Granderson: Jason Collins came out so we all could keep moving forward

Jason Collins, the first out gay player in the NBA, appeared in the L.A. Pride parade in 2023. He died Tuesday. (Rodin Eckenroth / Getty Images)

“I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation.” —Jason Collins, April 2013

During a wide-ranging interview with “60 Minutes,” Ben Sasse — the former Nebraska senator Ben Sasse who announced he had Stage 4 pancreatic cancer back in December — was asked if social media was to blame for the current state of American politics. His response stuck with me. After calling social media a “central piece” of our division, Sasse ultimately placed the blame at the feet of an older nemesis: segregation.

“I think one of the fundamental things that's wrong in America is young people don't know old people,” he told anchor Scott Pelley. “One of the things 15- and 17-year-olds need is 60-year-olds and 80-year-olds in their life. And so pure segregation is I think a fundamental sociological problem in America. And social media is like dumping gas on that.”

In addition to the separation of generations, Sasse pointed out how fissures stemming from class can also lead people to “bubble yourself into something that implies only your narrow demographic cohort or identity politics or market niche is where life is lived.”

Which is why trailblazers like my friend Jason Collins, who in 2013 became the NBA’s first openly gay player, are so vitally important to society. They burst people’s bubbles — not by force or coercion but by having the audacity to exist as a whole person rather than as convenient curated fragments with smooth edges.

Collins, who died of brain cancer Tuesday at the age of 47, did not set out to make history. He was seeking community and understood he could not find it by hiding.

And when his playing days were over in 2014 — a career that included battling Shaquille O’Neal in the NBA Finals — Collins spent the next decade doing whatever he could to foster better understanding with the hopes that the next generation would not have to hide. He was willing to absorb the stares whenever he walked into a room, endure the whispers when he left, and navigate the uncomfortable conversations that inevitably unfolded in the seconds, minutes, hours in between.

When Collins came out in April 2013, Gallup found 45% of Americans believed same-sex marriage should not be legal. Today less than a third of the country feels that way. Research has found visibility, knowing someone who is gay, as the top reason for the change in culture. One can’t help but credit Collins, who his husband Brunson Green in Texas less than a year ago, with playing a role in that shift.