{"id":563877,"date":"2026-03-25T18:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/563877\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T18:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:27:12","slug":"history-made-as-leigh-ryswyk-becomes-first-current-or-former-afl-player-to-come-out-as-gay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/563877\/","title":{"rendered":"History made as Leigh Ryswyk becomes first current or former AFL player to come out as gay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Brisbane Lions<\/a> player Leigh Ryswyk has made history, becoming the first current or former openly gay AFL<\/a> player.<\/p>\n

Ryswyk is the second former AFL player to come out as a proud member of the LGBTIQA+ community after former West Coast defender Mitch Brown revealed that he is bisexual<\/a> in August last year.<\/p>\n

Ryswyk played one game for the Lions in 2005 before being delisted, but went on to have a decorated SANFL career with North Adelaide, where he played 226 games between 2006 and 2018.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n

In his only AFL game, Ryswyk suffered a quad strain against Fremantle and never played again.<\/p>\n

\"LeighLeigh Ryswyk (far left) only played one AFL game but later became a champion of North Adelaide in the SANFL. Credit: Morne de Klerk\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Speaking to Joy 94.9\u2019s GayFL on Wednesday, the 41-year-old said this news will come as no surprise to those close to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo people who know me, my closest friends, this is not new,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been out for five years now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be people though … it will be the first time they know about this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a very private person, so it\u2019s not all over my social media and things like that, and that\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be a bit of a shock to some people, they might not know, but that\u2019s life, right?<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, the people who are nearest and closest to me know, and that\u2019s what\u2019s most important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked on-air \u201cwhy now?\u201d, Ryswyk simply responded: \u201cWhy not?\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Brisbane Lions player Leigh Ryswyk has made history, becoming the first current or former openly gay AFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,3237,104020,1625,44,3863,588,85],"class_list":["post-563877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-brisbane-lions","tag-lgbtiqa","tag-lifestyle","tag-news","tag-sponsored-content","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563877","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=563877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}