Basketballer Isaac Humphries Discusses Why No AFL Players Have Come Out: “It’s A Lot Of Pressure”
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Australian basketballer Isaac Humphries has commented on the absence of openly gay players in the AFL, saying the pressure of being the first out footballer in league would be “a lot of weight on your shoulders.”
Humphries, who plays for the Adelaide 36ers of the National Basketball League, made worldwide headlines in 2022 after publicly declaring his sexuality.
While the athlete admitted to doing “a lot of work on myself” to be able to come out at the highest level of Australian basketball, he said not everyone might be ready for that journey. “I don’t know if it is specific to what code versus how hard it is,” Humphries said in an interview at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix last week.
“I was prepared, I had done a lot of work on myself to be able to handle this so publicly. Someone else might not be ready for that.” Humphries said the burden of being the AFL’s first gay athlete is “a lot of weight on your shoulders, and if you are not ready to fly the flag for the whole community, then it is just not time yet.”
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Humphries also said that closeted footballers “might not be in an environment when they feel comfortable” declaring their sexuality, adding that everyone’s coming out journey is different.
“It is a really personal journey and everyone’s situation and timeline is very different,” Humphries said. “Something I’ve learnt from being in this community is everyone’s situation is so different and we just have to let them work it out on their own.”
The AFL is notable in that not a single player, past or present, has ever publicly come out as gay or bisexual, making it the only major professional sporting code in the world where this is the case.
The absence of gay players in the AFL was the subject of a Four Corners investigation last August, which claimed that while there are presently LGBT members in the league, they are reluctant to come out publicly.
The investigation also heard from insiders about an alleged culture of homophobia in the AFL, though the league later refuted those claims in a press statement.
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Earlier this year, former National Rugby League player Cooper Johns claimed he was aware of “many” gay and bisexual players both within the AFL and the NRL, saying the footballers choose to “remain very quiet about it.” Similar claims were echoed by former Collingwood President Eddie McGuire last September.
Other Australian football codes have been home to publicly out players, including former South Sydney Rabbitohs star Ian Rogers, who became the first high-profile Australian sports person and first rugby footballer in the world to publicly come out in 1995.
Referencing people like Rogers, Humphries said he hopes his coming out journey “can be a positive example as to how it can go,” citing gay Adelaide United soccer player Josh Cavallo as an example of an athlete who has “done it quite successfully.”
“Of course it’s something I hope for just because the more visibility and presence we have in sport changes the world,” Humphries said.
