{"id":135548,"date":"2025-09-11T15:49:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T15:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/135548\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T15:49:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T15:49:13","slug":"mitch-browns-response-to-teams-who-did-not-support-his-coming-out-as-bisexual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/135548\/","title":{"rendered":"Mitch Brown’s response to teams who did not support his coming out as bisexual"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former West Coast<\/a> player Mitch Brown, who recently became the first ex AFL player to come out as bisexual, has spoken of the “whirlwind” reaction that has followed.<\/p>\n

While he said the response was overwhelmingly positive at first, things turned when he took to Instagram to call out AFL clubs who weren’t as quick to support him. <\/p>\n

These included the likes of Collingwood, Adelaide, Geelong and Brisbane, all of whom were preparing for finals. <\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘Felt bad for him’: AFL dumps umpire who made Rayner call<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Merrett’s captaincy in doubt as Lloyd swipes club<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Photographer shocked by ‘unwarranted’ Smith outburst<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Mitch<\/p>\n

Mitch Brown.\u00a0Twitter<\/p>\n

Other clubs were quick to post supportive messages on social media, including the Eagles themselves. <\/p>\n

“It’s certainly been a whirlwind, and overwhelmingly, I can say it’s so positive,” he told radio station Triple J.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t have a role model, so if I can be that role model for young people, it just warms my heart.<\/p>\n

“As soon as I called out those clubs \u2026 that’s when I started to get the hate.<\/p>\n

“People who were maybe uncomfortable with me in the first place \u2026 they saw an opportunity there to hate on me for another reason, not just my sexuality.”<\/p>\n

The former Eagle also pondered why only a couple of current players publicly supported him.<\/p>\n

Collingwood captain Darcy Moore and Fremantle captain Alex Pearce were among those who did.<\/p>\n

“Is it a fear of being associated with a queer person or a bisexual man?” he said.<\/p>\n

“Or is it a fear of people thinking that you are gay or bisexual yourself?<\/p>\n

“It is fear \u2026 of what that might mean for your community that you’re selling videos to or marketing a football shoe to.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mitch Brown playing for the Eagles in 2013.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

However, he doesn’t hold anything against those who remained silent.<\/p>\n

“I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t allow people to take time for this to sink in,” Brown said.<\/p>\n

“For me, to connect with my own identity and sense of self, it’s taken years.”<\/p>\n

Brown spoke of the guilt he carries after coming out as queer.<\/p>\n

“It’s a bit of an extreme sort of way to explain it, but it honestly feels like that,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I have a beautiful partner who is a woman, and I can walk down the street and not have that casting eye or that sense of homophobic behaviour.<\/p>\n

“Am I worthy of this and is this my place to be able to hold this position that I’ve had over the last two weeks?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former West Coast player Mitch Brown, who recently became the first ex AFL player to come out as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-135548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}