Mitch Brown is not the only hero of this story

Mitch Brown’s coming out as bisexual has made history in more ways than it first seems. Until this week, no AFL male player had ever publicly identified as gay or bisexual in 129 years – yet, statistics suggest, there may be 100-plus closeted men in the league.

It’s also groundbreaking that he came out as bisexual, rather than gay.

Mitch Brown with his former wife, Shae Bolton. Credit: Matthew Tompsett

Bisexual people face discrimination even within the gay community. I sometimes hear lazy prejudices about their ability to be monogamous, or damaging perceptions that being bisexual is a “halfway house” to an inevitable disclosure of being gay. Being in a current committed relationship with a woman, Brown smashes these stereotypes.

Additionally, as behavioural scientist Dr Erik Denison has said, unlike athletes who’ve recently come out in football and rugby union, Brown is “using this moment to call for change to the AFL’s harmful hypermasculine and homophobic culture”, in which he heard “countless” comments such as, “I’d rather be in a cage of lions than shower next to a gay man”.

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