The Block 2025 Ep. 1: A Powerful Lesbian Coming Out Story & LGBTQ+ Representation

Channel Nine’s The Block has kicked off its 21st season with an emotional, colourful and unapologetically queer bang — featuring the second-ever lesbian couple to star on the show, a heartwarming coming‑out moment, and a first‑of‑its‑kind episode set against the backdrop of Daylesford’s iconic ChillOut Festival.

Viewers met five teams taking on a brand‑new kind of Block: instead of renovate‑in‑place, they’re building five carbon‑neutral pavilion‑style homes from scratch on farmland at the eastern entrance to Daylesford. Each home will include five bedrooms, a study, heated pool and high‑efficiency eco features.

The Block 2025: Pride kicks off proceedings

From the moment the teams arrived — draped in rainbow capes and glitter — they joined the ChillOut Festival’s annual street parade, riding on and behind flamboyant floats they had built themselves as their first official Block challenge.

The parade wound through the heritage streets of Daylesford before culminating in Carnival Day in Victoria Park, where festival-goers cheered on the Blockheads in full pride regalia.

One gay couple features among the teams — Han and Can, a Perth-based duo whose chemistry and charm have already won them national fans. Meanwhile, Mat, one half of South Australian best mate duo Robby & Mat, is also openly gay, bringing further queer representation to the season.

The other teams include married Queensland couple Sonny & Alicia, married police‑officer duo Britt & Taz, and Melbourne’s engineer and dance-teacher pair Emma & Ben.

Daylesford in focus on The Block 2025

Nestled in the rolling countryside 90 minutes from Melbourne, Daylesford is renowned for its mineral springs, arts scene, culinary credentials and boutique charm — a backdrop that The Block producers cite as both picturesque and community‑oriented.

As site foreman Dan Reilly and hosts Scott Cam and Shelley Craft led the teams, it was clear the town’s welcome was genuine.

Local figures in Daylesford noted that integration with ChillOut Festival is already driving economic uplift. “The Block juggernaut has descended… the corner is looking fantastic now,” local pub owner Mitch Duncan told reporters, adding that foot traffic surged and many cast and crew stayed in Airbnbs and local rentals.

The town’s official support of LGBTQIA+ event ChillOut Festival — which Star Observer was in attendance this year! — has reinforced Daylesford’s identity as Australia’s queer country pride capital, hosting street parades, Youth Muster, Carnival Day, cabaret and performances by queer icons and drag legends under the festival’s ‘Rainbow Spectacular’ theme.

A first Pride, and an emotional coming out

In one of the episode’s most emotional and authentic moments, WA contestant Can came out publicly for the very first time. As Han and Can joined Daylesford’s vibrant Pride parade, Can revealed on camera that she had only recently come to terms with her sexuality and had never formally ‘come out’ before the season began filming.

“For a lot of my teenage years I felt a lot of shame and insecurity around my sexuality,” Can said, visibly emotional.

“I have not professed that I have a girlfriend or that I am gay and I still hide it from certain people and in certain instances. So, to come on national TV is a big thing.”

The moment struck a chord with viewers across social media, many praising Can’s vulnerability and courage as a standout highlight of the season’s launch.

The Block 2025 contestants: Robby & Mat

Among the cast of reno rookies are Robby and Mat, two best mates from Adelaide — Robby (37), a barber and business owner, who is straight, and Mat (41), a hairdresser and stylist, who is gay.

Despite having no prior renovation experience — and Mat having never even watched an episode — they quickly found camaraderie and joy on site, adapting through laughter and sheer grit.

Positive response to LGBTQ+ representation — but not everyone’s happy

Obviously The Block has extremely strong LGBTQIA+ representation this season, featuring lesbian couple Han and Can, as well as Adelaide contestant Mat, plus the episode being set in Daylesford during ChillOut.

The response to this was, for the most part, positive — many people online were particularly moved by Can coming out and experiencing and participating in her first Pride.

However, there certainly was some angry homophobes about, lots of ‘I’m never watching this again!’ and ‘I can’t let my kids watch this, how on earth could I possibly explain this to them!’ type nonsense (as if speaking to your child for 5 minutes and explaining ‘Some people date and love and marry people of the same gender to them, and that’s okay! Everyone’s different, and all love is love’ is too difficult somehow. Look, I just did in two sentences! Not that hard.

It warms my heart that we’re only one episode into #TheBlock and already the right-wing chuds are melting down over this Pride Parade challenge 🥰🏳️‍🌈

They’re building houses in DAYLESFORD, what did you expect??? 🤣 pic.twitter.com/EHoLvwQqU4

— petty cragdale 💮 (@artpunkamor) July 27, 2025

But a very vocal but small anti-LGBTQ+ group spouting nonsense to be expected, particularly right now with the world being what it is, and our entire community experiencing an increase in anti-LGBTQIA+ policies, rhetoric, hate crimes and hate speech all around the world at present.

But with that mind, it’s just really fantastic to see strong LGBTQIA+ representation, and a mostly positive response to it!

Twist announcements for The Block 2025 contestants

With the construct‑from‑scratch format and the twist banning over-nighters — meaning contestants can’t live in or renovate the houses all night like in previous seasons; instead the sites are locked overnight, and the contestants are given luxury caravans to live in — contestants must juggle speed, creativity and stamina to deliver rooms on time.

And this year, Cam confirmed mega-buyer Adrian Portelli won’t be buying up all the houses like he did last season (which he then struggled to sell), and instead he hopes to see “families have a bit of a crack this year”.

“To be honest we said to Adrian ‘We’d love you not to come next year, if that’s all right,’” Cam told Nova 96.9’s Fitzy & Wippa with Kate Ritchie last week.

“[Portelli] said, ‘Yeah, okay, he won’t come’, but he may come. We don’t know, but we do want to give mums and dads the opportunity to have a crack at a block house … but if Adrian comes and wants to buy the lot of them, well, that rules them out.”