NFL Player Carl Nassib Signed With The Tampa Bay Bucs & He's The Biggest LGBTQ+ Advocate
He announced his sexual orientation in an Instagram video last year.
Carl Nassib making an announcement about his donation match with The Trevor Project. Right: Carl Nassib in a Penn State shirt.
NFL Defensive End, Carl Nassib, is returning to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after being a part of the team from 2018 to 2019. While he is coming from the Las Vegas Raiders, it's more than his football career that people are paying attention to.
Nassib publicly shared his sexual orientation on social media on June 21, 2021, becoming the first active football player in the League to com,e out as gay. He uses his platform to support and advocate for 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.
"Just want to take a quick moment to say that I'm gay. I've been meaning to do this for a while now, but I finally feel comfortable enough to get it off my chest," Nassib said in his post.
He continued to say that he hopes "one day that videos like this and the whole coming out process are just not necessary."
The athlete not only announced his homosexuality but also said that he was matching up to $100,000 in donations to a nonprofit organization called the Trevor Project, which focuses on suicide prevention for 2SLGBTQIA+ youth. He extended the same generosity in June 2022 as well.
Alongside his donations, he started an app, Rayze, so that people can easily find different places to give back to their community.
He announced on Anderson Cooper 360 that it all began when he was volunteering at a juvenile delinquent center.
"It was a half a mile, from a team full of millionaires, and a family full of billionaires, and nobody knew it was there," he said in the interview.
His goal is for others to download the app and see how close in proximity people are to serve their community.
Nassib is now taking a stand on the Tampa field to not only play the sport he loves but also be an icon of representation.