Last year Allsorts Young Volunteer and soon to be Assistant Youth Support Worker, Ryan Finn, created a video blog on his experiences as a trans man. Here he speaks about many subjects such as family, surgery and sexual orientation…
Just over a week ago Arsenal, along with the other 19 Premier League clubs, signed the Government charter against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in football, and unveiled its “Football For Everyone” initiative. The clubs pledged their commitment to tackling abuse of LGBT people both on and off the pitch. The four-point government backed charter aims to stamp out discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in all sports and make sport a more welcoming environment for gay, bisexual and transgender people.
At their first home game of LGBT History month (against Blackburn Rovers) on Tuesday, Arsenal showed their commitment to this by displaying their “Arsenal For Everyone” banner before kick off.
Robin Van Persie’s statement in the match day programme also highlights the clubs commitment: “As captain of the club I’m fully supportive- we all have the same right’s and football is for everyone, no matter who you are. Private and personal matters should not come into it, and I don’t see why anyone should discriminate against another because of their beliefs, sexuality of anything else.” The publication also let fans know about the Justin Campaign’s forthcoming Football Vs Homophobia initiative.
The initiative and charter, come just days after the BBC3 documentary Britain’s Gay Footballers was aired. The programme highlighted the fact that there have been no openly gay professional footballers since Justin Fashanu, who came out in 1990 and was alienated by his family, had an unfounded allegation of sexual assault against him and later committed suicide. The programme was created by Amal Fashanu, Justin’s niece, who raised discussions about homophobic chants and investigated how homosexuality is perceived in other sports. Most notably, she spoke to her father, John Fashanu who had previously been unsupportive and made derogatory comments about Justin when he came out over 25 years ago.
She interviewed many different sources about homophobia in football such as Matt Lucas, gay TV personality and avid Arsenal supporter and Max Clifford, the celebrity PR guru. In addition, she interviewed Joey Barton, captain of Queens Park Rangers who stated: “Certain managers….certain individuals within the game will discriminate against people. These archaic figures think if they had a gay footballer that there would be all kinds of shenanigans going on in the dressing room.” However, he went on to comment he believes that within the next 10 years there will be an openly gay professional footballer.
The programme was received with mixed reviews, however, whether you liked the programme or not, it would be difficult to argue against it’s merit in helping to highlight the level of homophobia in football. The programme, along with Arsenal’s ‘Football For Everyone” initiative show that a change in attitudes to gay footballers is well overdue and that changes are being made to stop homophobia slowly but surely.
You can watch Britain’s Gay Footballers on iplayer here. Catch it quick before it disappears in three days!
Click here for Football Vs Homophobia’s Facebook page
The opportunities to portray gay people in the media are few and far between, rendering it a hard task for the diverse LGBTU community to be reflected fully and realistically. As people become more open minded though, queer storylines are increasing. A realistic depiction of gay people is however well overdue.
Creating an interesting gay storyline is not easy, the simple ‘coming out’ plot is wearing thin. These days it takes something more unique to keep an audience captive. Take the 2009 EastEnders storyline involving Muslim Syed Masood falling in love with out and proud, Christian Clarke. Here the struggle between faith and love was depicted by forward thinking writers and scrutinized by millions of people. Similarly, Chester soap Hollyoaks also raised the bar with creative queer storylines. Local hard man Brendan long struggled to come to terms with his sexuality, becoming violent in response to his feelings. It has depicted the relationship between love and violence well, highlighting that any couple, be they same sex or not, can experience domestic violence.
There has been one recent ‘coming out’ story that has proved extremely successful in generating headlines. This involved the first Coronation Street lesbians, Sian Powers and Sophie Webster. They were taken to the hearts of the British and seemed to have a blooming relationship. For once could we expect a happy ending? Nope, no such luck. When Sian discovered Sophie was unsure about the wedding, she fled the altar and later found out Sophie cheated on her. Last year Sacha Parkinson (Sian) handed her notice in and recently exited Coronation Street while Brooke Vincent has remained in the soap. They could have feasibly parted under happier circumstances; why couldn’t their relationship have remained steady til the end?
Coronation Street's Sian and Sophie
This is another important element homosexual relationships depicted on TV; we rarely see a happy ending. Think back over the last few years of queer couples in TV and movies; can you think of more than a handful of instances where a gay couple has remained happy in their relationship? The short-lived Queer as Folk UK provided a happy ending, but sadly the longer (and I believe better) US version did not for main characters Brian and Justin. Similarly, John Paul and Craig Dean from Hollyoaks also saw a happy ending, along with Rachel and Luce in the 2005 film Imagine Me and You.
However, gay relationships on TV have generally not fared well, they have either been plagued by death, affairs (frustratingly often with the opposite sex) or have been pushed apart by situational circumstances. Such examples include Christopher and Heinz from 2011 drama Christopher and his Kind who were separated by the expiration of Heinz’s visa and the fascist uprising. Similarly, 2010 movie The Kids Are Alright saw Jules and Nic split mid movie (however they later got back together) due to Jules affair with Paul, the children’s sperm donor. This movie was critically acclaimed, but I walked away from it feeling somewhat disappointed. The movie entertained the idea that the biological parents of the children will copulate, even though the children were not conceived this way.
I’m not saying that a happy ending is always best. It is often more interesting to have a blighted or dramatic ending, life doesn’t tend end up with two people walking into the sunset. My gripe is that compared to heterosexual couples, we rarely see a gay couple that make it.
Here’s the bottom line. Last year Stonewall did a study and found for just 46 minutes in 126 hours of TV programmes LGBTU people were portrayed positively and realistically; with the characters being shown as predatory, promiscuous or comical stereotypes half the time they appeared. Moreover, Allsorts did an online survey asking whether TV and media accurately represent same-sex relationships. A massive 98% said no.
Fingers crossed one day we will see more homosexual couples and characters on TV, ones we can admire, relate to and hope to emulate. Here’s hoping.
So, being young these days is a challenge. Youth unemployment is at record levels, many of us are perceived as no hoper rioting yobs, university is looking increasingly unattractive and many of those who do go are stuck with student loan repayments for years to come. Although huge steps have been made those of us that are seen as different we still get monstrously bullied at school and even further on. Let’s not even get started on the hormone and puberty thing. So yes, being young can defiantly be a challenge.
Now imagine all of the above is happening to you and your friends and now you’ve just been told you have HIV.
There’s a lot of misinformation and stigma out there so getting support from your family or friends might not be a simple task. HIV isn’t like diabetes or even cancer, in which support of your nearest and dearest is expected and almost always unquestionably given. HIV is one of the few medical conditions that people still whisper about rather them openly discussed. All too common is the belief that “HIV is bad ergo, people who get HIV are bad.”
There’s still perhaps unsurprisingly a lot of angst about telling the people whose opinion matter most to you that you have HIV. Fear of their negative reactions is one huge motivation for keeping quiet. Or even fear that they just won’t understand. I have seen many cases where newly diagnosed people themselves have had to support their friends and family come to terms after telling them. The irony was not lost on me.
There’s still a belief today among many that was so deeply ingrained in those 80s ads that HIV = AIDS and AIDS = tombstones. The magnitude of the untruth of that in the UK today is staggering. In 2009 there were 516 HIV related deaths, that’s about 0.6216% of all the people in the UK with HIV (estimated at 83.000 in 2009). To put that into a little context you’re almost twice as likely to die from “asthma” then you are from complications with HIV (believe it or not).
It’s only natural that when you’re going through something difficult you seek out other people going through the same experiences. And thus the support group was born. But wait, not everyone with HIV has the same experiences, some are mothers, some are gay men who have HIV since the 80s, some are sex workers, some are injecting drug users. So we try to get everyone into a group that suits there need. After all, HIV is indiscriminate.
Since July this year I help at a new group for HIV positive young people (aged 16-27), who want a social space where they can talk freely and discus what they often cannot elsewhere. The group takes [place on the first Tuesday of each month from 7:30pm – 9:30pm at Terrence Higgins Trust’s centre on 61 Ship Street.
Now all we need a support group for people struggling to pay to go to universities… or are they called bars?
