Growing LGBT Acceptance In Women’s Football

The winner of the UCFB Journalism Competition argues that women’s football is steadily dismantling the stigma attached to gay women in sport. Alicia Pryzsieniak notes that she grew up without knowing of a single openly gay woman playing football, and contrasts that with a 2019 World Cup at which 41 players or coaches were openly gay or bisexual. She quotes Dr Stefan Lawrence, an expert in masculinity in sport, on the women’s game having a different culture and better levels of tolerance than the men’s, and cites Megan Rapinoe’s continued outspokenness on equality and Casey Stoney’s decision to speak publicly in 2014 about being gay. Acceptance is not complete, she writes – players still have valid reasons not to come out – but the trajectory in both the professional and grassroots game is changing.