LGBTQ Breaking News Service

MUNSTER rugby have announced the addition of two new clubs as members of the Munster Branch of the IRFU. Cork Hellhounds RFC and Lisdoonvarna RFC.

The Cork Hellhounds are a LGBT-inclusive rugby club based in Cork, Ireland that were established in October 2020 with the aim of encouraging and promoting rugby among the LGBT community within the Munster region. Lisdoonvarna RFC are based in Clare and will provide another option for underage players in the region.

Their memberships were ratified following a Munster branch committee meeting on June 2. The Hellhounds train at the Munster Rugby training grounds on the Ringmahon Road in Mahon, on the south side of cork city as Lisdoonvarna train on the community owned Lisdoonvarna Failte CLG.

The North Clare based club will also be hosting the Give It A Try programme on July 27 run by the IRFU. This programme will offer a welcomed opportunity for girls within the region to learn how to play rugby in a friendly, fun learning environment which will boost the growth of the sport across the county but also potentially the province as a whole.

The City of Cork is no stranger to all-inclusive sports sides as the Cork Frontrunners and Cork Rebels FC cater to athletics and football enthusiasts. However, the Hellhounds will be the first rugby team within the province to openly do so and will take part and compete in the Munster domestic league over the coming months.

Hellhounds club founder Adam O’Brien stated:

“This is a great moment for sport in Cork. As there is still a perception, despite recent years of social progress on LGBT issues, that sport in one area which can be exclusive to LGBT people.

“Other cities have LGBT-inclusive rugby teams, including Dublin and Belfast, and they have seen great participation from both gay players and straight friends who wish to support and get involved. Wed love to see the same experience available in cork and were already off to a good start.”

The Hellhounds also intend to become members of International Gay Rugby, which organises several league competitions, including the Bingham cup, also known as the Gay Rugby world cup.

The cork side are currently recruiting and inviting new players regardless of experience to part take in training and to sign up. The two newest members are a refreshing addition to Munster Rugby and will look to have a positive domestic season moving forward.

The post Munster Rugby announce two new member clubs appeared first on Sporting Limerick.

Under a speckled spring sky in the English village of Broxbourne, a cricket ball is delivered by a burly bowler with bad intentions. Suspended in coiled anticipation is Matt Earl, the opening batter for Graces Cricket Club. 

Though he is the only member of his team actively participating in the match at this time, he carries the fate of his compatriots on his shoulders. As CLR James wrote: “The batsman facing the ball does not merely represent his side. For that moment, to all intents and purposes, he is his side.”

This feels especially true now. Earl is gay. Ordinarily that would be an irrelevance. The cricket ball arcing towards him in search of his stumps, his edge, or his front pad couldn’t care less about his life beyond the boundary. But his teammates do. And because he is the embodiment of his side, at least for a moment, who Earl loves is relevant here.

Graces is the world’s first – and until last year, the only – cricket club made up of members of the LGBTQIA+ community. The team’s crest depicts a cricket ball arcing over a rainbow. Many of its players use bats with rainbow grips and wear boots with rainbow laces. The club’s skipper, Stuart Anthony, sports a rainbow-coloured armband with the word “captain” in a clear, unambiguous declaration of his status.

“In a perfect world, we wouldn’t exist,” says Anthony. “In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be a need for gay bars or gay sports clubs. But this isn’t a perfect world. People often ask me if we’re just perpetuating an exclusive mindset, if we’re shutting out the rest of the world. That’s an ignorant question. It ignores the prejudices that other people have and how difficult is for many gay people to be their authentic selves. We’ve created a safe space because there aren’t many of them out there.”

Indeed, after the BBC ran an article on Graces’ match against the Birmingham Unicorns rescheduled for 13 June – the world’s first contest between two LGBTQIA+ sides – the comment section below was awash with ignorance and hate. When the club launched an awareness drive with a video across its social media platforms, one bigot wondered “what their run-ups must look like”.

“It’s to be expected,” says Chris Sherwood, the rangy opening bowler who serves as Graces’ press and publicity officer. “Those are the sort of comments that remind us why we exist.”

Sherwood was an avid cricketer in his youth in his native Leicestershire but lost touch with the sport when he moved to London. One of the few matches he played in a “straight team”, as he terms it, resulted in an incident that threatened to end his relationship with the game.

“I was ordering drinks at the bar and asked the bartender for a round of half-pints as we were all driving. The bartender said [in a deeper, cockney voice] ‘We don’t do half-pints here, mate. I’ll have to put your picture up on the gay wall.’ I wish I’d said something to him, but then I would have had to come out to my teammates who I barely knew. It was such a challenging moment. That sort of thing just isn’t an issue with Graces and thankfully none of our players have ever received any homophobic abuse on the field.”

Shattering stereotypes 

The club was established in 1996, when the attitude towards homosexuality and queer culture was vastly different than it is today. Though 13 years had passed since the British Social Attitudes Survey of 1983 found that more than 50% of British citizens regarded homosexuality as “always wrong” or “mostly wrong”, some lingering misconceptions persisted.

“There was a need for it at the time,” says co-founder Pat Sopp in response to a question about why the club was formed. “We were originally going to be just a supporters club, but most of us were keen on playing. It seemed a good idea at the time and we’re still going 25 years later. I suppose people resonated with that feeling of belonging and the authenticity of it all. That was more important than winning or losing.”

Sopp’s final sentiment is not universally accepted throughout the club. Anthony is more aligned with this message. “It might sound clichéd, but we’re more concerned that people want to take part,” he says, but others stress the significance of results on the pitch.

“If we perform well, with batsmen scoring hundreds and our bowlers taking a lot of wickets, then no one can say we can’t play because we’re gay,” explains Arijit Sen, a fast-bowling all-rounder who played alongside Guatam Gambhir in age-group national training camps in Delhi, India. “If I produce a good performance on a personal level, that also serves as branding for the club. It might help recruit other players.”

Sherwood concurs: “Shattering that stereotype is important and we get to directly do that. We don’t get to see many gay role models at the elite level and that has a knock-on effect, keeping amateur players in the closet or abandoning the sport altogether. This perpetuates the stereotype that gay men don’t like sport, that they’re not good at sport, that they’re all effeminate. We’re in a position to challenge that.”

No longer alone

Until the Birmingham Unicorns came along, Graces have fought this battle alone in the cricket world. This is in stark contrast to other mainstream sports. The Bingham Cup, a biennial rugby tournament consisting of gay clubs, will celebrate its 10th edition next year and can draw on just under 100 clubs from around the world affiliated with the International Gay Rugby federation.

The International Gay and Lesbian Football Association is similarly well supplied with a global membership while the Gay Games, a multi-sport summer event similar to the Olympic Games, has provided a platform for gay athletes since 1982. 

Apart from cricket’s wider struggle with expanding its reach beyond the remnants of the British Empire, a more sinister barrier has stifled progress. Six of the 12 Test-playing nations are legally homophobic. In Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and many of the Caribbean islands that form part of the West Indies, marriages or relationships between same-sex couples are criminalised. Punishments include forced hard labour, up to 15 years imprisonment and, in extreme cases, death by stoning.

“This club has saved people,” says Manish Modi, Graces’ former captain and an enthusiastic speaker on the social importance of the club. “I came to the UK from India in 2004 in order to be a proud gay man. In India it’s now legal to be gay, but the perceptions are still very negative. But there are worse things than perceptions. I have teammates from some of those countries where they could have lost their life just for being themselves. It’s heartbreaking.”

This is why a few members of the club do not wish to be interviewed or have their picture taken. Some of them have yet to come out to their families back home. Doing so could have serious repercussions, not only for themselves, but for their loved ones too.

“I make a point of doing as many interviews as I can and to help carry the load,” says Modi, who has shared his story with the BBC, CNN and Sky. “I want to help others. I want to show them that there is a place where they can continue their love of cricket and be who they really are in their soul. I want to help people come out because I know how liberating that feeling can be. But I didn’t get there on my own. My Graces teammates helped me. In fact, last week someone told me that my interviews had helped him come out to his family. That’s a great feeling.”

‘We’re not here to change the whole world’ 

England Test captain Joe Root chastised West Indies fast bowler Shannon Gabriel in February 2019 for using a homophobic slur. “Don’t use it as an insult,” Root was heard to say on the stump microphone. “There’s nothing wrong with being gay.”

“That was a big moment, and it was wonderful to see someone like Joe Root stand as a vocal ally,” Sherwood says. “But as much as it meant a lot at the time, the momentum dissipated. I looked at the [International Cricket Council’s] stance on homophobia and I was disappointed. Because while they have very clear guidelines on racism, the same cannot be said for homophobia.”

The ICC’s anti-discrimination policy does condemn abuse and intimidation based on one’s sexual orientation, but with half of the main table occupied by homophobic countries, Sherwood is less than optimistic for sweeping change.

“But we’re not here to change the whole world,” he says, echoing Modi’s granular aims. “The fact that we’ve got a game against another gay club coming up is massive. Today, we’re in a competitive league and for the first time we’re fielding two teams on a Sunday. That was almost unthinkable back when we started. Change has come slow, but it is coming.”

That cricket ball delivered to opening batter Matt Earl did find his stumps. It was a filthy full toss that looped over his bat and made contact with the wooden poles behind him. He trudged off, incredulous, shaking his head at his misfortune.

“Hard luck,” his teammates say, offering scant consolation for a second-ball duck.

“That’s cricket, eh,” Earl replies. He’s right. It’s a remorseless game. Because of Graces Cricket Club, though, it’s also a more welcoming one.

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party has proposed legislation that bans disseminating what it calls content promoting gender change or homosexuality in schools, a move which activists said resembled Russia’s 2013 “gay propaganda” law.

Nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, which faces elections in early 2022 and promotes a strongly Christian-conservative agenda, has moved further against the LGBT+ community since last year. Poland’s ruling PiS party, Fidesz’s main European Union ally, has taken a similar stance for years.

The latest amendment, submitted to parliament on Thursday by Fidesz lawmakers to a bill that punishes paedophilia, says youngsters under 18 cannot be shown pornographic content, or any content that encourages gender change or homosexuality. This also applies to advertisements, the bill says. It also proposes setting up a list of organisations allowed to hold sex education sessions in schools.

“The new legislation proposed by Fidesz would seriously curb freedom of speech and children’s rights,” the Hatter rights group said in a statement, likening the bill to Russia’s gay propaganda law.

“This move endangers mental health of LGBTQI youngsters and prevents them getting access to information … and affirmative support.”

Hatter and six other rights groups called on Fidesz to withdraw the bill, which could go to vote next week.

In Russia, a 2013 law bans disseminating “propaganda on non-traditional sexual relations” among young Russians.

Gay marriage is not recognised in Hungary and only heterosexual couples can legally adopt children.

Orban’s government, which stepped up anti-LGBT rhetoric as the coronavirus crisis hit the economy, has redefined marriage as the union between one man and one woman in the constitution, and limited gay adoption.

It also outlawed legal status for all transgender people, including those who had already made the switch – retroactive legislation that the constitutional court has deemed unconstitutional.

Story continues

Last year a children’s book, “Wonderland Is For Everyone”, that aimed to help youngsters learn to accept minorities and fight social ostracism, caused a stir in Hungarian politics, with the government labelling it “homosexual propaganda” that should be banned from schools.

Orban has scored three successive landslides since 2010, but opposition parties have united against Fidesz for the first time and caught up with it in opinion polls.

On Thursday Orban flagged a hike in the minimum wage and reaffirmed plans for a big tax refund to families in 2022, setting the stage for his reelection campaign.

(Writing by Krisztina Than; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Screen capture from Gay Games HK promotion video.

The following post is an English-language version of two Chinese-language reports published on the Stand News on June 10, 2021. It is published with modifications on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement.

Pro-Beijing lawmakers in Hong Kong are demanding local authorities disassociate themselves from the city’s preparations for Gay Games Hong Kong (GGHK) in 2022, echoing the Chinese Communist Party’s growing preoccupation with gender and sexual orientation.

The Hong Kong LGBT community in 2016 won a bid to host the Gay Games – an international sporting and cultural event that promotes tolerance towards sexual diversity.

If the event goes ahead it will be the first time the games have been held in Asia in the four decades since they debuted in San Francisco.

Several government departments including Invest Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Tourism Board have thrown their weight behind the plan. That is mostly because the games involving 12,000 participants from countries around the world are expected to bring in around HK$1 billion ($129 million) in benefits to the city.

Organizers expect up to 75,000 spectators from around the world for GGHK.

Notwithstanding these arguments, lawmakers Priscilla Leung and Junius Ho made clear their distaste for the event in a June 9 session of the Hong Kong Legislative Council (Legco).

Junius Ho said:

…residents who support me oppose same-sex marriage. It is your business what you do in your own room, but if you go out and do it in public, it’s disgraceful…after the Gay Games their next step will be legalization of same sex marriage. Officials should not get involved in this. It’s civil society’s business if they want to do it, but it’s wrong [for government] to throw money at this. I don’t want to earn such dirty money, it doesn’t matter if we earn HK$1 billion.

Priscilla Leung, concurred, noting that the games were less about sport and more a campaign for promoting LGBT rights, which she said might divide society.

Their comments came after Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, another lawmaker, called on the government should to do more to help the Gay Game organizers to secure the venues they need. Ip has expressed support for the bid since 2016.

Liberal Hong Kong, but not for long?

Surveys in Hong Kong in recent years show a majority of people supporting same-sex marriage and legal protection of LGBT rights.

But the pro-Beijing lawmakers’ supporters in Hong Kong are in favor of more conservative values with heterosexual relations and reproduction at the core of social organization. Such views are in lockstep with Beijing’s gender education policy in recent years.

Earlier this year, the Education Ministry authored a policy proposal to promote masculinity in young men, amid a state-led discourse decrying the “feminisation” of this demographic. State and pro-government media have regularly complained about the popularity of male music and film stars known for their “delicate” good looks.

While there has been no indication so far that Hong Kong decision-makers will seek to block the holding of GGHK, the organizers are facing clear logistical challenges.

Thus far, GGHK has only managed to find half of the 56 sites they need for the games.

Without the help of government funded national sports associations, GGHK is only allowed to book sport venues six months in advance, rather than 12 months.

Up until last year, Hong Kong boasted East Asia’s only openly gay legislator – independent lawmaker Raymond Chan Chi-chuen, who entered the Legco in 2012. But Chan Chi-chuen quit the body last year in opposition to what he saw as Beijing’s attempts to manipulate the body. He is currently in police custody on subversion charges.

The mass resignation of pro-democracy legislators last November over Beijing’s decision to unseat four of their colleagues has left the Legco completely shorn of opposition voices.

support for gay marriage in hk as at an all time high but since we dont actually have a chance at having lawmakers that actually represent the people anymore, the discussion is now on the level of literally calling gay people ‘dirty’ https://t.co/q6fk0sUFf6

— nic (@NicMakesStuff) June 9, 2021

HK prosecuting & jailing its most internationally respected & progressive politicians while promoting governance by “patriots” like Junius Ho who spout hate like this is just so on-brand for the City Formerly Known As Asia’s World City right now. https://t.co/fGPVDJEckX

— Antony Dapiran (@antd) June 10, 2021

Local LGBT+ groups have joined social media in slamming the pro-Beijing lawmakers’ comments.

In an interview with Hong Kong Free Press, Director of the Hong Kong Pride Parade Wylie Yeo said:

The civil society is really supportive, citizens really support LGBT…We have never had so many businesses supporting Pride Month as this year… it’s just the people remaining in the Legislative Council who is out of touch… they are the ones dividing Hong Kong. The situation now is that because they have turned and twisted the LegCo election system into entirely ‘one country, one system,’ homophobic garbage like them are the only ones remaining in the LegCo.

Ricky Chu, chairperson of the government’s Equal Opportunities Commission, pledged that his body would continue to offer assistance to organizers, and urged the public not to stigmatize the games.