When Adelaide United’s Josh Cavallo came out as gay on Wednesday, it was to a mostly-positive reception.
But ignoring the toxic and homophobic responses, there’s a third group of people, who posed rhetorical questions such as “who cares?” And “why is this news?”
The funny thing is, the LGBTQ+ community wishes it wasn’t.
“It shouldn’t be a thing,” Pride In Sport’s Beau Newell told Wide World of Sports.
“I think that’s what everyone hopes, no matter what side of the debate you might be on.”
But to get to a world in which an athlete’s sexuality isn’t front page news, announcements like Cavallo’s are necessary to normalise the landscape for everyone.
“Until we get to that particular point in time, we’ve got to take moments like this, what Josh has done and others before him, and celebrate them,” Newell said.
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“It’s no mean feat. It’s a significant amount of time and energy spent.”
Newell said he knew “for a fact” that there were elite male athletes in every sporting code in Australia who remained in the closet, for a variety of reasons.
“It just goes to show that there’s still a significant amount of work that needs to be done.”
Former Matildas player Moyd Dodd said that any apathy towards Cavallo’s announcement wasn’t coming from anyone who could be affected by it.
“If you can afford to say ‘who cares?’ It’s a privilege of not belonging to a disadvantaged minority,” she said.
“People might say ‘who cares’ or ask why it’s a big deal, but it’s a big deal because it has been, and is still so difficult for people to do that in men’s sport,” she said.
“It remains an extremely rare thing that gay men who play at the highest level of team sports feel able to be honest about who they are.”
Dodd, who previously sat on FIFA’s Executive Committee and is the current chair of football non-profit Common Goal, believes that the public outpouring of support from the football world that Cavallo received shows that people have been waiting for this moment for a long time.
“It just happened to be Josh and it just happened to be Adelaide. It has been a big issue in professional football, in Europe and around the world,” Dodd said.
“And I think they’ve recognised that there must be an extreme level of homophobia for people to feel that they can’t come out, and the world’s been waiting for someone to take that first step while they’re a top level player.
“A lot of straight male players would clearly like to be working in a more tolerant environment, and it’s nice to see so many of the pipe up on social media and be welcoming.”
She was careful to stress however, that social action has to go beyond likes and retweets online.
“I’d like to see all community clubs take a moment to reflect on the demographic that they have, and ask themselves if they have any out players, or if their environment is one where a player would feel comfortable coming out. And if the answer is no, then that’s the thing to work on at every level,” Dodd said.
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“It’s one thing to cheer for Josh, and that’s great, but it’s another to have a hard look in the mirror and see that we’re doing that in our everyday sporting environments.”
The reality is that social progression matters to the point that it’s newsworthy, until it becomes normalised – which is all Cavallo and others who have faced opression ever wanted. It’s not news when a black player plays baseball in 2021, but it was when Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier in 1947.
“I think it’s important for a number of reasons, not least of which is what Josh said in his video, which is that when he was growing up, he didn’t see anyone like him,” Newell said.
“It’s a cliche but it’s true; if you can’t see it, you can’t be it. So for someone like Josh, he didn’t see an openly out male footballer that he could idolise.”