every openly gay man who has played in america's four big leagues fits on one page. the number playing right now is zero.
via Uncloseted Media, NPR, Sports Illustrated and the outlets linked in each entry
Thousands of men have played in the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball and the NHL. The ones who have said publicly that they are gay or bisexual fit on one page, and here it is: 13 of them, plus the handful who got to the doorway and were not let in. Nearly all of them said it after they retired. As of June 2025, Uncloseted Media counted zero active openly gay or bisexual players in any of the four leagues, and we could not find anyone who has changed that since. National Coming Out Day is October 11. The locker room is, statistically speaking, still thinking about it.
One rule built this list: every man here said it himself, in his own words, and every entry links to where. Nobody is on it because of a rumor, a leaked text or a documentary made after his death. It cut real names.
openly gay nfl players
David Kopay, running back
The first. Kopay spent nine years in the NFL with the 49ers, Lions, Washington, Packers and Saints, per The Daily at UW, and in 1975, three years after he retired, became the first pro athlete from the NFL, NBA or MLB to publicly say he was gay, per Sports Illustrated. "When I first spoke out, you never saw any positive images of gay folks anywhere," he told UW Magazine. He was the positive image. Nobody had asked him to be.
Roy Simmons, Giants and Washington
The second. The lineman came out in 1992 on Phil Donahue's talk show, per ESPN. "Here I carry this shame and guilt also with me in being gay in the NFL," he told NPR in 2006. Simmons learned he had HIV in 1997 and died in February 2014 in the Bronx, at 57, per ESPN and the New York Times obituary.
Esera Tuaolo, defensive lineman
Photo: Oregon State University via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0, taken in 2021.
Nine seasons, five teams, a Super Bowl with the Falcons, and he sometimes sang the national anthem before the game, per ESPN and NPR. He came out in 2002, two years after retiring, per Sports Illustrated, and later wrote a memoir titled Alone in the Trenches: My Life as a Gay Man in the NFL. On his playing years: "They didn't know who Esera Tuaolo is. What they saw was an actor." A 300-pound lineman singing the anthem and nobody clocked it. Incredible.
Jeff Rohrer, Dallas Cowboys
The Yale linebacker drafted by Dallas in 1982 married Joshua Ross in 2018, making him the first known NFL player in a same-sex marriage, per Sports Illustrated and NBC News. His line to ABC News is the most relatable sentence on this page: "I don't think it occurred to me that I might be gay. I mean, I clearly was."
Kwame Harris, 49ers offensive tackle
Harris is the one entry here who did not get to choose his moment. The former first-round offensive tackle faced public speculation after a January 2013 arrest following a dispute with a man reported to be his boyfriend, then confirmed he is gay in his own interview with CNN that March, per CBS Chicago, which carried his words: "I want people, whether gay athletes, athletes still in the closet, or youths who are not sure what their sexuality is to know those are common feelings."
Ryan O'Callaghan, Patriots and Chiefs
The offensive lineman came out in 2017, after telling family, friends and Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli first, per NPR. "I'm a real good example of what not to do," he said. "If I can stand up and say, hey, look at all this dumb stuff I did because I was gay; don't do it, I can save a lot of people a lot of heartache."
Ryan Russell, Cowboys and Buccaneers
Russell, a defensive end drafted by Dallas in 2015 who then played two seasons in Tampa Bay, came out as bisexual in an August 2019 ESPN essay while a free agent, and introduced his boyfriend, the dancer Corey O'Brien, at the same time, per CBS News and the Dallas Morning News. His sentence: "My truth is that I'm a talented football player, a damn good writer, a loving son, an overbearing brother, a caring friend, a loyal lover, and a bisexual man." Putting "damn good writer" on the same list is the confidence we are all trying to manifest.
Carl Nassib, the first one still playing
Photo: Erik Drost via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, taken in 2016.
In June 2021, the Raiders defensive end posted an Instagram video from his house in West Chester, Pennsylvania: "I just want to take a quick moment to say that I'm gay," per NPR. That made him the first active NFL player to come out, and he pledged $100,000 to The Trevor Project the same day, per Sports Illustrated. He then became the first openly gay player to play a regular-season NFL game, and retired in 2023, per the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Forty-six years after Kopay, the first one to do it in uniform.
the nba
John Amaechi, Orlando, Utah and Cleveland
Photo: AmaechiPerformance via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, taken in 2012.
The first NBA player to come out did it in a 2007 memoir, Man in the Middle, after five seasons with Orlando, Utah and Cleveland, per ABC News and the Deseret News. On the fans who liked him less afterward, he told NPR that people "who would actively disparage me because they know that I'm gay" were not "people whose opinions weigh with me." Framing that and hanging it over the bed.
Jason Collins, six franchises
Photo: Keith Allison via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0, taken in 2014.
"I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay." That is the first line of the essay Collins wrote for Sports Illustrated in April 2013, and it made him the first man to come out as openly gay while playing in any of the four leagues, per NBC News. He spent 13 years in the league with six franchises. Collins died on May 12, 2026, at 47, of glioblastoma, per his family's statement through the NBA, NBC News and the AP via NPR. We wrote about what he left to LGBTQ students in his will. Every name after 2013 on this page walked through a door he held open.
Isaac Humphries, Atlanta Hawks
Photo: Tom Hagerty via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, taken in 2020.
The Australian center's one NBA season was 2018-19 with the Hawks, per Sports Illustrated. In November 2022, playing for Melbourne United, he came out by sharing video of the moment he opened up to his teammates, which made him the only openly gay player in a top men's basketball league anywhere, per Yahoo Sports. Time in Los Angeles changed his mind about waiting until retirement: he "got to see that being openly gay can come with joy," he wrote. AJ Ogilvy, the retired NBL center, came out this year in a conversation with Humphries, which is on our 2026 coming-out list.
major league baseball
Glenn Burke, Dodgers and A's
Photo: LM via Wikimedia Commons, public domain, taken in 1977.
Burke is widely credited with inventing the high five, with Dodgers teammate Dusty Baker in 1977, per Today and MLB.com. So every time a straight guy high-fives at a sports bar, that is gay history. The Dodgers traded him to Oakland. He came out publicly in 1982, in Inside Sports and on the Today show, after his career was over: "I thought the world should know how I felt." Four years later, per the San Francisco Chronicle obituary reprinted in the Roanoke Times: "You know how jocks are, they don't want anybody gay around." He died of AIDS-related complications in May 1995, at 42, per that obituary and Today. This June, the Dodgers unveiled a permanent display honoring Burke and Billy Bean under the left-field pavilion, per ESPN and MLB.com.
Billy Bean, Tigers, Dodgers and Padres
Photo: Arturo Pardavila III via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, taken in 2016.
Bean became the second former major leaguer to come out, in 1999, and later rose to senior vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion at MLB, per the AP via NPR. "I was so messed up about being gay and what I thought people would think about me," he told NPR in 2015, explaining why he never told his own teammates. He died on August 6, 2024, at 60, of acute myeloid leukemia, per Sports Illustrated and the AP.
is there a gay nhl player?
Not yet, not one who has said so and played a game. The closest is Luke Prokop.
Luke Prokop, Nashville Predators draft pick
Photo: Kaiser matias via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, taken in 2022.
In July 2021 the defenseman became the first active player signed by an NHL team to say he is gay, per NHL.com. "Today I am proud to publicly tell everyone that I am gay," he wrote, per CBS News. He has not played an NHL game. According to the ECHL, he spent last season with the AHL's Bakersfield Condors and signed with the South Carolina Stingrays for 2026-27; the Stingrays say he is at Bakersfield's training camp this month. Meanwhile a gay hockey romance is the biggest thing on television (a pop star named her son after it), and the real league is still waiting on its first. Get the man a call-up.
the ones who got to the door
Michael Sam, drafted by the Rams
Photo: Erik Daniel Drost via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, taken in 2014.
"I am an openly, proud gay man," the Missouri defensive end told ESPN's Outside the Lines in February 2014, before the draft. The St. Louis Rams took him in the seventh round, making him the first openly gay player drafted by an NFL team, then cut him in the final preseason cuts, per Sports Illustrated and CBS News. He never played a regular-season game, which is why he is down here and not up there, and why every closeted college star watched what happened to him very closely.
Wade Davis, cornerback
Davis spent four preseasons with three NFL teams and played in NFL Europe, per ESPN, and came out in 2012. Watching practice film, he told NPR, "I remember thinking, God, I'm walking gay. I remember thinking I'm standing gay." Every gay man who has ever caught himself in a shop window felt that one.
who we left off, and why
Men reported to be gay by others, after their deaths or through leaks, who never said it themselves, are not on this page. If a player on this list changes the word he uses, we will change it too. If someone new comes out, we will add him with a date on it, and we would very much like the excuse. Spotted an error? Tell us.
