Katie Lynch wants to see AFL 'harness the momentum' of Pride Round

The Gold Coast Suns' Katie Lynch says Pride Round comes at exactly the moment needed every season.

Two weeks out from the men's season finishing and a month before the women start finals, it provides an injection of enthusiasm, celebration and joy.

"A different energy comes into the competition on Pride Round," Lynch told ABC Sport.

"Because so many of our players connect with the movement and understand the power of the round for the community and who we represent," Lynch told ABC Sport.

However, Lynch would like to see that movement grow beyond the AFLW competition and across the whole AFL, to include not just the men's teams but all club staff and fans of the game.

The dedicated league-wide Pride Round was introduced annually in 2021.

It celebrates inclusion and diversity over two weeks, while honouring the contributions of the LGBTQ+ community to the game and providing a platform for education on queer issues, particularly those entwined with the game.

"I think that can be perhaps transferred across more of the whole code essentially," Lynch said.

"A pride round in the men's would be awesome to see, and I know from my experience, it's nothing but a positive experience, and so I can see that going enormously well and being enormously helpful for the entire code."

Some LGBTQ+ Australian Rules fans and community members have felt the pang of exclusion from the sport in recent years.

The AFL is cracking down on homophobic language in the game, with CEO Andrew Dillon stressing "homophobia has no place in Australian football", at any level or under any circumstances, which has come as a reaction to the prevalence of slurs.

In the past three years, there have been 10 cases of AFL-listed players or coaches sanctioned for homophobic language, including Suns players Max Knobel this year and star defender Wil Powell in 2024.

When put to Lynch whether an extended Pride Round would help in this regard, she said the game of Aussie Rules had always been excellent at creating a space for people to connect, converse and interact, and that Pride Round was an incredible vehicle to do that around LGBTQ+ issues and experiences.

"We know that the players and the code have significant ability to influence, of course, and we've seen that probably have a negative effect on our fans more recently," she said.

"So I think for me, it's how do we shift that dial to come back the other way?

"And that's why I talk about things like visibility and representation."

She said it was also a great opportunity to connect more fans to the game, and have them feel seen within it.

This year Lynch helped design the club's Pride guernsey alongside her teammate Lily Mithen and good friend and tattoo artist Mady Peters.

It resembles patchwork tattoos and stickers, including a tramp stamp on the back, which Lynch says is proof they had a lot of fun putting it together.

But more than that, Lynch said it felt special to have her friend Peters "who doesn't even know what a drop punt is" now have an attachment to the game of AFLW through the Pride movement, where she is represented as a queer person.

Lynch said she noticed the boost in attendance during Pride Round, including within her own friend group.

"My friends are great, very supportive of me … but if they're going to come to a game, it's Pride Round," she said.

"Pride Round has the power to bring people, even loose fans of AFL, to the game … and not only to experience the joy of it but they're there because they feel like they belong there."

She wants that "special feeling" to reach even further.

"That's what I've felt, particularly this year, is the support for us and this Pride Round has been enormous, and it's growing," she said.

"The opportunity now is to harness the momentum we've got and use it in a growth capacity.

"We'll probably never know the enormity of pride and visibility, particularly as players … I feel there's so much impact that I don't see, but I know is there."