8 Male Football Players who Dared to Come Out As Gay [2023 Update]

THERE HAVE BEEN 11 KNOWN GAY PLAYERS NFL HISTORY

Carl Nassib is the first to ever play a down as openly gay, but the rt are still trailblazers. * gay football player 1990 *

The announcement today by former Patrts and Chiefs offensive leman Ryan O'Callaghan that he is gay brgs to seven the number of NFL known gay players NFL history who have played a regular season game. In addn, four other players who me out as gay were NFL trag mps, some playg preason gam. Kopay played wh two teammat who were gay: tight end Jerry Smh and nng back Ray McDonald.

MEET THE 16 OUT GAY AND BI FOOTBALL PLAYERS THE NFL’S 103-YEAR HISTORY

Gay players have long been the NFL. Legendary Packers and Redsks ach Vce Lombardi — who had an openly gay brother — knew that some of his players were gay. In the Outsports article on O’Callaghan g out, longtime NFL executive Stt Pli says he has unseled gay NFL players before.

The NFL Network produced a documentary on Smh beg gay. The NFL has played for more than 100 years and there have been 16 gay or bi players to e out publicly.

16 and the first one to e out as gay while on an active roster. Over the years, Outsports has known of a few other players who are gay but have never e out, even when retired.

JAKE DANIELS BE FIRST UK MALE FOOTBALLER TO E OUT AS GAY SCE 1990

Jenks is gay and this was the the first time he wily discsed his sexual orientatn.

In June, Carl Nassib of the Rairs me out as gay. The Blackpool forward Jake Daniels has end s of silence wh men’s football to bee the first player the UK to e out as gay sce Jt Fashanu 1990. Photograph: Pl Dennis/TGS Photo/ShutterstockDaniels’s revelatn is a strikg landmark that when men’s football is more engaged wh social issu than any recent time, but still unable to ce progrs LGBTQ reprentatn wh the year Alai Uned’s Josh Cavallo beme the only male top-flight profsnal footballer the world to e out as gay, but others are yet to follow.

In six months the men’s World Cup will be played Qatar, where homosexualy is illegal, and Cavallo revealed to the Guardian he would be “sred” to play at the tournament, the pnacle of world English football specifilly, the shadow of the talented and unfulfilled Fashanu still lgers over the game. The England ternatnal me out at the end of his reer and was to take his own life eight years later, Fashanu, Jt’s niece, who ns a charable foundatn his name, said that Daniels’s cisn would “e as a huge fort to the many footballers at all levels of the game still secretly livg as gay and who still feel unable to e out”. When Kansas State offensive tackle and NFL hopeful Stt Frantz me out to the natn as gay last week, he shared that his teammat, to whom he'd e out earlier, had warmly received the news, a sign the most alpha of locker rooms may fally be ready for equaly.