I played football for four years in school. You know, “back in the day.” Texas football. The real stuff.

I can assure you it is not gay. In fact, if you called football “gay” at my East Texas high school, you may have been cut from the team. 

But the NFL seems to think so — or at least the handful of college-graduated young communications staffers do who came up with the ad that has sparked controversy, as always seems to happen on this issue in June. Once you watch the ad, you’ll wonder if its creators ever played football. Thankfully, one of the league’s stars has plainly stated the truth to push back on the video.

The NFL’s video includes a list of written messages, which include, “Football is gay. Football is lesbian. Football is beautiful. Football is queer. … Football is transgender. … Football is for everyone.” That “Pride Month” video in question was actually released by the NFL in 2021 and has resurfaced and gone viral, restarting the conversation and the debate.

Football is lesbian? No women play in the NFL, and almost no women ever play football in school, or ever want to.

Former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant made headlines this week for saying the obvious: football is not gay. “Football is gay. Football is queer. Football is transgender. ... [T]hese are wild statements to make. ... excuse my silliness,” Bryant wrote on X. “I’m going to proudly tell my boys football is none of these things. I have nothing against Gays but this is far from right.”

Of course football is not gay. And of course Bryant took flak for stating the obvious. Note that he invoked his son in his comment because he knows that football can be deeply formative for young men. It’s personal. Bryant’s comments come from a deep guttural instinct of someone who loves and lives the sport. He’s not excluding anyone. Football is not gay, and it is worth saying that plainly.

If you called football “lesbian” in my high school locker room, they would have laughed at you, because like so many LGBT messages these days, the lie is patently false and ridiculous.

Football is where young men discover what it means to be masculine. No girls around. Just gangly teenage boys learning about strength, discipline, order, respect, teamwork, suffering for a greater good — all the qualities you want in a husband and father. 

Football is not about sexual desire or preferences. Football is a formative experience for young men. Ironically, it teaches you how to have nonsexual friendships with other men, how to connect over a common goal and bond in the suffering of running in rain, puking at two-a-day practices, and kneeling when a fellow teammate is injured.

Back in my “good ‘ol days” in Texas, if our coach saw a player standing with hands on their hips during practice, they would be ordered to go find a pine cone. Why? The posture was considered feminine.

See, the pine tree stood 100 yards away, at least it felt that far. On hot days, it seemed to transplant another mile further. My coach may seem harsh or misplaced, and maybe he was, but somebody has to teach boys to be men. With the fatherlessness crisis, the opioid crisis, the suicide epidemic all crushing boys, let’s protect football. It is one of the few places left where boys learn to be men from other men.

Can someone who identifies as gay play football? Sure, though most players aren’t. But that doesn’t make it “gay.” Football is not about sexual preference or about a man adopting feminine characteristics in his voice or mannerisms, and sometimes clothing. Like most men’s sports, it’s about character, masculinity, and toughness. You can slap a rainbow on a helmet or hang a pride flag on top of a stadium, but that doesn’t change the nature of what the thing is intrinsically.

Football is a particularly violent, masculine sport. Remember that the rules have been changed recently to prevent life-altering injuries and brain damage from concussions. The NFL itself has had to reckon with risks.

Actually, maybe that explains the ad… 

Football is masculine. It’s where boys learn to be men, with no sexual motive whatsoever. 

Football is not gay. 

A lie this patently obvious is a hallmark of the LGBT movement. They invent pronouns and expect you to repeat them. They tell you a man is a woman and expect you to nod along. Now they tell you football is gay. The audacity of the lie is not surprising, but it’s sad that the NFL is trying to play along. 

As my friends back in Texas have been saying for years, thank God for football … and Dez Bryant.

Casey Harper serves as managing editor of Broadcast for The Washington Stand.