Simeon Brody
Today I did some voluntary work for York Rotters, standing behind a stall at an event in Rowntree Park, promoting home-composting and recycling. The event was my first 'Pride', organised by the local Gay and Lesbian groups. Although I consider myself 'LBGT friendly', I've never been to a Pride event. It was a small gathering, probably just a hundred or so, but it was joyous and fun, and I met several of my friends. The Rotters stall was well received and we had lots of enquiries and questions about composting, and perhaps a couple of new volunteer Rotters.
However the most interesting thing for me was to meet up for the first time with the partner of a friend, and he is involved with the Yorkshire Terriers, a gay and lesbian football team. Now I'm not at all interested in football, nor do I know much about gay and lesbian life and the discrimination they face, but the conversation we had was fascinating. He would like gay footballers to be able to be open about their sexuality, and to get on with playing football. But because of discrimination and audience hostility, there are no 'out' football players in the main teams, and this is partly why there are several gay and lesbian teams in the UK.
There are attempts to promote equality within 'The Beautiful Game', such as the Kick it Out programme, which has just about succeeded in removing overt racism from the stands, including the banning of some racist fans from the grounds. The Football Association is opposed to all forms of discrimination, including homophobia, race and disability. They are part of Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) which promotes 'One Game, One Community', but still no gay players feel safe to come out, with two gay German footballers anonymously describing how they have had to go to lengths to hide their real sexuality. Many European teams have been very active in promoting anti-homophobia, including a few UK ones. The Yorkshire Terriers are involved in talks with local teams to see how they can integrate and promote the 'One Game, One Community' attitude. There's even a worldwide gay sporting body, the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association.
So I learned a lot from my Pride experience, never have I had such a long conversation about football and I've certainly never written about it before. I'm glad that I got such an interesting angle on one aspect of gay life, and it made the Rotters stall experience (which I've done so many times) really worth doing today.
My 'Green Tip Of The Week', whether you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, asexual or even heterosexual, is to recycle using a compost heap, wormery, Bokashi system, Community Compost system or council collection. Because composting is the best way to recycle up to 60% of what's in your household waste stream, and it really doesn't matter about your sexuality!
In memory of Justin Fashanu, who faced hostility about his sexuality and tragically took his own life in 1998.
Leave a comment