DEVIN IBAÑEZ: FAIREST AND BEST
Citing his love for his boyfriend, Devin came out in January and has been standing up for the rights of our trans brothers and sisters since.
At just 27, international elite level rugby player, Devin Ibañez has played with the New England Free Jacks, New Zealand’s Glenfield rugby union club, the UK’s Scarborough Rugby, earned a gold medal at the Maccabiah World Games and helped Mystic River earn their US Division 1 National Championship.
Citing his love for his boyfriend, Fergus Wade, Devin came out in January this year in an open letter penned for Outsports.com.
He spoke to DNA about outing himself to his parents at 11, the challenge of overcoming homophobia in sport and, while he has your attention, how we can all be better at standing up for the rights of our trans brothers and sisters.
DNA: You’ve said that rugby saved your life. How so?
Devin Ibanez: LGBTQ people know that ages 12 to 14 can be especially difficult. Before rugby I lacked an outlet for all the anger I had. I really struggled with it and held a lot of things in. I got into rugby at 15 and it gave me an outlet.
For a few years I struggled with thoughts of self-harm. A lot of that disappeared once I started rugby. One of the things you struggle with most with depression is being able to see a path for yourself. Rugby gave me this great challenge, and all these friends, and showed me I could look ahead to something I could continually improve at. I threw myself into it and never looked back.
I still struggled with depression when I was dealing with being closeted within rugby ’cos
there was a disconnect between my personal life and rugby. I’d come out to my parents at 11, but I only came out in rugby this year at 27. Yeah, a bit of a gap!
Tell us about coming out at 11.
It was to my mom, and she asked if she could tell my dad. I was happy to let her take care of that. I wasn’t too fussed about having an uncomfortable conversation twice.
How did your mother react?
Great. I was having those feelings and didn’t see a reason not to tell them straight away. My mom had always said, “We don’t care who you love – as long as you’re happy, we’re happy.” I didn’t understand what that meant at five. But I always knew I had that support.
When I told her she was extremely supportive. I think she worried I’d feel trapped coming out to her so young. She said, “If you’re bisexual or if you’re gay we don’t care. It’s not something that bothers us. We fully love and accept you.”
We didn’t talk about it much. They’d check in here and there: “Got any boyfriends? Girlfriends? What’s going on?”
Even now, coming out at 27, they’re incredibly proud of me. Definitely my biggest fans.
Did your friends at school know?
I was out to more people between ages 11 and 13 than I was between 14 and 17. I had a school change. I’d gone to a smaller, alternative school from 10 to 13 and I had more time to socialise. I had more friends I was out to. At 14, I went back to a public school.
My first experience at high school was trying to play American football and I was immediately bullied by the rest of the team. I was the weird kid from another school, and I was called homophobic slurs and singled out. My reaction was not, “Oh, I gotta come out here!” All up, I told three or four friends. It wasn’t something I actively shared, and especially not with my teammates or athletes
I was friends with.
Did the bullies at the new school pin you as gay or were they just marginalising the new kid?
I don’t think there was anything that would’ve made them think I was gay, that was just their way of bringing people down; a big insult and an easy way to tell me I didn’t belong.
I had a privilege a lot of queer people don’t – I didn’t seem outwardly gay, which shielded me from a lot of hazing and abuse. I had to deal with that later when I was more open. It was all standard bullying and one of the standard ways to bully people is to imply they’re gay. It’s still a pretty big part of sports culture in the US.
When you moved into rugby and you weren’t out, were there people who knew you were gay?
I can’t think of a single person on my high school team I told, but I got to the point where I didn’t have deep shame about my sexuality. I felt very comfortable and confident knowing my family supported me. I told myself my sexuality and my rugby don’t have to mix. I don’t have to share every detail about myself. That works for a while. As you get older you realise how much you’re locking away and putting a cap on your relationships. I struggled with it at university. I went to the University Of Massachusetts Amherst, a city of 30,000 college kids; very much a small town. I wasn’t comfortable being on the dating apps ’cos >>
Rugby was my life, rugby saved my life. The goals keeping me going were my rugby goals. The idea of losing that scared me.
>> it’d get back to my team.
Over the years playing rugby I told one friend who was openly bisexual. What kept me from coming out was seeing how our teammates talked about him behind his back. Slurs like, “He’s a dog, he’ll sleep with anyone,” didn’t make me want to come out. At the end of my time at university I came out to a couple of teammates when it came up in conversation and I didn’t feel like lying. But not a lot of people knew, and when I did say something I was in my second semester of senior year and almost out the door. I didn’t see anyone or have any relationships there.
I was captain of the team in my senior year and a lot of the narrative I told myself was, “Okay, you don’t need to tell ’cos it’ll be seen as an attention grab or it’ll be divisive. I need to keep the respect of all my team.” That gave me more excuses to not say anything.
When did you realise that coming out was inevitable?
It took me a while to get to there. I played in Australia and New Zealand with one of my best friends, Roman, who’s been a great ally. I didn’t even tell him until our second time living together in New Zealand. His response was comforting. But it’s not something you have to tell everyone immediately. It’s your life. Live it at your own pace. Tell people things or don’t tell them. Up to you.
In 2017 when I was playing in Scarborough [UK], I was outed against my will. It was a small town and I was seeing someone. I was living in the team rugby house but not spending many nights there and I got asked who I was spending time with. I knew they’d figure it out anyway. It was very uncomfortable for me.
In March 2017, I took a shoulder to the throat and had a life-threatening injury where the swelling almost caused my airway to close. I fractured the cartilage in my throat and punctured a hole in my airway. After that, I sat down and asked myself what was important to me beyond rugby. I’d played in Australia and New Zealand, I’d done some great things, I loved rugby but didn’t I also want to be myself doing what I loved most? That was when I realised. But that was still three or four years ago so it was the start of a long process.
When did you meet Fergus?
Later that year. The injury ended my season at Scarborough. I went on to represent the US at the World Maccabiah Games [in Jerusalem] and we won the gold medal. I decided to relocate, chill out for a second, and make some money – I’d sent myself broke playing in New Zealand and Australia.
That’s when I met Fergus on a dating app in Boston. He was a researcher at Harvard, studying sleep deprivation. We went out for Thai food, talked for hours, and ended up officially dating. We celebrated our three-year anniversary last January.
Congratulations! You weren’t out at first – how did that affect Fergus?
I had no shame about my sexuality with my parents, and he got on with my them and my family. That made it easier. He knew I wasn’t ashamed of our relationship but there was still the big difficulty of social media. He’d want to post about our trips on Facebook or Instagram. I asked him to make his Instagram private so he could post his stuff to his friends and it wouldn’t be seen by my rugby teammates. He understood, but there were many difficult moments.
There were times in Boston when we’d run into my teammates while we were out. I’d be honest and introduce him, and not push him into an alley and pretend he wasn’t there, but it was difficult. You can only tell someone you’re not ashamed of them for just so long.
Fergus was always so patient. He never let on exactly how difficult it was to not be open about the two of us, especially when he came to watch me at rugby matches. We had to say he was a friend I’d met while playing in England. He’s usually very social but he didn’t feel he could talk to anyone at the matches, afraid of saying the wrong thing. It was definitely uncomfortable and upsetting for him.
How did that make you feel?
Oh, I hated it. Nobody wants to make the person they love feel that way.
We were leading into the 2018 national championship; a huge deal. I thought, maybe, I should come out before the national championship and use the opportunity to share my love for Fergus. Then I’d tell myself, “No, this is not a good time, you don’t want to make it about yourself.”
As gay men, we rarely pull our punches when it comes to telling people their politics are stupid, their sports are dumb, their favourite singer is ridiculous; why are we so afraid of what people think of our sexuality?
It’s a difficult subject to broach. Where do I find the space to randomly bring up that I’m sexually attracted to guys? That’s one piece of it.
Beyond that, I was afraid of being treated differently. I had this big fear: rugby was my life, rugby saved my life, the goals keeping me going, and the achievements I valued most were my rugby goals and achievements. The
I’d be honest and introduce him but it was difficult. You can only tell someone you’re not ashamed of them for so long.
idea of losing that scared me. You only have one opportunity to play rugby in your athletic prime and to have that taken away because I was gay scared me.
One of the standard ways to bully people is to imply they’re gay. It’s still a big part of sports culture in the US.
I didn’t want to lose opportunities. But also, I didn’t want to be given opportunities because, “Well, we want to make sure we give the gay guy playing time because we don’t want to be seen to discriminate.” It can really get into your head!
It was difficult to overcome that and separate it all out. What are the realities of my concerns versus what are the concerns I’m making up in my head? That was my struggle.
Jump forward. You’ve come out. Did you cop any of that flak? Did you pay a professional price? Did your fears come true?
No! It’s been positive in a professional way. It’s given me more opportunity to showcase my rugby career and the things I’ve done. I don’t think I’ve lost any opportunities, or playing time, or anything like that since coming out. It’s really been incredibly, overwhelmingly positive. It seems crazy but in this whole time I haven’t had a single negative message sent directly to me. I’ve had negative comments in articles, but nobody has gone out of their way to directly send me a negative. I just haven’t experienced it. I’m incredibly lucky.
But there’s also a disconnect between how accepting people are after you come out versus how willing they are to make a rugby training environment accepting.
Okay, what’s the difference?
I never knew people were this accepting because of the language used in the sports environment. Being gay is still used as a putdown. I had a coach two or three years ago, and if you were having a bad day at training he’d say, “Go play for the Boston Ironsides ’cos I heard they’re looking for players.” The Boston Ironsides are the local gay rugby team. He could’ve picked any team – but he very specifically chose the gay team, right?
It doesn’t make you feel welcome when you’re a player who’s thinking of coming out. You’re getting very clear signals from a person making selection decisions that, yeah, gay rugby players are lesser. That’s the disconnect.
That very same coach who I’m talking about has since reached out to me and said how >>
>> great it is I’m doing these things. But I didn’t get that indication from the way he conducted himself on a daily basis.
You’ve become a champion of trans rights. We haven’t gone out of our way to make the trans community feel accepted and welcome within the LGBTIQA+ community. Gay men should be the first to stand with our trans brothers and sisters. What’s stopping us?
A great question! There are many factors.
A lot of it comes from a genuine lack of knowledge and education. The percentage of the population who openly identify as trans is still small. The amount of time we come into contact with trans people, those who we know are trans, is much less than if you’re talking about the lesbian community or the rest of the LGBTQ community.
It’s easy to not have empathy for trans when you don’t see them. It’s been easy for the gay community to disconnect and say, “We have more rights, so that’s good for all LGBTQ people.” And it’s very easy to ignore the fact that trans people haven’t seen the same advances.
We forget the Stonewall riots were started by trans trailblazers and trans activists. Gay rights and trans rights are intertwined.
We’re starting to see increased visibility but along with that we’re seeing a co-ordinated attack on trans rights. The mainstream population doesn’t want trans visibility. They don’t want them to be seen as happy and successful. They want trans to be seen as wrong. Part of the reason gay men in general still struggle to speak up about it is because men, in general, struggle to speak up about it. We talk a lot about getting rid of internalised homophobia, but internalised transphobia is a big part of that, too. A lot of gay men don’t put the time into thinking about the fact that what’s happening to the trans community is wrong.
We’ve changed our language to get our pronouns right, but the problem is not our words, it’s our hearts. We can’t seem to embrace all the colours of our family.
Yes! We forget the Stonewall riots were started by trans trailblazers and trans activists who said enough is enough. Gay rights and trans rights are intertwined. Trans people have always been there for us. We should do the right thing and be there for them. They’ve done more than enough to deserve our support in their struggles, especially in the US, where battles over legislation right now are just awful.
Where’s trans legislation up to in the States?
Arkansas has banned all forms of genderaffirming care for people 19 and younger. So trans kids can’t access puberty blockers, can’t have basic care. Parents who affirmed their kid’s gender by letting them use the names they prefer, wear the clothes they prefer, now face criminal charges for child abuse. It’s a non-stop attack on the idea of being trans. They’re getting rid of the consensual use of puberty blockers because they feel being trans is a crime. It has nothing to do with the safety or legitimacy of the treatment.
There have been over 144 anti-trans bills. They’re banning trans girls from school sports – outright. They’re saying if you’re a trans girl you can’t participate in school sports full stop. Florida did that.
Florida now allows schools to require a genital examination of anyone in athletics who they perceive as not conforming to the gender they compete with. If someone is just accused of looking too masculine or looking like they might be trans, they now have to have these invasive genital examinations and have their gender publicly questioned. They’re policing who can and cannot play sport.
World Rugby has banned trans participation in women’s rugby.
The World Rugby policy decision was made, mostly, by men. Their decision was influenced by the group Fair Play For Women, which has a very long history of advocating for the exclusion of trans women from women’s-only spaces like shelters and prisons. They pretty much excluded all trans people from the process. They even surveyed women rugby players around the world and the vast majority said they had no issue sharing the field with trans people.
There’s no evidence that it’s dangerous to compete with or against trans women. That ban made me feel I could have an impact in rugby by speaking up. I don’t see a lot of other rugby players, men, speaking up about LGBTQ issues, even just gay inclusion in the sport.
When this World Rugby ban happened, not a single male rugby player said anything about it other than, quote unquote, “men can’t compete against women”.
No one was willing to say, “Hey! Wait a minute, we’re now saying we are all happy to completely exclude a group of people based on no evidence.” I need to speak up because no one else is. That ban motivated me to speak about this when I came out.
Do you ever feel you’ve stuck your neck out a little bit too far?
[Laughs] No. I have a ridiculous amount of privilege. I’m not white but people perceive me as white. I’m Puerto Rican. I’m a gay man, I’m not trans. The abuse trans people get in the media for stating these opinions is awful. The negative comments I get for standing up for trans is nothing.
I’m saying what women rugby players I know have been saying. I’m saying what trans people I know have been going through. If people say I’m speaking out of turn, that’s their prerogative. If I can’t use my platform for an issue that’s important to me then I don’t want that platform.
My biggest fear was being excluded from rugby because of my sexuality. I didn’t have that reality. Now, I turn around, and see trans people experiencing that firsthand; not being welcomed at the highest level of the sport. I’d be doing them and myself a disservice if I didn’t speak up about it. What they’re going through is unacceptable. Not enough people talk about it, especially when it comes to men and men’s rugby players.
Fergus is a part of everything you do. How does he encourage you, or maybe rein you in?
Fergus encourages me to speak up. He has a science background, he’s at medical school, and he’s told me to do the research and make sure I have the facts. There are a lot of legitimate questions around trans athletes competing. It’s important to acknowledge that, but also to acknowledge there’s a way to approach it from an inclusive standpoint, not just outright saying “exclude them”.
Fergus tells me to not always assume people are transphobic and take the time to give them information they may not have. He doesn’t rein me in, he reminds me to be mindful that there are people who genuinely don’t have access to information and who genuinely are not educated on this. He’s fully in support of everything I’ve been doing.
How can we, gay men, be more inclusive?
Educate yourself and learn how to answer people who make transphobic arguments. I learn from trans people. Use resources put out by prominent trans activists like Schuyler Bailar in the US, known as Pink Mantaray. He was the first National Collegiate Athletic Association Division One men’s trans athlete. He’s putting out incredible resources about what laws are going on, about the common arguments, about why trans girls should be allowed to play sports.
And Chase Strangio, an incredible trans activist in the US. He’s a lawyer and an openly trans man who’s in courtrooms every day, arguing for the validity of trans people and their humanity.
Be willing to have the conversation. Not to argue with people, but simply to say this is a conversation we aren’t having and we need to. Trans kids need your support. And it shouldn’t just come from trans people. When trans youth can look up and see all these people willing to fight for their rights and be there with them, that makes a meaningful difference.
Remember those times when you found the going got hard in your own personal journey. Remember how you felt when you saw people in the media advocating positively for you, and representing you. I know I do. •
Follow Devin on Instagram and Twitter @thatgayrugger
Trans resources
Pink Mantara: pinkmantaray.com
Chase Strangio on Twitter @chasestrangio
The Transgender Law Centre W: transgenderlawcenter.org
If this story has raised issues for you contact…
Lifeline Australia W: Lifeline.org.au
T: 13 11 14 for 24/7 crisis support. Web chat available
Beyond Blue W: Beyondblue.org.au T: 1300 22 4636 Web chat available
QLife W: qlife.org.au T: 1800 184 527 Web chat available
Search “Queer and LGBTQI+ community support services in Australia” at www.ABC.net.au