Byron Perkins Opens Up About What Made Him Finally Want to Come Out

The first openly gay football player at an HBCU reminded us all he simply is who he is.

Last year, after publicly coming out in an Instagram Story post, Byron Perkins became the first openly gay football player to play for a Historically Black College or University, and in a new video interview with the We Need to Talk sports show, the Hampton University defensive back is opening up about what made him finally comfortable to come out and be who he is.

“Why did I decide to come out?” he asks at the start of the video. “Because I don’t deserve to suffer anymore.”

He hit us all right at home right away, then continued, “I don’t deserve to chain myself to the ideas of society and consider myself invaluable because someone else said so. No.”

After a brief montage of his football career, Perkins added, “There are so many more dimensions to who I am as a person than just this one variable. And if this one variable doesn’t sit well with you, quite honestly, I don’t care.”

You get it, Byron Perkins.

Byron Perkins, First Openly Gay Football Player At An HBCU, Shows Off Partner To Start Pride Month pic.twitter.com/NoRYias8H4

— Dreddsworld (@PeterDredd) June 2, 2023

The football player also introduced the world to his boyfriend, JD Dunn, at the beginning of Pride Month ths year, where he wrote in his Instagram Stories that he “doesn’t know a lot” but he does know he loves his man.

Perkins came out last year, when he said he was destroying the mask that made him an angry person and owning who he is.

“I’m gay,” he wrote on Instagram Stories at the time. “Let it be known that this is not a ‘decision’ or a ‘choice.’ Yes, this is who I am, this is who I’ve been, and this is who I’m going to be. Simply put, I am who I am.”

Via Out