‘I’m just so bloody grateful’: ABC recruits queer AFL star Mitch Brown for Mardi Gras

Over the last six months, Mitch Brown has ticked off plenty of firsts. In August, he was the first AFL player (current or retired) to come out as bisexual. This week, his son Bowie attended his first day of school. And in three weeks time, Brown will attend his first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, not just as a participant, but as co-host of the ABC’s coverage of the parade.

“I just felt honoured, grateful, really excited,” he says of being asked to participate in the broadcast.

“I’ve been lucky enough to do a wide range of things, like genuine advocacy, working behind the scenes on Australian rules football … and this is another platform to continue a really important conversation, especially in my world – in hypermasculine sports around the country – on a national platform. I’m just so bloody grateful.”

Brown, who played with the West Coast Eagles for 10 years, clocking up 94 senior games, made headlines in August last year when he came out as bisexual. In doing so, he became one of only a handful of male Australian athletes to come out as queer, joining NRL great Ian Roberts, NBL player Isaac Humphries, A-League star Josh Cavallo and Olympians Ian Thorpe and Matthew Mitcham.

By participating in the Mardi Gras coverage – where he will be joined by drag queen Courtney Act, ABC journalists Mon Schafter and Jeremy Fernandez, comedian Nath Valvo, former Bachelorette Brooke Blurton and chef Anna Polyviou – Brown says he wants to be a role model to other sportsmen who are hiding their sexuality.

“For me, growing up, obviously, there’s been no male role models that are queer in the professional AFL,” he says.

“So I had no one to really look to, even when I was hiding. When you can’t speak to anyone, being able to at least look to someone, either on TV, listening to them, or even just scrolling on social media [that’s really important].

“But people like Ian Roberts, I remember when he came out in the ’90s, and then obviously Isaac Humphries, Josh Cavallo and Matthew Mitcham. So now I’ve got these amazing role models around me, and I feel, although there is no one else in the Aussie Rules professional football scene [who is openly queer], to go in these queer spaces of celebration and see other people with this joy, and listen to their coming out stories, their experiences, and feel the weight off their shoulders … When I came out in August last year, it wasn’t for me. It was about changing those rigid stereotypes in Aussie rules football.”

On the night, Brown will march with the Sydney Swans, who have been participating in the parade since 2018, when they became the first professional sporting club to join the parade. In 2016, the NRL made history when they became the first code to feature a float, but they were dumped in 2023, with organisers claiming they had no room because of high demand. In Melbourne, meanwhile, Essendon and Richmond participate in the Midsumma festival. It will be Brown’s first Mardi Gras. He has previously attended Midsumma, although he was still closeted then.

“I love this time and these type of spaces and events, because for me, and for many people out there, once upon a time, my bisexuality embarrassed me. It was shame. It was the very thing I hated most about myself. And the opposite to that is pride and being proud of yourself. So this means more than just having fun and dancing.”

As well as participating in the parade, the other thing Brown hopes the AFL will encourage clubs to do is watch the hit series Heated Rivalry, which is about the relationship between two gay ice hockey players.

“We can have some great discussions, especially within AFL professional clubs, about that TV series and how it makes them feel,” says Brown. “Why does it make them feel that way, whether it’s really good or whether it’s uncomfortable. I think they’re really constructive, amazing conversations to have, which I’ve challenged a few AFL clubs to do. More people have asked me, ‘Should we do an AFL version of Heated Rivalry?’ Definitely, I think 100 per cent, there’s some really cool storylines there.”

As for what he’ll be wearing to Mardi Gras, the standard Aussie rules uniform is a good starting point.

“That’s what so many people around me keep saying,” he says, laughing. “The AFL is so queer-coded anyway, with the short shorts and tight singlet. I mean, that’s all you need.”

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade will be broadcast live from 7.30pm on Saturday, February 28 on ABC TV and ABC iview.

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