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equality popular culture sport - Rainbow Reporter

Rainbow Report tonight, Thursday June 11

June 10th 2009 23:06

Will Will Play AFL?(pic: The Age)

We talk to the transgender man who wants to play AFL:
Really Long Link

A special report from our own reporter on the turmoil in the New York State Senate – will it derail gay marriage?

Really Long Link

Plus

Gay rugby team appears on The Footy Show (NRL edition)

News of the first Diversity Conference for gay and lesbian servicemen and women.

And more

Tonight at 7pm onThe Rainbow Report, Joy 94.9 in Melbourne, streaming on the web www.joy.org.au

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Posted By: Doug Pollard - Category: Melbourne, censorship, discrimination, equality, gay lesbian politics, equal rights, popular culture, social commentary, sport

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Ian Thorpe is not gay, really

January 30th 2009 04:46

Clumsy PR fuels continued speculation

Not Ian Thorpe

Although he’s been out of the limelight for a while the world continues to be fascinated by Ian Thorpe’s sexuality – or so the tabloids tell us. Online feedback says different – “who cares” pretty well sums it up.

It will do Thorpe no good to get snippy about the attention – if you will occasionally fool around in campy fashions, share a house for three years with another bloke, take him home to meet the family and jet off on holiday with him, frolic in the surf - well, in these equal opportunity times, that’s almost as good as setting up a bridal registry at Rebel Sport and negotiating exclusive picture rights with Hello magazine. Especially when the other guy is such a cutie, and you’re making an early start on middle-aged spread.

I mean, at your age and condition, that’s the sort of thing most Aussie sporting identities do with a woman. Either that or cultivate a reputation as a serial shiela shagger, whether real or fake. There’s lots of publicity hungry ‘models’ out there who are be happy to be seen with a sportsman for a modest fee and a modelling contract. Some even get nice big rocks for their fingers into the bargain.

As your PR person, I suggest you rake up a few of these ‘ex-girlfriends’ and get them to sell their stories to the tabloids – unless they’re about you and Daniel at a spit-roast barbecue, that is. It needn’t be expensive – get your sponsors to pony up for it. After all, they’re the ones who really NEED you to be straight, aren’t they?

I mean, if you DID turn out to be gay – not that I’m suggesting you are – they’d then have no excuse not to put Matthew Mitcham on the books, would they? There’d be no excuse not to have a sexy wet gay boy in their lineup if it turned out one of their best ambassadors was one all along and nobody cared.

BTW where are these sponsors? I’d have thought they’d be out there trumpeting “we don’t care if he’s a quadrisexual Venusian escapee from a bad Torchwood episode, so long as he sells lots of cars/watches/weird Japanese soft drinks.” Instead, silence.

And your response to it all – well, I’m not actually your PR person (yet) but you couldn’t have done worse, really.

What you’re reported to have said is a) you’ve said before – you’re not gay, b) you’re upset that the current conjecture had hurt people around you and c) you draw the line when innuendo implicates people like your family and friends.

Well I understand that speculation about a son’s sexuality might upset a traditional Brazilian family, but in respect of a) above, the only way you can quash that once and for all is to do like Michael Klim, get married and produce a child no more than 9 months later; in respect of b) if you mean “Daniel’s upset that people might think he’s gay”, then why didn’t you say so – or more to the point, why didn’t he? You could have stayed out of it altogether.

Or you could have just laughed it off - you know, “Oh that old chestnut, haven’t you guys got anything better to write about? OK, just for you . . . it’s a swimming thing, I just love his clean entry and his stroke rate is phenomenal, specially in the backstroke, yeah, we did it in the back of the Audi with Daniel Kowalski once, he used my Omega for a cockring . . ha ha . . . now sod off you idiots, go bug Barnaby Joyce’s pet sheep or something.”

Instead you come out with all this stuff about how it doesn’t bother you, but your friend is all hurt. I mean, any closet queen is going to think they recognise that line. Rightly or wrongly, the picture is of Big Daddy defending his Boi. How sweet. How deadly.

Nope, your only hope now is for shots of you doing the do in the athletes village with a bevy of multinational female sports stars to suddenly surface on YouTube. I know a great video-maker who works really cheap, and there’s this porno body-double agency in LA, the only problem might be the feet, but we can CGI those. . . . . .

PS Swimmer Amanda Beard flatly denies relationship with Ian Thorpe Really Long Link - could she have a more appropriate name?

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Posted By: Doug Pollard - Category: equality, equal rights, newspapers, popular culture, same-sex, sport

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Footy IS homophobic - but could soon change

September 3rd 2008 10:22

Eddie McGuire congratulates Paul Medhurst - pic: Collingwood FC

Despite the head-in-the-sand attitude of the AFL, football insiders acknowledge there is a problem with attitudes towards sexual diversity in football.

AFL Media Manager Patrick Keane continues to insist that the AFL pollicy on vilification addresses the issue, but it doesn't even mention it.

The AFL rule in question makes no mention of sexual orientation; instead referring only to ‘conduct which threatens, disparages, vilifies or insults another person on the basis of that person’s race, religion, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin’.

The AFL Players Association Dr Pippa Grange disagrees. She says there’s much more that needs to be done on the issue.

She told MCV's Richard Watts "I do think that homophobia is alive and well in AFL football - as in any groups of Australian males, particularly in traditions where the whole part of you being involved in it is the gaining of masculine capital. It is there, but I don’t think it’s implicitly stated, and I don’t think it’s deeply held by the individuals.”

And Collingwood President Eddie McGuire also thinks footy has some work to do.

“I refer it back to the same principles as tackling racial vilification – when we started to tackle racism, I had a lot of people come up to me and say ‘Thank god we’re doing this: I used to shout racial abuse because I thought it was what you were supposed to do, but I didn’t really believe it’. It’s the same classic pack mentality in regards to sexual orientation, and football should be leading the way in that regard,” McGuire says.

Meanwhile the British Football Association, the FA, the equivalent body for soccer in the UK, has been dealing with the issue for more than five years.

The FA has:

• Expanded the role of its national free hotline for reporting racist incidents at matches to include homophobic comments and behaviour.

• Instructed referees that players or officials using homophobic language are in breach of Law 12, which bans offensive, insulting and abusive language on the pitch – and is punished with a red card offence. (A red card means the offending player must immediately leave the pitch and takes no further part in the match.)

• Secured the agreement of all clubs to change the rules at their grounds (2007-2008 season onwards), banning homophobic abuse, chanting and harassment. Offending fans are now ejected from the grounds and sometimes arrested.

• Established Respect, a ‘program of activities to combat unacceptable behaviour in our game at every level, on the pitch and from the sidelines’, in partnership with the Premier League, the Football League, and players, managers (coaches) and officials.

• Formed a close working relationship with the Gay Football Supporters Network, to monitor the effectiveness of the anti-homophobia program.

It's time the AFL took a lead from the FA, instead of doing sweet FA, and sticking its head in the sand.

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Posted By: Doug Pollard - Category: Melbourne, Victoria, discrimination, equality, equal rights, popular culture, sport

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Akermanis on gays in the AFL

August 20th 2008 08:22

Jason Akermanis

'Aka' is always outspoken, and often in trouble for it, and he's the one who has broken the AFL players silence on the issue of gays in Australian Rules Football

[ Click here to read more ]

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