{"id":563710,"date":"2026-03-25T16:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/563710\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T16:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:40:09","slug":"leigh-ryswyk-makes-history-as-first-afl-player-to-come-out-as-gay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/563710\/","title":{"rendered":"Leigh Ryswyk makes history as first AFL player to come out as gay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leigh Ryswyk has made history as the first male Australian Football League (AFL<\/a>) player to come out as gay.<\/p>\n

Speaking on radio show GayFL<\/a> on 25 March, Ryswyk shared that he has been out to close friends for the last five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be people though, if they do listen to this, it will be the first time they know about this,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m a very private person, so it\u2019s not all over my social media, and things like that, and that\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cIt can be a bit of a shock to some people, they might not know what, but that\u2019s life right? In the end, the people who are nearest and closest to me know, and that\u2019s what\u2019s most important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryswyk also shared that both of his parents had been very supportive of his sexuality which he shared the news with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you come out to your family it\u2019s always a massive experience, there\u2019s a lot of things going on in your head,\u201d he said. \u201cIt took me a little while where I was comfortable enough to do this, probably a three-year period to be honest, so there was a lot of the mental side of things going through at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LeighLeigh Ryswyk and David Hill of North Adelaide tackles Mathew Clarke of Labrador during the round nine Foxtel Cup AFL match between Labrador and North Adelaide at AAMI Stadium on May 21, 2011 in Adelaide, Australia. (Morne de Klerk\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Ryswyk is retired, having played for the Brisbane Lions from 2005 before suffering a quad injury and being delisted from their senior side. He then went on to play 226 games in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) before receiving a rib injury and fully retiring in 2018. He has since been inducted into the AFL Queensland Football Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

Ryswyk followed in the footsteps of Mitch Brown<\/a>, who came out as bisexual<\/a> last year after he retired from the AFL.<\/p>\n

There is yet to be an active AFL player to come out as LGBTQ+, but Ryswyk believes whoever does will receive massive support. \u201cI think the AFL, and the community, will wrap their arms around that player,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the community itself, obviously the queer community, the fan base, I think in the whole they will celebrate that when the time comes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Share your thoughts!\u00a0Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leigh Ryswyk has made history as the first male Australian Football League (AFL) player to come out as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,277622,639,277623,85],"class_list":["post-563710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australian-football-league-afl","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-leigh-ryswyk","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}