Devin Toner believes the landscape has changed in rugby over the last 20 years - but says there is still a way to go in sport regarding accepting players for who they are.
Toner, alongside his former Leinster team mate Nick McCarthy, is an ambassador for Aviva Ireland's Pride month.
McCarthy came out as gay last summer and Toner, who was a senior squad member at the time, was happy to support the scrum-half - and also to support Jack Dunne, the second row who came out publicly as bisexual in 2021 and who left Leinster for Exeter last summer.
READ MORE: Devin Toner: Ireland boss Andy Farrell right to keep the faith
“I came into the squad around 2006 and the landscape has changed in 20 years," said Toner. "Thinking back on it, I think it would have been harder for someone to come out then than it is now.
"The landscape has changed a bit and it is a bit more accepting. Well, you’d like to think it has anyway.
"Talking to Nick there, there’s was nobody talking about it. There was nobody, really. Nobody has come out since. Literally, Nick and Jack were the first to ever talk about it.
“Nick felt comfortable doing it. Like he said, he didn’t have any negativity from anybody and I think it was a really good environment to do it.
"I was just saying to him that we need to get to a place where he doesn’t have to come out. People are who they are."
Toner added: "The theme is allyship, really. It's how to show people how they can be an ally.
"I was obviously a senior part of the squad when Nick came out and they were just trying to get my perspective on it and show how I can be an ally to people and how you can be a support and what to do and what not to do.
"Nick obviously had much closer friends than me in the squad but I think I was a kind of a representative of the senior squad, or the squad as a whole"
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