Signal Boost: Red Card Homophobia
So I figured I'd continue my tradition of being one day late, because guess what - yesterday was National Coming Out Day in the UK!
I'd been planning to do a little write-up of RCH for a while now.
As most of you well know, I'm a big football fan. The real football. You might call it soccer - I won't.
Recently, some folks over at ontd_football (most notably scruby with the original post asking for ideas to combat homophobia in football) started a grassroots movement to make football (professional and amateur) less homophobic.
Football (especially male club football) is pretty much institutionally homophobic. The first professional footballer to come out (in 1990), Justin Fashanu, failed to get a contract after his coming out and ultimately committed suicide in 1998. Many others only come out after they are retired from any kind of football related employment.
Thomas Berling, a Norwegian player, came out in 2000 and retired shortly thereafter, citing widespread homophobia as the reason.
In March 2010, former manager Rudi Assauer said that "If a player came to me and said he was gay I would say to him: 'You have shown courage'. But then I would tell him to find something else to do. That's because those who out themselves always end up busted by it, ridiculed by their fellow players and by people in the stands. We should spare them these witch hunts."
Eudy Simelane, an openly lesbian player for the South Africa women's national team, was raped and murdered in yet another instance of "corrective rape".
Red Card Homophobia are devoted to making the beautiful game more diverse and more accepting, and they need all the help they can get.
There's a website where you can find all the relevant information. The mission statement especially. <3
They have a Tumblr (check out the fan pictures), a Twitter, a Facebook page, a forum, there's a Twibbon and rc_homophobia of course.
Perhaps most importantly, there's a hashtag up on Twitter: #redcardhomophobia that we're asking people to use whenever they tweet about matches, or to the various players and clubs present on Twitter.
It's not the only organization aiming for these goals, but it's certainly the one most rooted in fandom. Give it a look, and maybe one day football players and other athletes will be able to come out without having to fear the repercussions.
This entry is a mirror of http://zanzando.dreamwidth.org/141481.html |
comments | Please comment at Dreamwidth, using OpenID if you don't have an account. Or ask me for an invite!
I'd been planning to do a little write-up of RCH for a while now.
As most of you well know, I'm a big football fan. The real football. You might call it soccer - I won't.
Recently, some folks over at ontd_football (most notably scruby with the original post asking for ideas to combat homophobia in football) started a grassroots movement to make football (professional and amateur) less homophobic.
Football (especially male club football) is pretty much institutionally homophobic. The first professional footballer to come out (in 1990), Justin Fashanu, failed to get a contract after his coming out and ultimately committed suicide in 1998. Many others only come out after they are retired from any kind of football related employment.
Thomas Berling, a Norwegian player, came out in 2000 and retired shortly thereafter, citing widespread homophobia as the reason.
In March 2010, former manager Rudi Assauer said that "If a player came to me and said he was gay I would say to him: 'You have shown courage'. But then I would tell him to find something else to do. That's because those who out themselves always end up busted by it, ridiculed by their fellow players and by people in the stands. We should spare them these witch hunts."
Eudy Simelane, an openly lesbian player for the South Africa women's national team, was raped and murdered in yet another instance of "corrective rape".
Red Card Homophobia are devoted to making the beautiful game more diverse and more accepting, and they need all the help they can get.
There's a website where you can find all the relevant information. The mission statement especially. <3
They have a Tumblr (check out the fan pictures), a Twitter, a Facebook page, a forum, there's a Twibbon and rc_homophobia of course.
Perhaps most importantly, there's a hashtag up on Twitter: #redcardhomophobia that we're asking people to use whenever they tweet about matches, or to the various players and clubs present on Twitter.
It's not the only organization aiming for these goals, but it's certainly the one most rooted in fandom. Give it a look, and maybe one day football players and other athletes will be able to come out without having to fear the repercussions.
This entry is a mirror of http://zanzando.dreamwidth.org/141481.html |
comments | Please comment at Dreamwidth, using OpenID if you don't have an account. Or ask me for an invite!