For LGBTQ+ athletes, sports is a space where they can belong – and feel anything but (Picture: Daisy Taylor/Jack Williamson/Jahmal Howlett-Mundle)
Daisy Taylor felt like she finally belonged when she started playing for a local LGBTQ+ football club.
The trans woman from Loughborough never felt at ease in male-dominated spaces, something that became a tad more ‘obvious’ after she came out.
The LGBTQ+ inclusive Leicester Wildcats, a mixed club, helped her feel at home for a time. But the radio host soon realised something was missing – women.
Anti-trans campaigners feel that trans people, mostly trans women, shouldn’t play alongside cisgender women.
Governing bodies for rugby, athletics, netball, cricket and cycling have introduced bans to ensure ‘fairness and safety’. The policies say that sex assigned at birth can have an effect on athletic performance.
This debate reached a fever pitch at this year’s Paris Olympics when Algerian boxer Imane Khelif faced questions over her eligibility to compete in the women’s welterweight division.
Her win against Angela Carini of Italy drew attention to a decision last year by the International Boxing Association to disqualify Khelif, who has identified as female since birth, for ‘not meeting’ its gender eligibility test. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has repeatedly said the gold medallist has every right to compete in the women’s division and stressed it’s not a ‘transgender issue’.
Daisy Taylor plays football, baseball and squash (Picture: Daisy Taylor)
‘The loud and constant narrative surrounding trans women and sport made me feel like I could never have that one thing that I needed, to be amongst my female peers,’ Daisy tells Metro.
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‘It makes you scared to enter those spaces. You expect horrible backlash or worse, because that’s the picture that those people who want to deny you wish to paint.’
Daisy isn’t alone. LGBTQ+ people still feel unwelcome and unsafe watching sports, let alone playing them, according to new research from Stonewall.
One in four do not feel welcome in community sports teams, with roughly the same number of the 2,000 queer Britons surveyed by the LGBTQ+ charity and pollster Opinium feeling the same about live sports events.
About a fifth were discriminated against at a live sporting event in the last year, and a third feel they can’t pop to the pub to watch the game.
The figures were released as Stonewall’s annual Rainbow Laces campaign kicks off. It sees pro and local teams alike tie their boots up with rainbow laces for LGBTQ+ inclusion in sports.
‘That’s why we need everyone – whether you’re a top athlete or a casual gym-goer – to lace up and help make sport and fitness safe and inclusive for all. This is a game we must …read more
Source:: Metro
