Football isn't always the most welcoming place for LGBT+ people. In the professional game, homophobic attitudes are still all too common in the stands and things aren't much better on the internet.
But while it's easy to see these stories and feel disheartened, there are football clubs across Wales and further afield which welcome LGBT+ players with open arms. We spoke to Lily, who identifies as agender and said playing in goal for Cardiff Dragons FC, Wales' first LGBT+ inclusive football club, has brought them out of a depression and helped them find a circle of friends.
Lily said: "I’ve always been into football but growing up I was playing rugby because I’m Welsh! I was looking for more social opportunities amongst LGBT people and I found the Cardiff Dragons through Facebook.
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"It was a very welcoming environment - I’d only just come out as agender publicly so I was obviously quite nervous introducing myself to new people. Everyone was really accepting with my pronouns and such."
The Dragons field two 11-a-side teams - one made up predominantly of men and people with other masculine gender identities, which plays in the UK-wide Gay Football Supporters Network league and the Cardiff Casual League, and another team (Dragons Rock) which is open to all women, trans women and non-binary people and competes in a women's casual league.
There can sometimes be an overlap between the two teams and they train at the same venue. There's also a five-a-side team that plays once a week.
Lily explained the need for specific LGBT+ teams: "There’s the obvious answer in regards to professional football and the fans following it. Nowadays we have a lot more LGBT fan groups and such - it’s not like maybe, 20 years ago where if I was out of the closet and in my makeup and all that, I wouldn’t go watch a team for fear of abuse.
"Now you can go alongside people like you and be safe, but the issue still lies that we have to go in groups. At the grassroots level, it’s kind of a mixed bag - quite a few of our members have reported that they quit football when they were younger because of homophobic abuse.
"But then others of us haven’t had those issues. I’d say it’s gradually improving but any change like this is very glacial and people very slowly getting more accepting."
And for Lily, having a group of friends to play and chat about football with has been vital. They said: "For people like me, these clubs have made a difference. I was depressed before I joined the club, I didn’t really have many friends and it’s been a great turnaround playing with the Dragons.
"I don't think we go through a day without someone messaging the group chat - even if it's a message about the latest transfers. To give a personal example, quite often among LGBT friend groups when I mentioned that I was interested in football, they were like, ‘that’s boring.’ There is somewhat that stereotype that if you’re gay you can’t be into football or rugby."
Lily says that before joining the Dragons, they had to weigh up whether to talk about their identity with football fans and find out they hold prejudiced views, or whether to talk about football with LGBT+ friends who felt alienated by the sport. With the Dragons and other LGBT+ teams, you get the best of both - an accepting environment where everyone's football-mad.
Lily said: "I can’t go into numbers or anything like that but we have members across the community as well as a lot of ally members, which is great for us because it’s not just about being an LGBT+ team, it’s about educating people and trying to help our local community. We do look for friendlies against local teams who play both for the football part of it and raising awareness about issues - like against Man vs Fat, a team focused on fitness."
Lily's identity is agender (generally, agender people don't have an internal sense of being either female or male, nor a combination of male and female). Lily uses they/them pronouns and is happy with feminine pronouns too.
Anyone interested in joining Cardiff Dragons can get in contact via Twitter or Facebook. You can check out their website here.
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