NFL star and brother of Taylor Swift dancer launches LGBTQ+-friendly youth football camp
Khalen Saunders is launching an LGBTQ+-friendly football camp. (Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Khalen Saunders is launching an LGBTQ+-friendly football camp. (Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
NFL star Khalen Saunders, who is the brother of Taylor Swift’s backing dancer Kameron Saunders, has launched an LGBTQ+-friendly youth football camp.
The New Orleans Saints player announced at the GLAAD Media Awards 2025 that he will be welcoming LGBTQ+ youth to his football camp later in the year.
Saunders said to NFL Network’s Good Morning Football, “It feels as though there’s not really a space for the LGBTQ+ community” in the “very male-dominant and heterosexual dominant” sport. “Being an ally is more than just saying ‘I support’, but it’s also showing up,” he added.
It comes after Saunders went to the Pride Football Clinic, sponsored by the NFL. “I was able to go out there and get to talk to some of the people participating in it and, man, [there were] great conversations,” the athlete said.
“These are people that feel they have to be hidden. And although they love the sport, they might love the NFL, they might love football in general as a sport, they kind of shy away from it because of orientations or other outside things.
“That’s my goal to continue to spread positive energy around that because football is for everybody. Football is for all.”
Of course, his announcement couldn’t come at a better time for budding LGBTQ+ athletes, given the Trump-Vance administration’s decision to ban trans women from competing in women’s sporting events. GLAAD said at the time that Trump’s executive order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”, “has zero credibility in any conversation about protecting women and girls.”
The LGBTQ+-inclusive camp is set to launch on 5 July, with Saunders working with GLAAD and the NFL Pride Football Combine on the campaign.
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