Each of Ameri’s big 5 sports currently has an out gay man the pros. That’s never happened - Outsports

Contents:

• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• JAGUARS ASSISTANT KEV MAXEN IS FIRST MALE NFL ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
• JAGUARS’ KEV MAXEN IS FIRST MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY US MEN’S PRO SPORTS
• JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
• EACH OF AMERI’S BIG 5 SPORTS CURRENTLY HAS AN OUT GAY MAN THE PROS. THAT’S NEVER HAPPENED
• WHY THERE ARE FEW OPENLY GAY ATHLET IN MEN'S PROFSNAL SPORTS
• NORTH AMERI’S FOUR BIGGT PRO SPORTS LEAGU HAVE BEEN AROUND A BED 398 YEARS. THEY’VE HAD TWO OPENLY GAY ACTIVE PLAYERS
• JAGUARS ASSISTANT KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH MAJOR MEN'S PRO SPORTS TO INTIFY AS GAY
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT PUBLICLY AS GAY
• MEN AT SPORT: GAY MEN'S EXPERIENC THE SPORT WORKPLACE
• GAY, BISEXUAL MEN UTAH N GIVE BLOOD UNR PANY’S LOOSENED RTRICTNS

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

Per Outsports, Maxen is the “first publicly out male ach a major Amerin men’s pro sports league, ” wh WNBA ach Curt Miller, who publicly me out to the media as gay 2015, also a publicly out male ach an Amerin profsnal sports league. No NFL ach had ever publicly e out as gay, so Maxen, an assistant strength and ndng ach for the Jacksonville Jaguars, kept quiet about his sexual that ma him angry — at himself.

Acrdg to the article, Maxen ma his cisn to do so last year and reached out for advice om Carl Nassib, who 2021 beme the NFL’s first out gay active player as a member of the Las Vegas was Nassib who put Maxen ntact wh Outsports. Jacksonville Jaguars associate strength ach Kev Maxen is believed to be the first openly gay male ach major North Amerin men's sports after g out publicly an terview wh Outsports.

" San Francis 49ers assistant Katie Sowers, a pneer among female ach the NFL, me out as the the league's first openly gay ach 2017, acrdg to Outsports. He add that he reached out last year for advice on g out om former Las Vegas Rairs lebacker Carl Nassib, who beme the first active openly gay player NFL history 2021.

JAGUARS ASSISTANT KEV MAXEN IS FIRST MALE NFL ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

-- Jaguars assistant strength and ndng ach Kev Maxen has bee the first male ach major Amerin men's profsnal sports to publicly e out as gay, tellg he ma the cisn bee he didn't want to hi who he is any longer and to possibly spire others siar 's a cisn and move that drew praise and support om owner Shad Khan, who was a vol and emphatic supporter of a cy ordance that expand protectns on the grounds of sexual orientatn, genr inty and genr exprsn. Outsi lebacker Carl Nassib beme the first active NFL player to e out as gay and to play a game Associated Prs ntributed to this report.

In June 2021, NFL fensive end Carl Nassib me out as gay a vio posted to his Instagram, addg he donated $100, 000 to The Trevor Project, an anizatn that foc on suici preventn LGBTQ youth after he stggled wh his sexualy for 15 years.

JAGUARS’ KEV MAXEN IS FIRST MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY US MEN’S PRO SPORTS

"Sce Febary and my big announcement, this has been a whole [lot of] speculatn of the first openly gay football player, but you know what? The athlete quickly ma a name for herself a seri of TV terviews, where she voiced her support of women's rights and LGBTQ rights as an openly gay woman. "I thk female athlet, general, are at the foreont of every prott general bee we're gay, we're women, we're women of lor, we're sort of everythg all at one time, " Rapoe told NBC news 2019.

JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

The thgs you hear as a child—every time you hear someone say 'f----t' or talk bad about a gay guy, or see somethg on TV and make fun of that.

" He scribed hidg his sexualy while playg for the Utah Jazz, but said some teammat who spected he was gay were welg about a 2007 terview on "Outsi the L, " Amaechi, who played five seasons the NBA, said he thought there were other gay players the league, but said 's "terrifyg" for some to e out. '"But a few months later, he joed the Los Angel Galaxy team and beme the first openly gay man to play a major US profsnal league. Greg Louganis won four gold medals and one silver medal at three Olympic Gam om 1976 to 1988 as a diver, but wasn't until 1994 that he me out as gay.

EACH OF AMERI’S BIG 5 SPORTS CURRENTLY HAS AN OUT GAY MAN THE PROS. THAT’S NEVER HAPPENED

""If I n show that I'm out and I'm fe, then hopefully the younger generatn will feel the same way, " Grer said the same year, Grer recieved a multi-ln dollar al om Nike, and beme the first openly gay basketball player endorsed by the brand, acrdg to The married her wife, Cherelle, 2019.

WHY THERE ARE FEW OPENLY GAY ATHLET IN MEN'S PROFSNAL SPORTS

While recent data om the US shows that the acceptance of homosexualy society often remas divid by untry, regn and enomic velopment, overall there has been creasg acceptance most untri. Rearch the UK, for example, nsistently shows high levels of acceptance of homosexualy - wh only 16% of those surveyed 2018 believg same-sex relatnships were eher “always” or “mostly” wrong.

NORTH AMERI’S FOUR BIGGT PRO SPORTS LEAGU HAVE BEEN AROUND A BED 398 YEARS. THEY’VE HAD TWO OPENLY GAY ACTIVE PLAYERS

When Nashville Predators prospect Le Prokop me out this week, was the first time an active player unr ntract to an NHL team had ever publicly acknowledged they were gay. Overnight, Prokop's announcement doubled the number of out gay athlet currently playg the untry's four major men's sports — football, basketball, baseball and hockey.

Gay male athlet face cultural barriers Part of the reason for the lack of out gay players men's profsnal sports uld be that there are jt fewer of them the game.

"Gay men are a fe rource, so they n't exist great numbers every quarter, " Magrath told "Gay men are overreprented some areas, and as a nsequence are gog to be unrreprented sports. That uld be due to the mascule culture at the center of the major sports, experts say, creatg an environment that is ls welg to gay athlet.

JAGUARS ASSISTANT KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH MAJOR MEN'S PRO SPORTS TO INTIFY AS GAY

Magrath helped thor a study that found that male athlet who me out as gay while still playg sports were largely met wh acceptance by their teammat. NBA player Jason Colls, who me out 2013 while he was still playg the league, later told NPR " went great" when he scribed the perd after announcg he was gay. After Michael Sam beme the first openly gay athlete to be drafted to the NFL 2014, then-Miami Dolphs safety Don Jon tweeted "horrible, " rultg penalti and a spensn.

David Kopay, a former NFL nng back who me out 1975, was unable to land a profsnal achg job after he announced publicly that he was gay. There are key differenc the cultur of men's and women's athletics While few active players the major men's sports leagu have e out, many female profsnal athlet have said publicly that they're gay, om U. The Las Vegas Rairs fensive end is now jt one of two openly gay active players the history of the four biggt North Amerin sports leagu (the Natnal Football League, Natnal Basketball Associatn, Major League Baseball and the Natnal Hockey League).

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT PUBLICLY AS GAY

Homophobic language is still a regular feature of playg on a boys’ sports team the US and abroad, Denison’s rearch shows – one of his studi found that more than half of the ice hockey and gby players he terviewed said they’d ed slurs. Regular exposure to slurs or stereotyp eventually rerc among players that their succs as an athlete is tied to an ia of masculy that exclus gay men, he said.

Denison scribed what he lls a “cycle of excln” that begs when a boy hears ach or olr players e homophobic language and observ a “posive rponse” to that behavr – maybe they lgh at each other, or the ach don’t challenge them, he said. That sends the msage that homophobic language is harmls and OK to e – and cements the assumptn that all members of the team are heterosexual.

“We often fd that male ach ntue to e homophobic language and teach nformy to this tough mascule athlete inty that don’t really exist, ” he said.

MEN AT SPORT: GAY MEN'S EXPERIENC THE SPORT WORKPLACE

As a child, before Davis unrstood what meant to be LGBTQ, he was already absorbg the norms beg set around him durg practice – that “beg gay those walls was unsafe, that [he] would be danger. Quali players necsary for succs football – domance, aggrsn and, ocsnally, vlence – are often associated wh homophobia and sexism, too. Almost 50 years earlier, there was Glenn Burke, a buddg Los Angel Dodgers star whose reer was cut short by homophobia the 1970s, argu Andrew Maraniss, an thor and special projects ordator wh Vanrbilt Universy Athletics, his book on Burke.

The next season, Burke was trad to the Oakland A’s, where a ach lled him a homophobic slur and said he would “ntamate” the team, Maraniss wrote. “He was a phenomenal athlete at the time when majory of straight sports fans the untry assumed that there’s no way there uld even be a gay player the game, let alone the most popular player on his team, ” Maraniss said. Denison said that progrs mt start at the youth level by curbg the e of gay slurs by ach and players and emphasizg a narrow fn of masculy.

After g out as gay an Instagram post 2020, Bank hop to show younger athlet “that they n be whomever they are, or want to be, whout discrimatn. Radford ma history as the first petive figure skater to e out as gay while still petg for champnship tl 2014, pavg the way for future LGBTQ+ athlet to e out. Jacksonville Jaguars assistant strength and ndng ach Kev Maxen cid on Thursday to e out publicly as gay hop of livg his life whout fear and to spire others.

GAY, BISEXUAL MEN UTAH N GIVE BLOOD UNR PANY’S LOOSENED RTRICTNS

Before jog Jacksonville’s achg staff, he was a strength ach for the football teams at Baylor and Febary 2022, Maxen reached out to NFL player Carl Nassib, who me out as gay 2021, to seek advice. Our list of ne feature-length LGBTQ sports documentari that provi behd-the-scen glimps of heroism and homophobia athletics was such a h, we’re followg up wh a look at feature-length narrative LGBTQ sports films.

Intertgly, this film was directed by gay producer Greg Berlanti (hband of gay soccer player Robbie Rogers) and stars actor John Mahoney who lived the glass closet until his 2017 ath. But when he’s given a choice to return to the pro-sports closet or start playg on a smaller gay lol team, Thor has to choose between a glamoro life or an thentic one.

The director, Michael Akers, -wrote the screenplay om terviews wh wheelchair-g gay men, and ’s one of the few films existence to al wh gay men and disabili.