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Pride Jersey Controversy

Which Tyler

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Not quite sure where to put this, is part sport as a whole, part rugby league, part politics... The Folau issue also brings it firmly into Union territory as well.
Probably deserves a thread of it's own, for both importance, and ease of moderating.

TL;DR
An Aussie NRL team wanted to wear a rainbow trimmed shirt to show inclusiveness, especially of LGBT+ community.
7 players refused to wear the shirt, or play in the match, on religious grounds.
Backlash and recriminations on both sides.

Good article here having a look at the subject of homophobia in Australian sport.
 
NC Courage's Daniels refuses to don Pride jersey
Five Tampa Bay Rays players decline to wear LGBTQ+ logo ...https://www.cbssports.com › mlb › news › five-tampa-b...
one in women's soccer one in baseball

I just think that it's odd that you wouldn't talk to the players about this before hand and set expectations. I would also fine the **** out of them for not fulfilling their contract. I am usually pro player in management kerfuffles but if you aren't gonna fulfill your end of the bargain you should expect consequences.
 
For me, it would be a point of principal.
Yes, you consult with the players beforehand, but you also lay down the law. This club supports equality, if you don't, then you can find a new employer.
 
Everyone is entitled to their freedom of beliefs though. Just because the club owner or however decided that they want to make this political statement it doesn't mean they should expect all their players to do the same.

It's a dangerous world where people are told what to do and support. They don't have to be homophonic if they don't want to openly support it though.
 
Everyone is entitled to their freedom of beliefs though. Just because the club owner or however decided that they want to make this political statement it doesn't mean they should expect all their players to do the same.

It's a dangerous world where people are told what to do and support. They don't have to be homophonic if they don't want to openly support it though.
It's mote complicated than that. You are rightly protected from homphobia in the workplace through anti-discrimination laws. If your making an anti-discrimination statement and people choose not to take part your employees could argue are being made to feel not wanted hy other employees. Which is a HR nightmare.

Put it this way has I know BLM was a shitshow int erms of some teams but has any player ever refused to wear a Kick It Out jersey?
 
It's mote complicated than that. You are rightly protected from homphobia in the workplace through anti-discrimination laws. If your making an anti-discrimination statement and people choose not to take part your employees could argue are being made to feel not wanted hy other employees. Which is a HR nightmare.

Put it this way has I know BLM was a shitshow int erms of some teams but has any player ever refused to wear a Kick It Out jersey?

Ferdinand and Lescott actually yeah - a few other PL players around then too. Very different reason (they thought it was tokenism) but yeah they have
 
So I think employer speech isn't usually accepted as employee speech. I know pocock would black out maker marks on his boots so as to not advertise companies he didn't agree with. He wouldn't black out sponsors on his kit even though I'm sure he would disagree with them.

Isn't there an Irish footballer who gets **** on for not wearing the flower every veteran's day?
 
Eh. I think this was handled very poorly by the club and they should have gauged player sentiment beforehand. Supporting equality need not and should not be reduced to superfluous gestures like these.

It would be far more meaningful to form alliances with local groups advocating for the welfare and opportunity of the gay community. Do some workshops, masterclasses or events to encourage more homosexual people to play the game and inculcate a love for rugby. A single pair of hands working is worth more than a thousand pairs of hands gesturing or 23 torsos clad in a rainbow stripe.

Of course, any explicitly homophobic activity undertaken by players must be dealt with promptly and appropriately (a la Folau). However, there can be a number of reasons why someone might choose to abstain from a gesture and no matter how one tries to frame it, quietly abstaining from something like this does not constitute discrimination.
 
That argument only holds any water for as long as you believe that "gestures" like this are "superfluous" which is patently not the case, as has been shown many, many times.
The further argument assumes that it's one thing or another - in the real world, people can wear shirts AND support local communities. It's not even multitasking.

Inclusiveness (and support) is important.
Demonstrations of inclusiveness (and support) are important.

The same goes for representation.

Out of interest, how would you feel if, instead of the message being "gay people people deserve to be treated like humans" it had been black, or Jewish, or any other oppressed minority?
 
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SO, i sit on the LGBTQI+ committee of a large +55k people, im not part of the community myself but i have friends that are and after talking to them i realised that is still hard work being "out" in a professional workplace in the 21st century, less than 50% of LGBTQI+ people actually feel comfortable being out. I want to help my friends feel more comfortable in an environment they spend +40 hours a week in.

I also pride myself (pun intended) on my team being high performing because everyone gets on, they dont have to second guess themselves or how they are present themselves

speaking to people in the community, these are exactly the kinds of gestures they WANT to see, in the office a rainbow lanyard or teams/zoom background are they little things that reminded them they are safe to be themselves, bigger gestures like these jerseys are where we make actual change, where people in even less accepting industries can be reminded there are people like them out there, theyre not alone

dismissing these things as just a political statement is just a bit ignorant and a cop out to cover up you own intolerance

In saying this, i dont have hate towards these players, they havent spouted hate online like Falou did, they just told the club they weren't comfortable...and the club said ok, personally i think they should have been able to play in the "normal" jersey which just has white stripes, you wont have been able to tell the difference on tv, but the NRL has strict rules that say jerseys all need to be identical

The only ones i think have really done wrong as those that have latched onto this whole think as an excuse to spout their intolerance, everyone having a go at the "WOKE" and their intolerance of people religious beliefs....theyre not being made to wear them, their religious beliefs are intact...they just couldn't play one game

I also dont think the club actually did much wrong, Sydney is the san fran of aussie, they have a huge mardi gras each year....like hundreds of thousands of people big, other professional clubs in sydney like the swans in the AFL host the pride round every year and have done pride jerseys for YEARS! without as much as a second thought, at most they have been a little ignorant to how strict these plays religious beliefs were...but as has been said they dont have problems with the betting company or alcohol sponsors...so yeah...not a huge assumption for them
 
side point....this is a jersey a local rugby club team wore for one round in melbourne this weekend....so yeah, those little stripes are SOOOOO GAY!

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Guys and gals - please read this in full before responding:

@Which Tyler I do in fact believe that most of these particular overtures in first world nations in the present day to be little more than corporate box-ticking exercises that patronise more than they aid. We can argue until the cows come home but "Patently not the case" and "many, many times" is not exactly a quantifiable, factual retort.

On your second point, you have assumed I made a false dichotomy. I didn't. I stated merely that I believed that the method I outlined was a more effective means of bringing about the desired outcome of inclusion. Of course it is possible to do both.

Demonstrations of support can be of the utmost importance. But this "controversy" was born out of a superficial gesture that furthered no cause, benefited no-one and served to fragment ourselves even more. For what? Where was the tangible benefit even if things went without a hitch?

You can't slap a band-aid on this stuff.

But your last paragraph is really what got me, and I won't lie, I found it spurious and pretty offensive (and I try very hard to resist being offended). Because I am a part of the populations whose honour you are trying so desperately to defend.

I do swing both ways (surprise!) AND I'm mixed-race. My family and I HAVE been victims of racism. Painstripper on our cars, threats of violence, invitations to leave facilities because of complexion etc . . . White patients would refuse preoperative assessments by my father, requesting a white surgeon instead. Let's leave aside the garden-variety good ol' racial slurs and the proactivity of law enforcement on the street, road and airports, because we'd be here for a long time.

I have tried to be respectful in all my postings here and to contribute something of worth. But this post sucks and is full of angry assumptions - I think for me, remaining a part of the forum is untenable.

All the best you lot. This is a special place and I hope you all continue to preserve it. I've learnt a lot and very much enjoyed your company. Cheers
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I am happy to be considered 'woke' (vigilant to bigotry) but I think it is easy to be overzealous and therefore counterproductive even when filled with the best of intentions.

Some causes have clear simplistic messages that I'd happily be associated with personally. The old LGB Pride message was clear (gay rights, same sex marriage, no discrimination based on sexuality) and extremely hard for me to argue against even as a Devil's Advocate. Even the 'contentious' element of mentioning it in school sex education classes just seems like a complete no brainer to me. Things like 'Kick It Out' was simple and clear (no to any bigotry). Same with 'Show Racism the Red Card'. You know what they are standing for and the limits of what they are standing for because they are simplistic. It shouldn't be confusing or contentious to anyone. I personally would have no issue with being contractually forced to be associated with those topics/causes and think for those causes it has benefits (even if folk like Rio Ferdinand don't think it goes far enough or is a fig leaf).

I like to consider myself informed but I don't have a clue what BLM and 'taking a knee' stands for when done in Scotland (with a tiny black population and a large (and ignored) south Asian population and a police force that police by consent rather than the more confrontational US or Continental European style). I have an aversion to being associated with things I don't know fully about, to an extent I don't wear clothing that displays a brand (and will go to the grave without waving a flag or singing an anthem). So I wouldn't have wanted anything with BLM to be imposed on me in any way and I wouldn't have taken a knee if I had a choice. I'd actually think it would be pretty insulting to my Asian acquaintances to do anything with BLM in Scotland. But I think I've made my fair share of posts and threads over the years (particularly about 'indigenous' South Africans and transformation) on the topic of race to show I'm not particularly big on racial generalisations, specifically in relation to sub-saharan Africans.

With LGBTQ+ Pride (if I'm getting that right) I similarly don't know what it stands for once you get past the first three letters. Wikipedia suggests it's about visibility (fine and clear) and equality (less clear when extended beyond sexual preference). I find it particularly confusing in the context of rugby at a time of stories like this.


If I'm associated with LGBTQ+ Pride am I condemning the above position as promoting inequality? Or am I neutral on it? I genuinely don't know. Am I endorsing all activity that permits kids to undergo irreversible (often risky and invasive) changes that are subsequently condemned and suspended in an independent review?


Or am I neutral on that? Does that come under 'equality' or is it something completely different? Is it linked to the pro-abortion movement's 'right to choose', or is that a false comparison?

Anyone that will believe a friend or relative over a stranger in a dispute has prejudices. I have prejudices. I dont think I have racial or LGB prejudices that are any stronger than any prejudices I might have towards certain groups of white people and straight people. But maybe that is wishful thinking on my part so I can feel better about myself?

Do I have prejudices about Trans people? Probably. Are they stronger than my prejudices against some groups of white people and straight people? Probably. I know I have a lot of uncertainty and a lot of questions and am incredibly unconvinced by arguments on either side of the debate that attempt to make gender self identification and realignment sound simple. I am definitely prejudiced against people on both sides of the trans debate who are convinced it is simple. One of my favourite sci-fi authors was Iain M. Banks, whose universe had near immortal, gender fluid people as standard (and as a kid i thought the concept of people being able to change into something they were happier with in these books was kind of nice). The natural world is filled by gender swapping animals (not biological 'accidents', but a core part of the species). It is clear that on the main measurements of a human sex, there are a significant amount of people who don't have a conclusive binary position. It is not unnatural to be that way.

However, I think the merging of LGB (purely about sexual preference, which doesn't impact on other people) with the very distinct matter of self gender identification (which does impact on other people) and realignment is at best horribly premature (while societies are still thrashing out the implications and complexities of the topic) and at worst a colossal mistake in a hostile world that will be counterproductive to the interests of the LGBs and the Ts in the medium to long term.

If some LGBTQ+ sponsor was on my sports shirt and it was my job, I'd just get on with things and keep my mouth shut. If my sports team told me I had to take a knee or had to wear an LGBTQ+ banner I'd tell them I wasn't happy, request that I could opt out or at least be able to post my own thoughts on the topic on social media to clarify my position (if I was forced to wear it / do it as a condition of my employment) and advise my employer I'd be bringing up the matter at the time of considering a contract extension. I'd then leave it up to the employer to decide how they wanted to handle it, would do what was demanded of me but at the very least would post on social media that I was contractually obliged to participate and was also contractually unable to talk further on the topic.

Maybe that makes me a 'bad' person. Its just how I feel after thinking things through. Loads of people will oppose BLM because they oppose anything anti-racist that doesn't favour their race/ethnicity. Loads of folk will oppose LGBTQ+ Pride because they will oppose anything other than heterosexuality. If you lump me together with those people because I've serious misgivings about the agendas and competence of BLM and LGBTQ+ then you are aiming your weapon at someone who 9 times out of 10 would be an ally. That's only ever great news for the enemy.
 
Its an odd one the first time I became aware of the T was 2001 when my college added it to the LGB Society. I didn't understand it all back then but its not something new by any stretch. My understanding is vast majority of LGB peeps are quite happy with the inclusion of T of course there are outliers in any group.

In recent years we've seen all kinds of letter added I think the longest acornym I've seen is LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, +anything else) no I didn't know what the I stood for until 5 seconds ago. I stopped at LGBTQ+ mainly because what is the point of Q+ if we keep adding the letters anyway.

So yeah its more an acronym for non cis-het people and I think their community is quite comfortable with the spectrum of inclusion and its not my place to tell them they should segregate them into specific self interest groups. They wish to speak as one and therefore that's okay.
 
i really got into the NHL a few years ago...but this stuff really puts me off if im honest, these acts of solidarity with the LGBT+ community do make a difference to lots of people
 
It's sad cause hockey was the first American sport to really embrace pride. Players were showing up to pride parade and the you can play project was started by nhl front office members.

Players have voiced their frustration. The player base is split between Eastern European, nordics, and then suburban and rural North Americans. Some players come from areas where lgbt+ acceptance is not popular.

Basically a few stars refused to participate in pride nights and everything fell apart. Lots of players still support "you can play" and pride nights but the league taking away their expression when they had no issue with players backing out of pride nights is going to sting.
 
i have had to leave the St Louis fan page on facebook as anything like this got real toxic real fast...seems there is sadly still a very vocal base that are against anything LGBT+

i do say though, much like the league jerseys....just let those that dont want to wear them not wear them, will be clear who the allys are and who aren't, these league aren't doing themselves or the cause any favours
 

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