Tagged / LGBTQ+

Conversation article – Jake Daniels: how homophobia in men’s football is changing

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Dr Jayne Caudwell writes for The Conversation about footballer Jake Daniels becoming the UK’s only openly gay male professional footballer…

Jake Daniels: how homophobia in men’s football is changing

Jayne Caudwell, Bournemouth University

Blackpool forward Jake Daniels’ announcement that he is homosexual makes him the UK’s only active, openly gay, male professional footballer.

Daniels, aged 17, described the move as a “relief”, and was met with support and praise from key figures in men’s football and beyond, including Gary Lineker, Harry Kane and Sir Ian McKellen. He was also praised by national figureheads Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prince William, who said Daniels coming out will “help break down barriers”.

A head shot of UK footballer Justin Fashanu smiling.
Justin Fashanu.
Wikipedia/7sur7, CC BY

The first UK professional footballer to come out was Justin Fashanu in 1990. The support for Daniels has been a stark contrast to the homophobic responses to Fashanu, who killed himself in 1998 at the age of 37.

Sport in the UK has long been rife with homophobia and considered an unsafe place for LGBT+ players. In 2017, a House of Commons report concluded that “despite the significant change in society’s attitudes to homosexuality in the last 30 years, there is little reflection of this progress being seen in football.”

Men’s professional football is the last of the UK’s three most popular sports, following rugby and cricket, to have an active, elite professional player come out. Rugby player Gareth Thomas came out in 2009 and cricketer Steven Davies came out in 2011.

This lagging behind is no surprise given the vile homophobic chanting at some of England’s best players such as Sol Campbell, and the reaction to Fashanu in the 1990s. Indeed, there are some early signs of homophobic hate in response to Daniels that have been condemned by LGBTQ+ rights group Stonewall.

Still, over the last couple of decades, changing cultural attitudes and campaigning efforts by organisations and fans have raised awareness of LGBTQ+ participation in sport.

The Justin Campaign, established in 2008 by a Brighton-based grassroots organisation, was one of the first official campaigns to raise awareness of homophobia in men’s football. The campaign had a local reach and targeted young people, mainly school and university students who entered tournaments as team “Tackle Homophobia”.

From the Justin Campaign came Football v Homophobia, developed by PrideSports, which now has a significant presence in the game worldwide. Alongside this grassroots activism, in 2013 betting company Paddy Power, working with Stonewall, initiated the Rainbow Laces campaign.

The FA, football’s governing body in England and Wales, introduced its first anti-homophobia initiative in 2012, Opening Doors and Joining In. Since then, the FA has endorsed both Football v Homophobia and the Rainbow Laces campaigns. However, research indicates that efforts by sport governing bodies can fall short and can be ineffective at actually implementing change.

While I don’t know how aware Daniels and his peers were of these campaigns as they were growing up, there is evidence from a 2017 study at a boy’s football academy that revealed “progressive attitudes towards homosexuality” among a small group of 14-15 year olds. This suggests that attitudes are becoming more inclusive – although the boys in the study felt unable to individually challenge homophobia when they observed it.

Fan attitudes

Homophobic chanting at men’s professional games can be a common occurrence. This chanting, often deemed as “banter” by the perpetrators, can be outright blatant homophobia, or what we now call a “micro-aggression”. Micro-aggressions are the everyday speech and actions directed at marginalised members of communities that reflect prejudice and discrimination, and can be damaging to minority individuals in sport.

Obviously, not all football fans make homophobic remarks and gestures at a game or on social media. Many formal LGBTQ+ fan groups, such as the Kop Outs (Liverpool), Gay Gooners (Arsenal) and Proud Canaries (Norwich City), have also been set up in recent years, creating a visible community within the oft-discriminatory world of football fandom.

Despite these efforts by fans, football’s governing bodies continue to ignore or forget homophobia. A case in point is Qatar, host country for FIFA’s men’s World Cup later this year, which has anti-gay laws.

Cultural shifts

At 17, Daniels has grown up with a popular culture that is more diverse than ever when it comes to gender and sexuality. There are more visible stories of LGBTQ+ people and communities generally, and within the world of sport. Thanks to decades of activism, LGBTQ+ culture has a place in the mainstream, and football is benefiting from this movement.

The women’s game is further along in celebrating out lesbian and bisexual players internationally. The 2019 FIFA women’s World Cup alone had 40 out women – players, coaches and managers – offering further evidence that the women’s game is a safer environment than the men’s. This might be because women in sport have had to deal with sexist and homophobic stereotypes for a very long time.

All of this, in addition to support from family and friends and teachers, coaches, officials and managers who are LGBTQ+ allies, will make young male footballers feel safe enough to come out.

The impact of Jake Daniels’ decision to come out cannot be underestimated. Not only will it allow him to be fully himself – and perhaps an even better player – it is set to shift the culture of men’s elite professional football.The Conversation

Jayne Caudwell, Associate Professor Social Sciences, Gender& Sexualities, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Refugee Week – British Academy Funded Project – LGBTQ Refugees’ and Asylum Seekers’ Support Needs

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This week it is  Refugee Week and here in the Faculty of Media and Communication this is significant as we have just started our new British Academy project ‘Understanding LGBTQ Refugees’ and Asylum Seekers’ Support Needs through Listening to Autobiographical Storytelling’.  Although I have recently written about Queer Youth Refugees in Documentary Media and Ieuan and I have a forthcoming article on The Undocuqueer Movement in the journal Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture this project offers a great opportunity to asses support needs and influence policy, with an aim to develop links between diverse help providers across the UK.

The project has a duration of 15 months with a symposium taking place in a year’s time, yet already through early conversations with NGO help service participants we are beginning to learn about the needs of LGBTQ refugees. For example, this morning I was in conversation with  Mark Lewis of Hoops and Loops in Cardiff. If you look at this interview on BBC Wales which includes commentary from Jo Stevens MP its clear that there is much to be done.

In the era of Covid-19, when many of us are feeling isolated, psychologically compromised, and wondering whats happening next, its clear that this is equally impacting on asylum seekers and refugees, many of whom have little support, or live in conditions that could hardly be considered as welcoming.

Christopher Pullen (Department of Media Production) and Ieuan Franklin (Department of Humanities and Law).

How AHRC-funded Film RUFUS STONE inspired a proposed project on the Next Generation

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AHRC blog has just published an article on a potential new project on youth, gender and sexuality proposed by a team at Bournemouth University. The AHRC supported short film RUFUS STONE  is seven years old this year. Our screenings of this film’s story, particularly to young people, have impressed upon us how a supposedly ‘old’ story – the film is set in rural Britain more than 50 years ago – still resonates with young people today.

Our proposed project, “Rufus Stone … the next Generation’ – will contribute to knowledge on the substantive topic of ‘Post-Millennials’ or ‘Generation Z’ (GenZ), focusing on their anxieties and ambiguous approaches around gender and sexuality. 

Because GenZ is the first generation to be totally hooked up to technology since birth, we want to work with mobile phones and iPads and social media over several months in sessions with youth to produce their own film/video about their lives and relationships.

We’re currently applying for funding to work with young people aged 16-18, involving them in telling their stories, co-created by involving them in every stage of production. We are at the bidding stage now. If you would like to express an interest in joining  the team, please contact Kip Jones for a chat.

Recent Writing from Kip Jones Available on the Internet

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“Kyle’s photo-montage of black and white clippings, mostly from fashion magazines, Bailey and Avedon, etc., glued to the walls surrounding his bed”.

Kip Jones is pleased to announce that the tripartite story, “True confessions: why I left a traditional liberal arts college for the sins of the big city”, first published in Qualitative Research Journal, is available on Academia.edu.  Jones is particularly pleased that what is now called ‘auto-fiction’ has been accepted for publication by such a major qualitative journal. The three stories in the article conclude with a scene from Jones’ ongoing development of the feature film script for “Copacetica”. All three stories portray aspects of the sexual fumbling and romantic insecurities typical in youth.

“Dirty Frank’s” bar, Philadelphia, where the main characters of “Copacetica” frequently meet.

The second piece of writing consists of the bar scene from “Copacetica”. This is the scene in which all the major characters are introduced and the story sets up the conundrum that the main character will face in the film.

“Copacetica” tells the tale of a gullible youth on a roller coaster ride of loss of innocence and coming out in the flux and instability of 1960s hippy America. Often seen as a period of revolution in social norms, Copacetica’s themes include being different, the celebration of being an outsider, seeing oneself from outside of the “norm”, and the interior conflicts of “coming out” within a continuum as a (gay) male in a straight world. These observations are set within the flux and instability of a period of great social change, but which are often viewed in retrospect as consistent and definable. Being straight or being gay can also be viewed in a similar way within the wider culture’s need to set up a sexual binary and force sexual “choice” decision-making for the benefit of the majority culture, or ‘heteronormativity’.  Through the device of the fleeting moment, the story interrogates the certainties and uncertainties of the “norms” of modernity.

In the later gallery scene (not yet published), a minor character explains the meaning of the word, “copacetic”:

VISITOR TWO
What d’he say?

VISTOR ONE
“Everything’s copacetic”! (Beat) 
What does that mean, anyway?

VISITOR THREE
Everything’s cool. Everything’s okay. 
Or “Groovy” as they like to say.

Asked what he enjoyed about writing the script for this film, Jones said, “Definitely revisiting the slang used by youth of the 1960s! It’s virtually its own language. And writing the sex scenes. Exciting and very tiring. Almost like the real thing”.

You can read the opening scene planned for the film on KIPWORLD: “Copacetica” Scene 1. EXT SUBURBAN HOUSE POOL NIGHT

Free Workshop: Sexuality & Gender in the 21st Century

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FREE Workshop:
Gender & Sexuality in the 21st Century

Bournemouth University

31 May 2017, 10:00 – 15:00

‘Unimaginable a decade ago, the intensely personal subject of gender identity has entered the public square.’—National Geographic (Jan 2017)

This openness to discussion of sexuality, gender, and emotion begins to expose this latest generation’s ambivalence, even dissonance regarding these terms. The workshop will explore this, both historically and within the contemporary culture of the 21st Century.

The workshop will gather academics and community representatives from within BU and beyond, whose work may help us to understand more fully contemporary takes on sexuality, gender, and emotion. These may include:

  • Youth and Sexuality
  • Sex Tourism
  • Sex Trafficking
  • Disability and Sexual Well-being
  • Sexuality and Ageing
  • Gender and Sexuality in the Workplace
  • LGBTQ+ concepts of gender and sexuality
  • Other issues we haven’t even considered yet?

We will spend the day learning informally about each other’s interests and previous work around sexuality, gender, and emotion, thus creating the beginnings of new partnerships for further exploration, discovery, research, dissemination, and community action. NO lectures!

Workshop organised by Dr Kip Jones, Director, Centre for Qualitative Research, BU and Dr Lee-Ann Fenge, Deputy Director, National Centre for Post-Qualifying Social Work, BU.

Free lunch provided, places are limited.

Register here: https://gender-sexuality.eventbrite.co.uk