football League was founded. [44]
In 1975, former football player David Kopay became the first professional athlete from a major team to come out. [45]
Football player Alissa Wykes of the Philadelphia Liberty Belles became one of the first active American athletes to publicly come out as gay when she announced that she was a lesbian in an article in the December 2001/January 2002 edition of Sports Illustrated for Women . [46] [47] [48]
In the 2014 NFL draft, the St. Louis Rams drafted Michael Sam in the seventh round, the 249th of 256 players selected, [49] which made him the first openly gay player to be drafted into the NFL. [50] [51] 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. [52] [53]
In June 2021, Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib came out as gay via Instagram, making him the first openly gay active player in the NFL. [54] [55] He later became the first openly gay player in an NFL playoff game on January 15, 2022. [56] [57]
Division III player Conner Mertens came out as bisexual in January 2014, becoming the first active college football player at any level to publicly come out as bisexual or gay. [58] [59] In August 2014, Arizona State player Chip Sarafin became the first publicly out active Division I player when he came out as gay. [60] In 2017, Scott Frantz publicly came out as gay, joining My-King Johnson as two of the first openly gay players in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. [61] Later that same year, Frantz became the first openly gay college football player to play in a game for an NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision school. [62] In 2018, Bradley Kim of the United States Air Force Academy came out as gay, thus becoming the first openly gay football player to play for any military academy in the United States; open homosexuality was forbidden in the U.S. Armed Forces until 2011. [63] Also in 2018, Division II Wyatt Pertuset of Capital University became the first openly gay college player to score a touchdown. [64] [65] In 2022, Byron Perkins of Hampton University came out as gay, making him the first openly gay football player at any historically black college or university. [66] [67]
In 1985, the Los Angeles Blades was organized as the first gay hockey team in the United States. [68]
In 2021, Canadian Luke Prokop, who was drafted by the Nashville Predators in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft, became the first active player signed to a National Hockey League contract to come out as gay. [69] [70] [71] On November 17, 2023, Prokop became the first openly gay player in the American Hockey League's history, by making his first appearance in a game as a player for the Milwaukee Admirals. [72]
In 1998, the Washington Renegades RFC was formed as the first gay rugby team in the United States. [73]
In 2013, Robbie Rogers publicly came out as gay. [34] President Barack Obama contacted him offering his support. [35] Thierry Henry, at the time playing in Major League Soccer, was quoted in a column for New York Daily News as saying "he (Rogers) is a human being, first of all. And that’s good enough." [35] Later in 2013, Robbie Rogers became the first openly gay man to compete in a top North American professional sports league when he played his first match for the LA Galaxy. [74] [75] [76]
Many female soccer players have been openly gay while actively playing for American teams, such as Joanna Lohman [77] [78] and Megan Rapinoe. [79] [80] [81] Megan Rapinoe came out in 2012, while a midfielder for the Seattle Sounders and while on the United States women's national soccer team. [82] [83]
Kirk Walker came out as gay to the Oregon State Beavers softball team while he was their head coach in 2005, and while still the head coach came out to the website Outsports in 2007. [84] [85] He was the first openly gay male coach in NCAA Division I history. [86] [87]
...(the United States and [Western] Europe) as "already in crisis" for their permissive attitudes toward nonnormative sexualities...
13.) United States
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a dramatic wave began to form in the waters of public opinion: American attitudes involving homosexuality began to change... The transformation of America's response to homosexuality has been — and continues to be — one of the most rapid and sustained shifts in mass attitudes since the start of public polling.
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