Isaac Humphries — a professional basketball player in Australia who played for the Kentucky Wildcats — has come out publicly as gay in an op-ed for CNN.

“I figured out a lot about myself in the offseason,” he told CNN, “and I knew if I was to join a team and start a season I would have to be who I am and not hide anymore because I’ve made too much ground within myself to go backwards and be put back in the closet.”

In the op-ed Humphries, 24, talks about growing up in sports, in Australia and elsewhere, and never seeing other out gay men. Instead, he figured he couldn’t come out — so he

He credits spending time in Los Angeles with finding the courage to come out and seeing the possibility of being publicly out in his career.

“In LA, it was completely different,” he wrote. “I was around some of the most successful people in the world – everyone from musicians, television and film producers, media personalities, A-list celebrities – and got to see that being openly gay can come with joy.

“For the first time in my life, I saw that people at the top of their game can be open and honest about who they are, and that came with a visceral and contagious happiness.”

Humphries grew up in Australia and played high school ball in Indiana. He declared for the NBA Draft after his sophomore year with Kentucky, going undrafted. After being named the National Basketball League (Australia’s NBA equivalent) Rookie of the Year in 2018, he had a very brief stint in the NBA: In 2019 he appeared in five games for the Atlanta Hawks. In two seasons for Kentucky he averaged 2.4 points per game.

He shared a video of himself coming out to his team. They applaud and hug him, showing yet again how the level of homophobia in sports is simply not remotely what we’ve been told it is.

Humphries joins Jason Collins in the NBA, Uri Kokia in Israel and Marco Lehmann in Switzerland as gay athletes who have come out publicly while competing in professional basketball.

As each of them has found, coming out in sports and being gay are not widespread problems anymore. Glad to see Humphries finding the same, and we know his story will help others, as courage is contagious.

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