The U.S. Women’s National Team Players Association issued a statement Tuesday in support of LGBTQ rights in the wake of a controversy over midfielder Korbin Albert’s social media posts.
The USWNTPA’s statement came in the hours before Albert appeared as a substitute for the national team in the SheBelieves Cup final against Canada. It was Albert’s second match with the team since the posts came to light. The statement did not mention Albert by name.
“The women’s soccer community is one of joy, excitement, kindness and love. We have worked to ensure our community is safe, inclusive and welcoming to everyone. As allies and members of the LGBTQIA+ community, those efforts will not stop,” the statement said.
“Across the country, human rights are being stripped away. LGBTQIA+ rights are human rights. Trans rights are human rights,” the statement continued. “Today and every day the USWNT Players will stand up for those rights.”
Alex Morgan and Lindsey Horan addressed the issue last week during camp. Morgan said it was handled internally.
“We stand by maintaining a safe and respectful space, especially as allies and members of the LGBTQ+ community. This platform has given us an opportunity to highlight causes that matter to us, something that we never take for granted. We’ll keep using this platform to give attention to causes,” Morgan said.
New York state officials may continue to take legal action against a county outside New York City that has banned transgender players from women’s and girls teams, a judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Court Judge Nusrat Choudhury denied Nassau County’s request for a temporary restraining order against state Attorney General Letitia James, saying the Long Island county “falls far short of meeting the high bar for securing the extraordinary relief.”
Among other things, Choudhury said the county failed to “demonstrate irreparable harm,” which she said was a “critical prerequisite” for such an order.
The ruling, however, doesn’t address the legality of the county’s ban or James’ request that the lawsuit be dismissed. Those issues will be decided at a later date.
Last month, James, a Democrat, issued a “cease and desist” letter to the county demanding it rescind the ban because she said it violates New York’s anti-discrimination laws. The ban also faces a legal challenge from a local women’s roller derby league, which has asked a state court to invalidate it.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, responded to James’ action with a federal lawsuit asking a judge to affirm that the ban was legal and to prevent James from taking action against it.
Blakeman’s February order, which affects more than 100 public facilities in the county just east of the New York City borough of Queens, states that any female sports organization that accepts transgender women or girls will be denied permits to use county-owned parks and fields.
Echoing the arguments of officials who have taken similar actions in other Republican-led cities and states, the county says women and girls will be discriminated against and their constitutional rights to equal protection will be violated if transgender athletes are allowed to compete alongside them.
James and Blakeman’s offices did not respond to emails seeking comment Thursday.
Cardiff has been chosen to host the EuroGames in 2027, marking the first time the LGBTQ+-inclusive event has been held in the UK.
LGBTQ+ sports development and inclusion organisation, Pride Sports Cymru, has been successful in ensuring that Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ sporting event would be staged in the Welsh capital.
The first EuroGames, governed by the European Gay and Lesbian Sport Federation, was held in The Hague in The Netherlands in 1992 and this year’s event will be staged in the Austrian capital, Vienna, in July.
Up to 10,000 athletes, including transgender sportsmen and women, are expected to descend on Cardiff in 2027.
The chairperson of Cardiff Dragons – Wales’ first mixed gender LGBTQ+ football club – Charlotte Galloway told the BBC: “People are allowed to identify and play in their authentic gender. That means trans women can play in the women’s category and trans men can play in the men’s category.
“I think it’s really important that we’re able to do this because there’s no other competition this big in Europe that allows gender-non-conforming people, trans people and non-binary people to compete this way.”
It shows that sport is for everyone, she added.
Duncan Cameron, the chairperson of gay and inclusive rugby union club Cardiff Lions, said: “One of the greatest things about the EuroGames is that it’s open to anybody, no matter how they identify, no matter who you are.
“A lot of people don’t know that there are inclusive rugby teams or football teams [and lots of other] sports that are going to be highlighted. It’s a great chance for us to show what we can do on a national and global stage.”
And Neil Roberts, from LGBTQ+-inclusive badminton club the Cardiff Red Kites, responded to the news by saying the games could help “embed the culture that sport is something everyone should enjoy, regardless of who they are, who they love, what race or what background they come from”.
Meanwhile, Pride Sports director Lou Englefield said: “We’re delighted to be bringing a EuroGames to Wales. It is a huge privilege. [It’s] an opportunity to highlight Wales’ commitment to become the most LGBTQ+-friendly nation in Europe.”
Pride Sports team member Jess Williams, added: “A EuroGames in Wales will be transformative for LGBTQ+ people in sport, and indeed the whole community. The legacy the games will create, and opportunity for positive change, is enormous.”
The chief executive of the Welsh Sports Association, Andrew Howard, congratulated Pride Sports Cymru on its successful bid. “The event will undoubtedly prove a celebration and awe-inspiring showcase of inclusive sport, in a first for Cardiff and the UK,” he said.
They zip around the rink, armed with helmets, pads and mouthguards. They push, bump and occasionally crash out as they jostle for position on the hardwood floor.
But for the women of the Long Island Roller Rebels, their biggest battle is taking place outside the suburban strip-mall roller rink where they’re girding for the upcoming roller derby season.
The nearly 20-year-old amateur league is suing a county leader over an executive order meant to prevent women’s and girl’s leagues and teams with transgender players from using county-run parks and fields. The league’s legal effort, backed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, has thrust it into the national discussion over the rights of transgender athletes.
Amanda Urena, the league’s vice president, said there was never any question the group would take a stand.
“The whole point of derby has been to be this thing where people feel welcome,” said the 32-year-old Long Island native, who competes as “Curly Fry” and identifies as queer, at a recent practice at United Skates of America in Seaford. “We want trans women to know that we want you to come play with us, and we’ll do our very best to keep fighting and making sure that this is a safe space for you to play.”
Amanda “Curly Fry” Urena at United Skates of America in Seaford, N.Y., on March 19, 2023. Jeenah Moon / AP
Sports leagues and teams seeking permits to play or practice in county-run parks must disclose whether they have or allow transgender women or girls. Any organization that allows them to play will be denied a permit, though men’s leagues and teams aren’t affected.
Bills restricting trans youths’ ability to participate in sports have already passed in some 24 states as part of an explosion of anti-trans legislation on many subjects in recent years. The largest school district in Manhattan is among localities also weighing a ban, following a school board vote last week.
The Roller Rebels sought a county permit this month in hopes of hosting practices and games in county-owned rinks in the upcoming season, as they have in prior years. But they expect to be denied, since the organization is open to anyone who identifies as a woman and has one transgender player already on the roster.
The ban will also make it hard for the league, which has two teams and about 25 players, to recruit and will hurt its ability to host competitions with other leagues, Urena said.
State Attorney General Letitia James has demanded the county rescind the ban, saying it violates state anti-discrimination laws, while Blakeman has asked a federal judge to uphold it.
That a roller derby league has become the face of opposition isn’t surprising: the sport has long been a haven for queer and transgender women, said Margot Atwell, who played in a women’s league in New York City and wrote “Derby Life,” a book about roller derby.
The sport, which dates at least to the 1930s and enjoyed its heyday in the 1970s, involves two teams racing around a track as their designated “jammer” attempts to score points by lapping the other skaters, who are allowed to use their hips, chests and shoulders to slow them down.
The latest revival started in the early 2000s and has been sustained by LGBTQ+ people, with leagues frequently taking part in Pride parades and holding fundraising matches, Atwell said.
“You come in here and you say, ‘I’m a trans woman. I’m a nonbinary person. I’m genderqueer.’ OK? We accept you,” said Caitlin Carroll, a Roller Rebel who competes as “Catastrophic Danger.” “The world is scary enough. You should have a safe place to be.”
Blakeman has said he wants to ensure female athletes can compete safely and fairly. He held a news conference last week with Caitlyn Jenner, who won Olympic gold in the men’s decathlon in 1976 and later underwent a gender transition. Jenner, a Republican who’s frequently at political odds with the greater transgender community, has endorsed the ban.
Blakeman, a Republican who was elected in 2021, has said constituents asked his office to act. But many critics dismiss the ban as political posturing, noting he has acknowledged there have been no local complaints involving transgender players on women’s teams.
“This is a solution in search of a problem,” said Emily Santosus, a 48-year old transgender woman on Long Island who hopes to join a women’s softball team. “We’re not bullies. We’re the ones that get bullied.”
The ones who will suffer most aren’t elite athletes, but children still trying to navigate their gender identities, added Grace McKenzie, a transgender woman who plays for the New York Rugby Club’s women’s team.
Members of the Long Island Roller Rebels during practice at United Skates of America in Seaford, N.Y., on March 19, 2023.Jeenah Moon / AP
“Cruel is the only word that I can use to describe it,” the 30-year-old Brooklyn resident said. “Kids are using sports at that age to build relationships, make friendships, develop teamwork skills, leadership skills and, frankly, just help shield them from all the hate they face as transgender kids already.”
In the larger discussion about trans women in sports, each side points to limited research to support their opinion. And bans often do not distinguish between girls and women who took puberty blockers as part of their transition — stunting the development of a male-typical physique — and those who didn’t, something one New York advocate pointed out.
The order in Nassau County puts some younger trans girls at greater risk by potentially pitting them against boys instead, said Juli Grey-Owens, leader of Gender Equality New York.
“They are not hitting puberty, so they’re not growing, they’re not getting that body strength, the endurance, the agility, the big feet, the large legs,” Grey-Owens said.
The ban could even lead to cisgender female athletes who are strong and muscular being falsely labeled transgender and disqualified, as has happened elsewhere, said Shane Diamond, a transgender man who plays recreational LGBTQ+ ice hockey in New York City.
“It creates a system where any young woman who doesn’t fit the stereotypical idea of femininity and womanhood is at risk of having her gender questioned or gender policed,” Diamond said.
A 2022 Washington Post-University of Maryland Poll found that 55% of Americans were opposed to allowing trans women and girls to compete with other women and girls in high school sports, and 58% opposed it for college and pro sports.
Two cisgender female athletes said after listening to Jenner that men are stronger than women, so it will never be fair if transgender women and girls are allowed to compete.
“There is a chance I would get hurt in those situations,” said Trinity Reed, 21, who plays lacrosse at Nassau County’s Hofstra University.
Mia Babino, 18, plays field hockey at the State University of New York at Cortland and plans to transfer to Nassau County’s Molloy University.
“We’ve worked very hard to get to where we are and to play at a college level,” she said.
But that attitude runs against everything athletic competition stands for, and it sells women and their potential short, countered Urena, of the Roller Rebels.
“If people gave up playing sports because they thought they were going to lose, we wouldn’t have a sports industry,” they said. “I love playing against people that are faster and stronger because that’s how I get better.”
Dutch darts sensation Noa-Lyn van Leuven is facing backlash after historic back-to-back victories against both men and women in the same week.
Last week, the 27-year-old won the mixed PDC Challenge Tour in Germany, defeating several past male winners. She’s the first woman to win an event in the series, one level below the sport’s top tier.
Van Leuven then played a women’s event in the UK on Saturday, defeating two highly placed veteran players, including the current No. 1 woman, Beau Greaves. After that quarter-final victory, van Leuven went on to dispatch Ireland’s Katie Sheldon in the final.
Controversy has since courted van Leuven’s historic wins.
“No male bodies in women’s sports please, not even in darts,” out tennis legend Martina Navratilova, a vocal opponent of trans inclusion in women’s sports, wrote on X. “Again, women get the short end of the stick and it stinks.”
Two of van Leuven’s teammates, Anca Zijlstra and Aileen de Graaf, quit over her presence on the Dutch squad, citing disagreement over rules around trans inclusion.
“That moment when you’re embarrassed to come out for the Dutch team, because a biological man is playing on the women’s team, it’s time to go,” Zijlstra posted to Facebook. “I have tried to accept this but I can’t approve or validate this.”
“In sports, there should be an equal and fair playing field,” Zijlstra added. “I hope with all my heart and for all women in sports that people come to their senses.”
De Graff said van Leuven was free to “change and be happy,” but explained, “I just don’t think it’s right for a biological man to throw for the women or vice-versa. It’s either mixed or not.”
Trans journalist and activist Erin Reed wasn’t convinced a trans woman could have any advantage in the sport.
“Transgender women have a biological advantage at… Darts? That’s what is being claimed by a few people who are trying to get Noa-Lynn Van Leuven removed from a women’s darts team. There is no evidence transgender women are better at angles and throwing a dart.”
Van Leuven had little to say about the controversy, except to remind fellow players and keyboard warriors she has more in common with them than they’d like to admit.
“I think the only unfortunate thing about this issue is that a lot of people forget that I am also a human being.”
Following her mixed event win, van Leuven told OutSports she’s about to announce a new sponsor, and she’s looking forward to more appearances at upcoming televised tournaments.
She’s described the mostly online debate about her darts success as “insane” but says it’s not getting in her way.
“I just go out and do the thing I love. It gives me joy.”
Pro baseball, including Major League Baseball, has been played for about 175 years in the U.S. and during that time there have been only three gay or bi players in MLB who have come out, and nine in the minor leagues, including one woman.
It’s a weak legacy for a sport that did not accept Black players until 1947 and has always had a more conservative bent institutionally, so no one should have expected the sport to be welcoming to openly gay players. In contrast, the NFL has had 16 players who came out, including one who did so while active.
Yet progress has been made — many of the names on this list came out in the last 15 years, showing a growing acceptance. Six of these players, all in the minors, were out while still playing. There have also been out prominent front-office executives who have pushed inclusion. Yet the big victory will be having the first out active MLB player, something that has not yet happened.
As the 2024 season starts, here are the Major League Baseball and minor league players who have come out as gay or bi.
Get off the sidelines and into the game
Our weekly playbook is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
MLB
Glenn Burke (Outfielder: Los Angles Dodgers, Oakland A’s, 1976-79) As I wrote back in 2010: What’s remarkable about Burke is how out he was in the 1970s. Not in a “Hey world, I’m gay” way, but in the sense that his teammates knew as did the management of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Burke’s first team, and eventually fans who would taunt him from the outfield bleachers in Oakland by calling him a “fag.” A memorable moment came when the Dodgers — trying to stifle rumors that a popular player was gay — offered Burke $75,000 to get married. His reply: “I guess you mean to a woman?”
There is some debate as to whether Burke was an “out active player,” but Outsports has never considered him so, though that was not necessarily his doing. His teammates knew he was gay since he made little attempt to hide who he was, and fans suspected, but Burke did not publicly talk about being gay until 1982, after he had retired.
Related
In fact, Allen Barra, writing in the Atlantic in 2013, said of Burke: “His story was greeted by the rest of the news media and the baseball establishment, including Burke’s former teammates and baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, with silence. Even his superb autobiography, ‘Out at Home,’ which published the year he died, failed to stir open conversation about homosexuality in sports. Practically no one in the sports-writing community would acknowledge that Burke was gay or report stories that followed up on his admission.”
Burke is credited with inventing the high-five along with then-Dodgers teammate Dusty Baker. Burke died from AIDS complications in 1995.
Billy Bean (Outfielder, first baseman: Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, 1987-95) Bean was closeted during his Major League Baseball career and did not come out until 1999. Since then, though, he has been a forceful advocate for LGBTQ inclusion, especially since he joined the MLB front office.
TJ House(Pitcher: Cleveland Indians, Toronto Blue Jays, 2014-17) House came out on Dec. 8, 2022, after attending a White House ceremony where President Biden signed the “Respect for Marriage Act” and where House announced his engagement.
“Today’s passage of the Respect for Marriage Act protects us to have the same rights and opportunities that each of you have,” House wrote on Facebook. “It protects the same benefits. It makes us equal to you. It allows Ryan Neitzel and I to come together and create something beautiful. It gives me the confidence to get engaged to the person I love (he said Yes!), to marry them. I have a wonderful fiance, who challenges me daily to become a better person. To live life authentically. One who I never deserved but blessed to have. Love you see, it’s for everyone.”
Minor leagues
Anderson Comas (Pitcher, 2017-23) Comas came out in 2023, writing: “I’m proudly and happily part of the LGTBQ+ community. I’m also a human with a great soul, I’m respectful, I’m a lover, I love my family and friends and that’s what really matters, I enjoy my work a lot, being a professional baseball player is the best thing that happened to me so I just wanna say something to those people that says that gay people can not be someone in this life, well look at me I’m Gay and I’m a professional athlete.”
Solomon Bates (Pitcher, 2016-23) Bates came out to his teammates in 2019 and publicly in 2022. “I haven’t been out as my complete self because I’ve been hiding myself,” he said. “I’m a masculine man who loves the sport of baseball, and now I want to open up doors for gay athletes like me.”
“I was also one of the unfortunate closeted gay athletes who experienced years of homophobia in the sport I loved,” he wrote. “I was able to take most of it with a grain of salt but towards the end of my career I could tell it was affecting my relationships with people, my performance, and my overall happiness.
“I experienced both coaches and players make remarks … during my time in baseball, and each comment felt like a knife to my heart. I was miserable in a sport that used to give me life, and ultimately I decided I needed to hang up my cleats for my own sanity.”
Sean Conroy (Pitcher, 2015-16) On June 25, 2015, Sean Conroy, a pitcher for the minor league Sonoma Stompers in California, made history by becoming the first openly gay active professional baseball player. This led the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., to display the lineup card and scorecard from the game.
“It’s very humbling and completely unexpected,” Conroy told the Hall of Fame. All of Conroy’s teammates signed the lineup card,
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Jason Burch (Pitcher, 2003-08) Burch played for four minor league teams and told teammates he was gay if they asked. His one regret was not coming out publicly while active.
“Looking back, I wish I had told the whole world that I’m gay from Day 1,” he told Outsports. “That feeling of being relied upon, that people must turn to you as a closer to make things right, to have that role – and to have people have that feeling about me in that role – as a gay man, I think that would have been a powerful message. If we are talking about changing people’s opinions, I do think that would have been a powerful message. But I wasn’t really thinking about that at the time.”
“I made some off-hand comment and one of my teammates was just like, ‘So what do you identify as? Because you’re not straight, are you?’” Lovegrove said. “And I was like, ‘No, I’m not. I’m bisexual. I appreciate you asking.’ And everyone was just like, ‘Oh, cool! OK! Cool!’”
“Then we had nine hours left on the bus ride. And from that point, everyone just sort of embraced that as a fact of my life and didn’t treat me any differently because of it.”
Bryan Ruby (Infielder) Ruby played in six foreign countries and in a U.S. independent league and came out in 2021. He is also a co-founder of Proud To Be In Baseball, an advocacy and support group focused on elevating LGBTQ inclusion in the sport. He is also an accomplished musician based in Nashville.
Ila Borders (Pitcher, 1997-2000) Borders was the first woman to earn a scholarship in collegiate men’s baseball and a pitcher in the independent minor leagues in the late 1990s. Borders’ girlfriend is Sherri Murrell, at one time the first out gay coach in women’s Division I basketball.
Outsports writer Ken Schultz contributed to this report.
New York’s attorney general sent a cease-and-desist letter on Friday slamming a Long Island lawmaker for issuing a “discriminatory and transphobic” executive order designed to keep transgender athletes from playing sports.
Attorney General Letitia James ordered Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman to “immediately rescind” his order on the basis it discriminates against people based sex, gender, identity of expression — a violation of New York law.
“The law is perfectly clear: you cannot discriminate against a person because of their gender identity or expression. We have no room for hate or bigotry in New York,” James said Friday. “This executive order is transphobic and blatantly illegal. Nassau County must immediately rescind the order, or we will not hesitate to take decisive legal action.”
The executive order bars transgender athletes from competing against girls at all 100 sports facilities run by Nassau County, including ball fields and ice rinks. It is believed to be the first ban on transgender participation in sports on a county-wide level in the U.S.
Blakeman argued that transgender athletes don’t belong on the same field as girls, adding that he has been considering instituting the ban for months.
When asked by reporters last week what spurred such a ban to be enacted, Blakeman could cite no examples of such a thing occurring in Nassau County. Neither could the executive director of the agency that oversees high school sports in the county.
“We have not had any issues with transgender athletes participating in section 8 athletics…no complaints, and I’m not sure that there are any,” noted Pat Pizzarelli, of the Nassau County Public High School Athletic Association.
James gave the county executive five days to rescind the order “or else face additional legal action.”
Blakeman doubled down on claims he seeks to protect athletes from “bullying” at a press conference Friday afternoon. He also invited James or her office to meet with county lawyers to examine state and federal law.
Amber Glenn has won the U.S. Figure Skating Championship, becoming the first openly LGBTQ+ woman to win.
Glenn — who identifies as bisexual and pansexual— has competed in the championship eight times prior, and won the silver medal in 2021 and the bronze medal in 2023.
Despite making mistakes on two major jumps in her free skate routine on 26 January, Glenn won with 210.46 points to silver medalist Josephine Lee’s 204.13 points and bronze medalist Isabeau Levito’s 200.68 points.
She’s competed in the competition eight times prior. (Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
In an interview with NBC Sports, the victor said: “Being the first openly queer women’s champion is incredible. When I came out initially, I was terrified. I was scared it would affect my scores or something.
She continued: “It was worth it to see the amount of young people who felt more comfortable in their environments at the rink, [people] who feel, ‘Oh, I’m represented by her, and she’s one of the top skaters [so] I don’t have to try and hide the sight of me.’ Just because you have this aspect doesn’t mean you can’t be a top athlete.”
Glenn’s win marks the first openly LGBTQ+ woman athlete to reach the top spot at the competition, but there are other out queer U.S. figure skaters, including Adam Rippon, Eliot Halverson, Karina Manta, and Timothy LeDuc.
The figure skater won the championship a decade after winning the junior U.S. championship title in 2014, and navigating a few bumps in the road during her professional career.
At the start of this season, Glenn suffered from a severe concussion and was previously forced to withdraw from the 2022 Olympic trials after testing positive for Coronavirus.
“This wasn’t exactly how I wanted to win my first national title, but I’m extremely grateful for it,” she said during a press conference following the event. “It means so much to me, after everything I’ve been through in the last 10 years.”
Glenn proudly lifted the Progress Pride flag following her win and came out publicly in 2019. She said to Dallas Voice at the time: “The fear of not being accepted is a huge struggle for me.
“Being perceived as [going through] ‘just a phase’ or ‘[being] indecisive’ is a common thing for bisexual/pansexual women. I don’t want to shove my sexuality in people’s faces, but I also don’t want to hide who I am.”
Are transgender athletes allowed in the Olympics? With Paris 2024 soon approaching, many people have been asking that question.
Unfortunately, recent years have seen transgender athletes competing in sporting events face increasingly extreme restrictions.
While transgender athletes are technically allowed in the Olympics, they’re not exactly given a warm welcome given the increasingly demanding requirements placed on them.
Ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic games, the topic of trans athletes’ participation is once again being raised. The forthcoming Olympic games are set to introduce further restrictions to previous editions.
Can trans athletes compete at the Olympics?
Taking place in Paris this July and August, the 2024 Olympics includes a new requirement that athletes must have completed their transition before the age of 12 to compete.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has suggested that transitioning after the age of 12 could give an advantage to athletes over their cisgender competitors.
There are examples of transgender athletes at the Olympics. At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard made history as the first openly trans athlete to compete at the Olympic Games.
Now, athletes like Hubbard who have previously represented their nation at the Olympics will not be eligible for the Paris 2024 Games.
Previously, the IOC had guidelines in place that allowed trans women athletes to compete if their testosterone levels were below 10 nanomoles per litre a year before competing.
Various further bans have also been enacted against trans athletes recently in a number of sporting groups.
Laurel Hubbard speaks to media after competing in the Tokyo Olympic Games (Laurence Griffiths/Getty)
Are there restrictions on trans people in professional sports?
Last March, the governing body of athletics (World Athletics Council) banned women from competing in elite female competitions if they have gone through male puberty.
At the time, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said the tightening restrictions to exclude transgender women was due to the “overarching need to protect the female category.”
The decision was enacted on 31 March, Transgender Day of Visibility.
Unfortunately, similar attitudes were then adopted by World Aquatics in its ‘Gender Inclusion Policy’.
The governing body voted to bar trans women from competing in women’s swimming events if they had gone through any part of puberty.
Swimmer Lia Thomas has now filed a legal dispute against World Aquatics’ anti-trans policies, citing a number of decisions from the governing body disqualifying most trans women and intersex athletes from international events.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) has also introduced bans on trans women participating if they have reached puberty before transitioning.
Such restrictions are introduced with the attempted justification of ‘safeguarding’ women’s sport. These trans bans have reached every corner of the sporting world: professional golfer Hailey Davidson was pushed into testosterone testing to verify her eligibility after she won a women’s pro tournament in Florida.
Former Las Vegas Raiders star Carl Nassib made history during Pride month in 2021 when he came out as gay.
“I actually hope that, one day, videos like this and the whole coming-out process are just not necessary,” he said in a post on Instagram. “But until then, I’m going to do my best, and my part, to cultivate a culture that’s accepting, that’s compassionate.”
Having also played for the Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Nassib announced his retirement from the NFL last September.
Many people believe that Nassib was the first player to come out, but that’s far from the case. Sure, he was the first to come out while on the sport’s regular season roster, but the title of “first” actually goes to Dave Kopay, who revealed his gay identity 26 years earlier, three years after retiring.
What’s more, in 1969 Kopay was on the same team as two other gay NFL football players, training under the legendary (and open-minded) Washington coach Vince Lombardi. He also played for the San Francisco 49ers, Detroit Lions, New Orleans Saints and the Green Bay Packers.
To date, there have only ever been 16 out gay or bisexual NFL players – hardly any, in the grand scheme of things, especially when you think about the huge number of footballers who have donned a uniform since the NFL was founded in 1920.
There are undoubtedly more players who never came out, but sadly that means their stories are lost in the mists of time.
Thankfully, we do know the incredible, powerful and heart-wrenching stories of three players. Two lost their lives during the Aids crisis, but all of them were truly talented.
These are the stories of running back Dave Kopay, who played between 1964 and 1972, Jerry Smith (1965-77), a tight end with Washington, and Ray McDonald (1967-68), a running back, also for Washington.
Dave Kopay
Dave Kopay was the first professional team sport athlete ever to declare his homosexuality. He made the announcement in 1975, three years after his retirement, following a nine-year NFL career.
He played for five teams during his career: San Francisco, Detroit, Washington, New Orleans and Green Bay. After he came out, he tried to get into coaching, but he claims that NFL and colleges expressed no interest after his sexuality became public knowledge.
Dave Kopay, pictured in 1977 (Getty)
Kopay spent a lot of his younger years denying his sexuality. He joined the Theta Chi fraternity when he arrived at the University of Washington, and it was at the there that he says met the man he now calls the great love of his life. But he was still very much in the closet, and trying to deny who he really was. After all, this was the early 1960s, when declaring he was gay would have essentially ruined his prospects.
Describing that time to the University of Washington Magazine, he said: I was never thinking I was a gay man because I just wasn’t like ‘one of them’. Just talking about it like that almost reinforces the utter bullsh*t that society uses to identify gay folks.
“I didn’t have the knowledge or strength to take it on then, and even after I did take it on, there were many, many times that it almost consumed me and took me into deep depression.”
Letters from fans helped him to find the strength to carry on, the former running back explained.
Kopay is alive and well. He became a Gay Games ambassador, and was a featured announcer in the opening ceremony for Gay Games VII, in Chicago in July 2006.
Jerry Smith
In 1986 Kopay revealed, in his autobiography, a brief affair with fellow NFL star Jerry Smith, who played for Washington (then the Redskins, but now called the Commanders) from 1965 to 1977, playing in a losing Super Bowl team in 1973 – although he didn’t name Smith at the time.
Tight end Smith kept his sexuality very private, focusing on his career. After officially retiring at the end of the 1978 season, he quietly came out as gay to a few family members. He moved to Austin, Texas, where he co-owned a gay bar called The Boathouse.
Jerry Smith kept his sexuality private even after revealing he had Aids. (Getty)
In 1986, Smith revealed that he had contracted AIDS, hoping to bring awareness about the disease and de-stigmatise it – a brave move as, at the time, the prevailing belief was that it was an illness that only affected “drug addicts and hairdressers” as Jim Graham, director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, put it in an interview with the Washington Post in 1986.
Smith’s teammates all visited him as he lay in a Maryland hospital. He died, aged 43, on October 15, 1986, of an AIDS-related illness, a year after being diagnosed with HIV. Twenty-three players from Washington’s 1973 Super Bowl team reunited for the funeral, with several, including Sonny Jurgensen, Charley Taylor and Bobby Mitchell, serving as pallbearers.
“I don’t know how many of the players even knew he was gay, but I’ll tell you one thing: if they had known, they wouldn’t have cared,” Jurgensen has said.
Ray McDonald
As it turns out, Washington had not one, not two, but three gay men on the roster in 1969. The third was Ray McDonald, who had studied at the University of Idaho.
Questions about McDonald’s sexuality are believed to have started late in his college career, with rumours spreading that he was seeing a man at Washington State University, about 10 minutes from Idaho’s campus.
He went on to be drafted by Washington and during the rookie talent show at a training camp in 1967, McDonald delighted some with his singing skills, while others, it’s said, raised their eyebrows.
Ray McDonald played for Washington for two seasons and once delighted teammates with his singing voice. (University of Idaho)
At the time, Washington was coached by the now-legendary Vince Lombardi, who was no stranger to the LGBTQ+ community: his brother was gay, and many former players say he knew some of his team were gay. Not only did he not have a problem with it, but he also went out of his way to make sure no one else would make it a problem.
“Lombardi wanted to give him every benefit of the doubt and every chance and said if he found out that any coach was challenging McDonald’s manhood, they [would] be fired immediately.”
Former running back A.D. Whitfield, who played for Washington between 1966 and 1969, agreed that McDonald’s sexuality was something of an open secret.
“People more or less knew he was gay,” he said. “In the first year, there were all kinds of stories about incidents around town.”
One of the biggest incidents was when McDonald was reportedly arrested for having sex with another man in public.
It’s tragic that none of these great athletes felt they could come out during their career, but their legacy lives on through players like Carl Nassib.
