OPINION: AFL Is My Passion — But It’s The One Place I Can’t Come Out As Gay

I’ve been openly gay for 20 years — to my family, my friends, my neighbours, even the postie. Everyone knows, except my local footy club. Why? Because even though I love AFL with a passion, I genuinely don’t feel comfortable coming out as gay to my teammates. I can’t describe to you how much that hurts. 

I don’t own a rainbow flag. I am not a gay spokesman. I just want to be included in the sport I love.

I’ve always loved AFL. I have my whole life. At 6 years old, I started playing country footy in rural NSW, and was lucky enough to play on the same team with my own Dad. I have continued to play this great game my whole life. 

I love going to the ‘G and seeing the diversity. Two 80-year-old ladies in Dogs gear and a packed lunch. A gay couple going to watch their two teams fight it out. The Vietnamese family grabbing a pie before the bounce. A mother taking her daughter and son to watch her struggling Cats. 

The diversity in our game is what makes it great. You don’t need to go far to see other major sporting codes that would kill for the diversity at our footy games.

After the 2018 Grand Final, I couldn’t even look at the MCG for six months. And this was because that night, I sat near, and had to confront, a man who yelled the same slur Izak Rankine used, at Scott Pendlebury for the whole game. It really wore me down.

But I love footy. And I love my husband.

I wish those two things weren’t in conflict. But they are. 

Every week, at training and during my footy games, I hear gay jokes and comments. And to be fair, most of them are so juvenile or ‘boys being boys’ they are met with groans, and wouldn’t even offend the most sensitive gay man. 

“You’d love it if it was raining men”, or “Jacko can’t play on Saturday, he must be off to Mardi Gras this weekend”. Harmless (although, there are some more harmful things that get said, but they won’t be repeated here).

But while most are harmless, what it does is reaffirms a feeling within me (and any other gay players) that while my teammates may not ‘hate’ gay people – here in this sport, gay people are the butt of jokes rather than our winger or ruckman. 

And I guess that’s my biggest issue. I assume 90% of my footy team would be totally okay if I introduced my husband to them. But still, they chose to engage in and encourage a culture that sees gay people as jokes, and not players. 

Use of the f-slur — which is what Rankine used and received a four-game ban for — many will try dismissing as off the cuff, in the heat of the battle – fog of war, if you will.

But whether Rankine meant it in the heat of the moment or not (I personally doubt he hates gay people), using that word tells me and every gay man in the stands that we don’t belong. That’s why it matters.

Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick has said, “At what stage [do we ask] what can we say and can’t we say?”. I won’t lecture Hardwick on what falls into ‘can say’ categories or doesn’t. Those points will be made elsewhere. I want to only make the point that when this happens, and the ensuing ‘debate’, again re-clarifies to me exactly why I struggle to come out to my teammates. I feel unfortunately right, that I should keep that part of my life to myself — AFL is simply not ready for openly gay players. 

The Adelaide Crows reportedly put forward ‘compelling medical submissions’ in order to reduce Rankine’s ban. I don’t know what ‘compelling medical submissions’ against a homophobic slur means — but I do know there’s no medical condition called homophobia.

In saying all this, I will never be at the front of the line advocating for ‘pride round’ in AFL or trying to get my beloved Pies to change their stripes to ‘rainbow’ stripes for one game. 

I personally don’t want me or the LGBTQ+ community to be spotlighted in this game. Not because I think this spotlight isn’t needed – and I would never have a go at anyone who is advocating for this — but because for me, personally, I just want to be me. 

I just want to be an openly gay man enjoying and playing footy and loving AFL. It’s that simple. Yet, still, I cannot. 

I want to share my love of footy with my husband. 

I want to take my husband to watch me play on the weekend. 

I want to joke about him with my footy mates. 

I want to hold his hand going into the game at the Gabba and kiss him in excitement when the Pies beat the Lions. 

So too anyone who plays AFL this weekend or goes to watch it, I ask you this: Pick a different word. 

We’ll of course never stop heckling umpires or the other team. 

But this word doesn’t just insult — it excludes. It says we don’t belong in the game we love. And we do. 

The diversity of AFL is what makes it the best game in the world. Let’s embrace it.