Devin Ibañez is glowing from his summer of love. The first Major League rugby player to publicly come out as gay and his beloved (and supercute!) boyfriend enjoyed their first wedding together, first Pride celebration and traveled Europe.
And luckily for us, they chronicled it all on Instagram!
While Ibañez and his partner, Fergus Wade, have been together for nearly six years, they’re relishing the opportunity to finally show their love to others. Ibañez wasn’t out publicly for the first couple years of their relationship, and when he made his big announcement, most of the world was in the midst of COVID lockdowns.
The pair is making up for lost time, and giving us serious FOMO with each adorable pic.
With his rugby career behind him, Ibañez, a Massachusetts native, now advocates for LGBTQ+ people. In addition to championing LGBTQ+ inclusion in sports, he works for a London-based company that connects LGBTQ+ business professionals with one another.
Over the last five years, he’s learned the power of community and connection.
Queerty recently caught up with Ibañez to talk about his passion for rugby (arguably the most physical team sport around), the joy of living an open life and the weirdest entreaties he and his bf receive on the apps. Here’s what he had to say…
QUEERTY: What do you love about rugby?
DEVIN IBANEZ: Oh, it’s a tough question. I mean, unfortunately, I do quite enjoy the physicality and the violence. I think that is one of the things that drew me to it, actually. I used to struggle with a lot of anger issues growing up. And a lot of them mysteriously disappeared around the same time that I started playing rugby. So I think just having an outlet, very physical outlet where I could just, like, take out frustration by tackling people is a very therapeutic thing.
So yeah, that’s one of the things I enjoy most. But beyond the physical side, just the culture in the sport, and how close everybody is, and the opportunities it gave me with traveling and getting to meet people all over the world. One of my favorite things about it is just knowing all these different people anywhere you go, who all have this uniting bond of rugby.
What are you doing these days?
Oh, what am I not doing these days? I’ve been very busy recently. So I’ve moved from Boston to London. I’ve started a completely new career. Now I’m working with an LGBT+-led company and queer organization called myGwork. So basically, I work directly with companies and corporations now, and help them attract diverse talent. I help them with DNI trainings and employer branding. I help them do articles and figure out who they want to feature. It’s been really cool to go straight from an industry that wasn’t very inclusive to immediately jumping in and trying to help organizations be more inclusive and create safe spaces for LGBT+ employees.
How did you and Fergus meet?
Oh, that’s a good one. We met and matched on a dating app. We went out, had some Thai food, had a great time, and decided that we wanted to maybe do something a little bit more serious. He was [in Boston] studying abroad. So we met on the apps and then we just decided we wanted to spend a lot of time together while he was here for the year, and ended up dating from January until probably around August. Then he moved back to the U.K., I stayed back in the U.S., and we thought that would be it. But then here we are, coming on six years of a relationship.
Did you make a plan to still talk while he was in the U.K., or did it just happen?
There wasn’t a whole lot of planning in our approach. We were going to have fun for a year, and obviously we were dating and exclusive during that time. And we understood that at the end of that, Fergus is going to move back to England and I’m going to be in the U.S., and we might not be living in the same place for several years. So we were just going to leave it at that. And you know, stay in touch, obviously, because it didn’t end on a bad note or anything. But then after, you know, maybe a month of him being back in the U.K., we were still talking every day using FaveTime. We were just like, ‘OK, well, at this point, we might as well just be in a long distance relationship. And so we just kind of fell into one and stayed at it.’
What was the first big activity you guys did together after you publicly came out? I imagine it must’ve been a real relief.
We got to do an Instagram Live together, which was really cute. It was just us talking to each other and answering questions about our relationship; and obviously, we hadn’t been very forthcoming in the past. So that was really cool.
You guys must’ve been overjoyed when you came out and you were finally able to be out in the open.
It was a relief. But we also knew we had a really big task ahead of us, because we’ve had so many pictures and adventures that we had not been sharing! And so now we’re like, ‘We have two years of backlog that we need to start putting out. Fergus was very excited, and I was also really excited!
It was just an amazing thing when we didn’t feel the need to hide anymore. It also was a really good distraction during the pandemic, now having this virtual support. It felt like we were actually progressing during our lives. I don’t think a lot of people felt like that during the pandemic. So it was a really cool turning point for us, where we were able to make some positive change during a [difficult] time in our lives.
What kind of messages do you guys get on Instagram? Do you get any creepy propositions for a third?
Oh man! I mean, I don’t know if you saw a comment on a Queerty post itself. What was the exact quote? “Rugby player’s big fat c*m dumpster d*ck and c*ck vacation.” To be fair, that’s a great headline! For this piece, actually want to use that one?
But no, for the most part, it’s really sweet, and just people who are super nice and just love seeing us so happy together. People want some of the same things for themselves, or it reminds them of other people they’ve had in their lives. But it’s just always so sweet. I never saw somebody [like me] when I was growing up and in the closet playing rugby. There was no out rugby player who was in the queer headlines with a partner having a great time and living their best life. I think that’s something that’s been really cool.
Here’s the last question, and it’s the biggest one: Are there wedding bells in the air?
I would be lying if I didn’t assume that question was probably going to be come up! I mean, there’s been no proposal yet! But the first step is, get a dog. We have our priorities straight!
But I mean, we’ll see. We’re coming up on our six-year anniversary; but to be fair, we’ve also only lived in the same place together for the first seven months, and another eight months or so when Fergus came back and did another year of research after the pandemic. So it’s been very broken up. We’re like, ‘We should probably get through a full year of actually having a place together. Maybe get a dog maybe do some other things in our life. But maybe it’s somewhere on the horizon soon. Never say never!
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We go beyond the field with Queerty’s Q&A series and get to know more about our favorite LGBTQ+ athletes and sports figures, from the music they’re streaming to what catches their eyes on the apps!
Invader7
Ah..to be young ,able to travel and have a supportive ecosystem. Life has challenges and we all need to learn how to navigate said challenges. Maybe this article is refreshing and inspiring to a LOT of people everywhere.. Congrats to Fergus and Devin…