Welsh rugby player Kyle Tayler-Woolston has opened up about the fear he felt before coming out to his teammates — and the overwhelming support that ultimately proved those fears wrong.
The Newport RFC back-row forward, who has been out to his teammates since 2018, says he is sharing his experience because he wants other LGBTQ+ athletes to know that positive coming-out stories exist in sport too.
“Everyone has been really supportive,” Tayler-Woolston says.
“I’d love to give people confidence that there are happy stories out there.”
Now 34, Tayler-Woolston is preparing for another season with Newport in Super Rygbi Cymru — this time with a new surname after marrying his husband, George Woolston, over the summer.
But getting to a place where he could live openly and confidently around rugby was not always easy.
‘My Biggest Worry Was That I Would Be Judged Based On My Sexuality’
Before coming out at his club, Tayler-Woolston says he spent enormous amounts of energy worrying about how teammates and coaches might react.
“My biggest worry was that I would be judged based on my sexuality rather than my rugby skill,” he says.
“It was mentally draining and I was constantly on guard.”
Outside rugby, he wanted the same simple freedoms many straight players never have to think twice about.
“I wanted to go to dinner with my partner, I wanted to hold their hand without constantly looking over my shoulder.”
The anxiety extended to his sporting future.
Tayler-Woolston worried he might be rejected by teammates, isolated within the club or even find himself overlooked for selection.
“All those ideas were building in my head because you read horror stories online,” he says.
“I felt that I was lying to my teammates because I couldn’t be my true, authentic self around them.”
“It is tiring being on guard all of the time, wondering what people would think, whether I would be isolated and rejected.”
His Coach’s Reaction Was Not What He Expected
Tayler-Woolston initially came out to a small number of people at the club before telling then-head coach Ty Morris.
After building the conversation up in his mind, he finally said it.
The response was wonderfully anticlimactic.
“I just came out and said it and he just said, ‘Oh my God, I thought you were going to tell me you were signing for someone else,’” Tayler-Woolston recalls.
For someone who had spent so long imagining the worst possible outcome, the casual reaction offered an enormous sense of relief.
More importantly, Tayler-Woolston says Morris continued treating him exactly as he had hoped: as a rugby player.
“I wanted to be assessed on my rugby, and Ty has always done that,” he says.
“If my performance is rubbish then drop me, and he does. That’s down to how I have played and nothing else.”
‘I Have Never Faced Homophobia In The Rugby Setting’
Since coming out, Tayler-Woolston says his experience within rugby has been overwhelmingly positive.
“I have never faced homophobia in the rugby setting,” he says.
“Maybe that’s just because I’ve been lucky or it’s the standard that I am playing at.”
That qualification matters.
Tayler-Woolston is not claiming homophobia has disappeared from sport, nor suggesting every LGBTQ+ player will receive the same response.
Instead, he wants his own experience to sit alongside the more difficult coming-out stories that queer athletes often hear.
Sometimes the thing someone has spent years fearing does not happen.
Sometimes teammates simply accept you.
And sometimes coming out allows an athlete to stop devoting energy to hiding and put that energy back into the sport they love.
The Role Models He Never Had
Tayler-Woolston says visibility is particularly important because younger players in his squad now have something he did not.
“There are a lot of young players in our squad and when I was in their situation, I didn’t have a role model to look up to,” he says.
Men’s professional and semi-professional sport still has relatively few openly gay players.
Welsh rugby has produced several hugely influential LGBTQ+ figures, most notably former Wales captain Gareth Thomas and internationally respected referee Nigel Owens.
But openly gay men actively competing in rugby remain comparatively rare.
That makes stories such as Tayler-Woolston’s valuable not because every closeted athlete should feel pressured to follow his example, but because they widen the range of outcomes people can imagine.
Coming out does not have to end a sporting career.
It can simply mean being able to play without hiding.
Marriage Brought Another Milestone
This summer brought another joyful chapter when Tayler-Woolston married his partner, George Woolston.
He says his husband played an important role in helping him become comfortable expressing affection openly.
“He gave me the confidence to not care what people might think,” Tayler-Woolston says.
Their wedding was followed by a blessing at St Basil’s Church in Bassaleg, reported as the church’s first same-sex blessing.
Newport RFC also publicly celebrated the marriage.
For Tayler-Woolston, those moments demonstrate just how different his life now looks compared with the years when simply being seen holding a partner’s hand felt frightening.
Rugby Has ‘Progressed Massively’
Tayler-Woolston believes rugby has changed considerably during his career.
“I do feel rugby has progressed massively and I am able to live my normal life, and that’s how it should be,” he says.
“But we have to keep breaking down barriers.”
Those barriers can include homophobic language, assumptions that every male player is straight and the lack of visible LGBTQ+ role models at elite levels of the sport.
Changing that culture does not require every queer athlete to come out publicly.
Tayler-Woolston is explicit that disclosure remains an individual choice.
“I love publicising the fact that you can be open in rugby, but it’s someone’s own decision,” he says.
That distinction is important.
Coming out should never become another expectation placed on LGBTQ+ athletes.
What matters is creating sporting environments where people know that, if they do choose to be open, they will be respected.
A ‘Happy Story’ Worth Telling
Tayler-Woolston heads into the 2026–27 Super Rygbi Cymru season as part of Newport’s back row, with the club beginning its campaign against RGC in September.
His rugby goals remain rugby goals.
Selection should depend on performance.
Success should be measured on the field.
And his sexuality does not need to be treated as either a weakness or an extraordinary achievement.
That is perhaps what makes his story so encouraging.
For years, Tayler-Woolston imagined coming out would change everything.
Instead, his coach worried he might be leaving for another club.
His teammates supported him.
He kept playing.
He married the man he loves.
And now he hopes another young player wondering whether there is space for them in rugby might see that life and think: maybe there is.
“People shouldn’t need to have personal battles,” Tayler-Woolston says.
“They should be able to go into any rugby club and be themselves.”
“Love is love.”
