Tuaolo has Samoan ancestry. In 2002, after retiring from athletics, Tuaolo declared to the world on HBO's Real Sports that he is homosexual. In doing so, he became the third former NFL player to come out, after David Kopay and Roy Simmons.

Tuaolo has been a staunch champion for the LGBT community ever since coming out. He is a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Athletics Foundation and has worked with the NFL to eradicate homophobia inside the organisation. He spoke against an anti-gay marriage measure before the Senate Judiciary Committee of the Minnesota state legislature. He has been on several television shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Tyra Banks Show, Good Morning America, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, to discuss homophobia and oppose it. Tuaolo's current LGBT activism consists mostly of lecturing at universities and businesses on the pervasiveness of homophobia and assisting organisational leaders in creating a fair and secure environment for their members and workers.

Tuaolo is a writer as well. Alone in the Trenches: My Life as a Gay Man in the NFL, his autobiography, was published in the spring of 2006. It describes Tuaolo's childhood and gives insight on how his poverty, sexuality, and football experiences influenced him.