Rhyian Anderson-Morley

Anderson-Morley was born in 1990, and did not begin to play Australian rules football until the age of 22 due to his thoughts growing up that "gay blokes don't play footy".[1] When Anderson-Morley moved to Melbourne, he began playing football at Yarraville Seddon Eagles and began to work on his skills as well as fitness and became a regular player in the forward line in the Reserves squad.

Anderson-Morley became the second ever Australian Rules Football player to come out publicly as gay in an article written by himself and published on the Front Page of The Age newspaper in Melbourne.[2] Anderson-Morley cited several public statements regarding homosexuality in sport, such as Sam Newman's comments that Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend on TV was "annoyingly gratuitous",[3] as encouraging him to come out so publicly so as to provide a positive role model to young gay people who would want to play sport.[4]

Anderson-Morley's article suffered some criticism from the LGBTI community for his use of the word "normal" in his article. Anderson-Morley defended his comments in an interview stating that when he, and presumably other, kids realised they were gay they felt as if they were not "normal" and as he became an adult, he realised that being gay did not make him different and he could do those "normal" things he did not think he could, such as playing football.[5]