🎙️ | leah williamson on the lack of openness around sexuality in men’s football:
“if i was male player would i subject myself to the potential of 60,000 people singing a homophobic chant at me? it doesn’t sound appealing. i think you have to be really, really brave to do that. i’m not surprised that more haven’t come out. do i think that more exist? of course i do. would i encourage them to come out? how could i possibly do that knowing what they would possibly face? the world is changing but it’s not changing quickly enough for those players. unfortunately i think freedom in today’s world is a luxury. i don’t know how much more progressive that’s getting, i think it’s receding. i think about how powerful it would be if somebody did come out but i would never encourage them to. you’d be committing your life to being ‘that person.’”
[via the london standard]
Manchester United isn't just our name.
It's a message of togetherness, acceptance and inclusion from our club. Our city. Our people.
We stand with the @PremierLeague and @RainbowDevils in championing equality, making football welcome for everyone.
When I came out in the 80s, life was shit for gay folks. The stigma of AIDS, the rightwing press, & laws passed by the Thatcher govt left the LGBT+ community beaten up, but not broken.
Take heart, trans siblings. This period of hate will pass. We will get through it together ♥️
this is what privilege looks like, and we shouldn't ignore how much harm looking the other way because things don't affect us directly does. don't be Tom Felton
giving women better training facilities and better pitches? ❌
protecting women from being assaulted by their own managers or owners? ❌
providing a better, safer environment in games? ❌
banning 20 women from playing amateur football? ✅
In years to come we'll look at this era and wonder why in light of a global pandemic, economic inflation, growing inequality and technological upheaval we decided to make the private lives of a minority considerably worse.
i’ll never understand the drive to define womanhood into an essentialist narrow trait, as if women haven’t been curtailed and shoved into boxes by the patriarchy since the bloody dawn of time