Homosexuality in American football

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 revealed himself as gay on June 21, 2021, while with the Las Vegas Raiders.^[1] He became the first openly gay player to play in an NFL game on September 13, 2021.^[2] He later became the first openly gay player in an NFL playoff game on January 15, 2022.^[3][4] Six former NFL players have come out publicly after they retired.^[5] In the 2014 NFL draft, the St. Louis Rams drafted Michael Sam in the seventh round, the 249th of 256 players selected,^[6] which made him the first openly gay player to be drafted into the NFL.^[7][8] 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.^[9][10]

In college football, 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.^[11][12] In August 2014, Arizona State player Chip Sarafin became the first publicly out active Division I player when he came out as gay.^[13] 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.^[14] 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.^[15] 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.^[16] Also in 2018, Division II Wyatt Pertuset of Capital University became the first openly gay college player to score a touchdown.^[17][18] 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.^[19][20]

Years earlier in women's football in 2001, Philadelphia Liberty Belles player Alissa Wykes of the National Women's Football Association (NWFA) came out publicly as lesbian.^[21]