Perspectives

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Teenage football fans arrested over vile homophobic hate: ‘It will not be tolerated’

Two boys were arrested on suspicion of making homophobic comments during the Manchester City v Burnley football game on Saturday (16 October). As well as the two teenagers, a third man in his 20s was apprehended by police at Etihad Stadium during the Premier League match. Greater Manchester Police said this arrest was a ‘separate incident’, on suspicion of a breach of the peace and police assault. No further details were given about the precise ages of each boy or which team they support. All three were held in custody for questioning over Saturday night and could now face possible […]

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NWSL and women’s soccer abuse scandal is about more than sexism

Two weeks ago, The Athletic published an incredibly harrowing story that rocked the world of women’s soccer. Multiple National Women’s Soccer League players accused a prominent coach, Paul Riley of the North Carolina Courage, of sexual coercion. (Riley has denied the allegations.) In the wake of the story, league Commissioner Lisa Baird resigned, Riley was fired and Steve Baldwin, the controlling owner and CEO of the Washington Spirit women’s soccer team, stepped down (more on that later). The players banded together and forced the cancellation of a weekend’s worth of games, and, when they returned to the pitch, brought with them public protest and […]

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U.S. must resettle LGBT refugees

At the end of August, the last U.S. passenger plane disappeared from Afghanistan’s horizons. The Taliban had finally taken control of the entire country after several days of battles and fire within the capital city. The leaders of the Taliban declared a new state of rule from the presidential palace formerly occupied by President Ashraf Ghani.  Soon after the Taliban’s taking of Kabul, Afghan men and women panicked in troves to the airport to flee oppressive rule. Getting a ticket onto an American bound plane was like winning the lottery for many Afghans.  Canada declared it would help resettle 20,000 […]

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Coming out is a life-long process

“Tell me about your coming out,” my 30-something friend Seth recently said to me. “It was more than a day!” I joked. National Coming Out Day (NCOD) is on Oct. 11. The holiday, celebrated yearly on Oct. 11, was first observed on Oct. 11, 1988. That date was the one-year anniversary of the 1987 queer rights march in Washington, D.C. More than half a million people were at the march, which was a turning point in the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Robert H. Eichberg, a psychologist who died in 1995, and gay rights activist Jean O’Leary, who died in 2005, co-founded […]

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How an Atlanta basketball team went from Republican hands to LGBTQ ownership

Last summer, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the nation, the players of the Atlanta Dream stood united against an off-the-court opponent: Kelly Loeffler, then a U.S. senator from Georgia and a co-owner of the team. Loeffler, a Republican, had publicly and repeatedly derided the WNBA for dedicating its season to social justice issues, and in response, players on the Dream and other teams across the league wore shirts endorsing Raphael Warnock, a Democrat who went on to unseat Loeffler in one of two contentious run-off elections in January 2020. It was around this time that talks to sell the […]

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After backlash, Illinois Catholic school reverses course, hires lesbian coach

Amanda Kammes was offered a position earlier this month as the head girls lacrosse coach at Benet Academy, a private Catholic high school in suburban Chicago. A day later, after Kammes submitted paperwork listing her wife as her emergency contact, the offer of employment was rescinded, according to Kammes’ supporters. The Lisle, Illinois, school justified its decision to “defer” Kammes’ offer at the time, referring to its mission as a Catholic institution.  “Benet Academy respects the dignity of all human beings to follow their conscience and to live lives of their choosing,” spokeswoman Jamie Moss said. “Likewise, as a Catholic school, we […]

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Homophobic chants grind Mexico football match to a halt

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Homophobic chants ground a football match in Mexico to a halt as players were forced off the pitch. Players left the field for some 10 minutes in the Concacaf Champions League semi-final second leg in Mexico City which saw Cruz Azul fair against Monterrey. At around the 64-minute mark in Azteca Stadium, the match was frozen as Cruz Azul fans began hurling homophobic insults from the stands. Cruz Azul was trailing Monterry 4-1 at the time. They had also resorted to similar homophobic language earlier in the match that forced referees to issue a stern warning. The supporters shouted the “goalkeeper […]

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NFL history made as Carl Nassib becomes first out player to take to the field

Las Vegas Raiders star Carl Nassib has made history as the first openly gay player to play during an NFL game. Nassib contributed to the Raiders nail-biting 33-27 win over the Baltimore Ravens on Monday (13 September). Nassib, who came out publicly as gay in June, told reporters that he was happy the team got to win on the “day I kind of made a little bit of history”. “I had a lot of people come before me in the LGBTQ community that helped me get to where I am, and I’m super thankful for that,” Nassib said, USA Todayreported. He added that the […]

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Living in a post-gender society

In the tail end of National Geographic’s “Gender Revolution” documentary, Katie Couric interviews Hari Nef, a trans model. Hari Nef is a beautiful trans woman, who has debuted at New York Fashion Week and acted in the TV show “Transparent.”  “So what are you hoping the future will bring,” Couric asks Hari.  Hari says,“I want a gender chill future. I want a community, a society, a world, that just chills out. About the freaking gender thing!” Hari Nef couldn’t be further from the truth.  The more we expect young people to conform to a male or female, the worse their […]

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What can the AIDS generation teach today’s activists?

The last decade has seen an explosion of films and books on the AIDS crisis, marking the end of the Second Silence — the amnesia toward the plague years evinced by many LGBTQ+ organizations in the late ‘90s and aughts. (The First Silence was Reagan’s callousness.) The desire to move on from AIDS was understandable — for more than a decade the community had fought a traumatic and exhausting struggle against a death sentence.  The emergence of antiretroviral drugs in 1996 marked both a victory for people with AIDS and an opportunity for activists to leave the past behind and […]

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