{"id":564667,"date":"2026-03-26T02:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T02:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/564667\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T02:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T02:26:08","slug":"former-brisbane-lion-leigh-ryswyk-becomes-first-afl-player-to-come-out-as-gay-afl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/564667\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Brisbane Lion Leigh Ryswyk becomes first AFL player to come out as gay | AFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former Brisbane Lions<\/a> player and SANFL champion Leigh Ryswyk has become the first past or present male AFL player to come out as gay.<\/p>\n

Ryswyk, who played one game for the Lions in 2005, opened up about his sexuality on the GayFL radio program.<\/p>\n

He said his closest friends had known he was gay for five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo people who know me, my closest friends, this is not new,\u201d Ryswyk said in an interview with the Melbourne radio station Joy 94.9.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been out for five years now. There will be people though, if they do listen to this, it will be the first time they know about this. I\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 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 played one AFL<\/a> match for Brisbane in 2005 but suffered a quad injury during his debut against Fremantle and was delisted at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is great to see Leigh share his story and journey publicly,\u201d Lions CEO, Sam Graham, said. \u201cWe want our game to be an inclusive environment for everyone including players, staff, members and fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a club, we hope this has a positive impact across football and society more broadly.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ryswyk follows in the footsteps of the former West Coast player, Mitch Brown who last year became the AFL\u2019s first openly bisexual player<\/a>, past or present.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge moment for the game as well as for the LGBTQI community,\u201d said the Pride Cup chief executive, Hayley Conway. \u201cBut it\u2019s especially important for all those people and players who haven\u2019t been able to see themselves in the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cMitch\u2019s coming out showed how the world could respond to any man coming out in sport, and every time something like this happens the way the community, the AFL and clubs respond sets a new standard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know there is still work to be done, not just around on-field offences, but also people in the comments section saying, \u2018Leigh doesn\u2019t matter, no one cares\u2019, but if it didn\u2019t matter, men wouldn\u2019t still be in the closet. Every time someone takes this step we move forward and it opens the door another crack further.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryswyk was born in Victoria before his family moved to the Gold Coast when he was six. He joined the Lions squad as a rookie for the 2004 season.<\/p>\n

Ryswyk went on to play 226 matches for North Adelaide in the SANFL and was later inducted into the Queensland Football Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

North Adelaide said they supported Ryswyk coming out publicly as \u201cthe first openly gay past or present AFL\/SANFL player\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe pride ourselves on fostering an inclusive environment where players, staff, members and supporters from all communities feel safe, respected, and free to be themselves,\u201d the club said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former Brisbane Lions player and SANFL champion Leigh Ryswyk has become the first past or present male…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-564667","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564667","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=564667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}