Top 10 NFL players who have come out as gay

The NFL is one of the most competitive leagues in all of sports. Throughout its history, the league has seen the rise of great players who not only excelled on the field but also displayed courage off it. One such form of bravery is the openness of NFL players about their sexual orientation and who bravely came out as gay. 

Most of these players who have revealed their sexual orientation addressed so publicly years after their retirement from professional football. Carl Nassib, however, was the only active NFL professional to have addressed his sexual orientation while he was still active in the league back in 2021. Here are the top 10 NFL players who have publicly come out as gay breaking the barriers of social norms and paving way for inclusivity in the league.

Explore: Top 10 richest NFL players of all time

10. Wade Davis

Former NFL cornerback Wade Davis is a renowned activist and spokesperson who played in the league between 2000 to 2003. He started his career after graduating from Weber State University where he played college football. 

Davis went undrafted in the 2000 NFL draft and signed with the Tennessee Titans as an undrafted free agent, but was waived after training camp. The cornerback went on to play for Berlin Thunder in NFL Europe. He would sign for short stints with the Seattle Seahawks, Barcelona Dragons, and Washington Redskins until retiring in 2003.

It was later that Wade Davis came out as gay and became the captain of the National Gay Flag Football League, the New York Warriors. In 2012, Davis expressed in an interview how it felt to be isolated in the NFL due to his sexual orientation. Wade Davis continues to be an advocate against homophobia in the world of sports.

9. Ray McDonald 

Former NFL professional Ray McDonald played a very short stint in the league with the Washington Redskins. Prior to his NFL career, he had played college football at the University of Idaho. McDonald was selected by the Washington Redskins in the 1967 NFL Draft. 

He was said to have been handpicked by then-Washington Redskins owner Edward Bennett Williams and signed a lucrative three-year contract with the franchise. Unfortunately for McDonald, his professional career was in jeopardy, followed by his arrest in Washington, D.C. in 1968 for having alleged intercourse in public with a man. 

It was then that Ray McDonald’s sexual orientation came to the limelight. His professional career suffered greatly because of his off-the-field controversy. By 1969, injuries would permanently end his professional career. On May 4, 1993, Ray McDonald passed away at the age of only 48, due to sickle cell anemia.

8. Roy Simmons 

Roy Franklin Simmons had played in the NFL from 1979 to 1983. During his career, he played as a guard for the New York Giants and played a one-season stint with the Washington Redskins. 

By 1985, his professional career was over, and it was in 1992 that the player publicly came out as gay on ‘The Phil Donahue Show’. Simmons expressed the amount of discrimination he faced because of his sexual orientation in his 2006 autobiography, Out of the Bounds. 

The former NFL professional passed away on February 20, 2014, at the age of 57. Posthumously, Roy Simmons was inducted into the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame.

7. Kwame Harris

Kwame Harris played as an offensive tackle for six seasons in the NFL. Prior to his professional career, Harris had played college football at Stanford University before declaring for the NBA draft. 

Harris was drafted in the 2003 NFL draft by the San Francisco 49ers. He would play five seasons with the franchise before signing with the Oakland Raiders in 2008. The player would have a short stint with the Raiders before moving to the Florida Tuskers of the United Football League. 

Although Kwame Harris did not intend to reveal his sexual orientation publicly, the player was forced to come out as gay in November 2013 as he was convicted on misdemeanor charges by his then-boyfriend Dimitri Geier.

“I didn’t see those two things [coming out and playing in the NFL] as being compatible, but now when I look back in hindsight, if I could have done it differently, I’d like to think that I would find the strength, or find the fortitude or the grace to make the hard decision,” he told in an interview to CNN.

6. Esera Tuaolo

Esera Tuaolo played as a defensive tackle in the National Football League between 1991 to 1999. He played two seasons with the Green Bay Packers, four with the Minnesota Vikings, and played one season each for the Jacksonville Jaguars, Atlanta Falcons, and Carolina Panthers. 

Prior to his professional career, the defensive tackle had played college football for Oregon State. Years after retirement from professional football, Esera revealed his sexual orientation in 2002 and spoke of his partner, Mitchell Wherley. The couple had adopted twin infants and raised them together until splitting in 2007. 

Esera Tuaolo has been an active advocate for the LGBTQ community to raise awareness against homophobia. Esera published his autobiography ‘Alone in the Trenches: My Life as a Gay Man in the NFL’ in  2006.

5. Jeff Rhorer

Jeffery Charles Rohrer played in the NFL between 1982 to 1989 as a linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys. He was drafted in the 1982 NFL Draft in the second round as the 53rd overall pick.

Despite being married previously to Heather Rohrer, Jeff would later come out as gay publicly in 2018 while announcing his marriage with Joshua Ross. He remains the only NFL professional in the history of the league to have entered into a same-sex marriage. 

“If I had told the Dallas Cowboys in the 1980s that I was gay, I would have been cut immediately. It was a different world back then, people didn’t want to hear that,” he said in an interview to the NY Times, later adding, “When I got divorced, I said the hell with it, I’m going to do what I’ve always wanted to do. Then I found Josh, and began to openly live the life I was born to live.”

4. Ryan O’Callaghan

Ryan O’Callaghan played as a defensive tackle in the NFL from 2006 to 2011. During his long NFL career, he played for the New England Patriots until 2008 and would later play three seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs.

It was years after his professional retirement that O’Callaghan revealed himself to be gay in an interview with OutSports. “Being gay wasn’t just a small detail in my life, it consumed it. It’s all I would think about. But now that I have come out it rarely crosses my mind. Yeah I’d go about my daily life in football, but thinking about hiding it and hoping no one finds out and being ready for any situation was exhausting,” Ryan told Outsports.

O’Callaghan published his autobiography ‘My Life on the Line: How the NFL Damn Near Killed Me and Ended Up Saving My Life‘ in 2019. He is the founder of the Ryan O’Callaghan Foundation, which funds young students hailing from the LGBTQ community with scholarships to pursue higher education.

3. Ryan Russell

Former NFL professional Ryan Russell played in the league from 2015 to 2018. During his short career, he played for the Dallas Cowboys, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and also attended the training camp for the Buffalo Bills. 

The defensive end publicly came out as bisexual after his retirement in 2018. Ryan would write an emotional letter to ESPN where he expressed his sexuality and has since been a strong advocate on behalf of the LGBTQ community.

“I am proud to be an out bisexual Black man, and it’s time the NFL was proud to have me and others like me as an active part of their family,” he wrote. “Football is for everyone and since I came out in August of 2019, I have dedicated myself to ensuring that is the case.”

2. David Kopay

David Kopay played in the league between 1964 to 1972. Prior to his NFL career, Kopay played college football for the University of Washington and went undrafted in the 1964 NFL draft. 

He would then sign with the San Francisco 49ers and played four seasons with the franchise before moving to the Detroit Lions. In the later part of his career, he played for the Redskins, the New Orleans Saints, and the Green Bay Packers.

It was in 1975, after his retirement from professional football, that David Kopay became the first-ever athlete in the history of all sports to publicly come out as gay. Kopay published his best-selling autobiography, ‘The David Kopay Story‘ in 1977. David Kopay has continued to be a strong advocate of the LGBTQ community and is a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Athletics Foundation.

“I got very, very few hate mails,” David Kopay told Outsports in an interview. “Mostly the mail that poured in was amazingly supportive and telling their own stories. There were hundreds of letters forwarded to me.”

1. Carl Nassib

Former NFL professional Carl Nassib played 7 seasons in the league as a defensive end. The outside linebacker played college football at Penn State University prior to his NFL career. Nassib was drafted in the 2016 NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns, with whom he would kick-start his professional career.

Carl then played two seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and two more with the Las Vegas Raiders before returning to the Bucs to end his professional career. Nassib became the only NFL professional to have come out publicly as gay while still being active in the league. 

Carl Nassib openly revealed his sexual orientation in an Instagram live in June 2021, where he thanked his teammates and coaches for their unending support.

“I just wanted to take a quick moment to say that I’m gay. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now but finally feel comfortable getting it off my chest,” he said on the live. “I really have the best life, the best family, friends and job a guy can ask for…I do not know all the history behind our courageous LGBTQ community, but I am eager to learn and to help continue the fight for equality and acceptance.”

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