Gay Gooners – The Arsenal supporters' group spearheadg clivy football | Football | Metro News

Contents:

• ‘THIS MUNY CHANGED MY LIFE’ ARSEBLOG NEWS TALKS TO GAY GOONERS FOR PRI
• ARSENAL’S GAY GOONERS AMONG ENGLISH LGBT SOCCER FAN GROUPS PHG FOR CLN
• GAY GOONERS
• PRI OF IRONS AND GAY GOONERS CELEBRATE RABOW LAC WEEKEND
• THE GOLN GAYS TICKETS
• GAY GOONERS: AT THE FOREONT OF FAN CLN
• EXCLIVE! ARSEBLOG NEWS SPEAKS TO GAY GOONERS ON THEIR 5TH ANNIVERSARY
• I MISS THE ARSENAL BUT MOST OF ALL I MISS MY IENDS - SAYS GAY GOONERS' MPAIGN OFFICER GEE RICE

‘THIS MUNY CHANGED MY LIFE’ ARSEBLOG NEWS TALKS TO GAY GOONERS FOR PRI

To celebrate, we ved members of GayGooners to share their experienc of Pri month, tellg what means to have been the first football club reprented at a Pri march. When a handful of found the GayGooners 2013, Arsenal was the first Premier League club to have an official LGBT supporters group.

When we started, homophobic and transphobic abe was still monplace at grounds and on social media, and sometim we uld feel like we were alone.

In 2022 I will be attendg my first ever Pri London, and I am so proud to be a part of the GayGooners ntgent for this important event.

ARSENAL’S GAY GOONERS AMONG ENGLISH LGBT SOCCER FAN GROUPS PHG FOR CLN

Wh football fandom is often still taboo to be out and a same-sex relatnship, and recent months members of GayGooners have been abed and asslted for a simple thg as wearg rabow lac to a game, or holdg their partner’s hand. It’s up to fan groups like ours to show the world that ’s ok to be Gay, Trans, Non-Bary, Pansexual, Queer, anywhere on the LGBTQI+ spectm and love the game. The support of the Arsenal fay - om the club, fellow fans and the iends who make up the GayGooners - at Pri n never be unrstated.

We are makg Arsenal for Everyone, every day - through allyship, through visibily and through thoands of GayGooners beg their thentic selv whether Gay, Lbian, Bi, Trans, Ace or Queer. Gay Gooners exists to provi a social group for LGBT+ Arsenal fans, alli and their iends to meet up, provi a safe and welg space, and mpaign to kick homophobia, biphobia and transphobia out of football. Gay Gooners holds meet-ups near Emirat Stadium before home fixtur, group trips to away gam and anis regular social events.

Gay Gooners’ patron and lifelong Arsenal supporter, edian Matt Lus says he is “immensely proud of and grateful to the club” for s support for the group and how “young gay fans now feel clud by the club a way my generatn never uld”.

GAY GOONERS

The club works directly wh members of the Gay Gooners to tackle anti-LGBT+ discrimatn football by vg members to take part cln trag for staff.

Last weekend, the club alongsi our LGBTQ+ supporters’ group, GayGooners, celebrated Pri by participatg a seri of events, culmatg the Pri In London Para, wh the highlights available to view above. After their open-top, double-cker float received a special send off om Mikel Arteta and some of our men’s first-team squad, the GayGooners partied alongsi club lleagu and Arsenal Women’s players Jen Beattie, Jordan Nobbs and Cal Foord, as they ma their way through the packed, lourful streets to soak up the ftivi. Speakg about their weekend, the GayGooners add: “We are credibly proud of the work we have done wh Arsenal over the years.

Gay Gooners were the first official LGBT Supporters Club English football and, wh over 1, 600 members currently, they are the largt the untry. Tim Stillman sat down wh -chair Carl Fearn and members Selena Chambers and Lucy about why Gay Gooners remas such a val muny for LGBT Arsenal fans. A member heard a homophobic chant the gents at Newstle away last year where there is obvly no police and no meras.

PRI OF IRONS AND GAY GOONERS CELEBRATE RABOW LAC WEEKEND

Last season, the club started playg a vio the stadium featurg several members of Gay Gooners, as well as Aaron Ramsdale and Kim Ltle, outlg a zero-tolerance approach to homophobic abe the stadium. “I was a pub jt when stadiums re-opened after vid and I heard some horrible homophobic and antisemic abe and the landlord said they didn’t really know how to handle .

“The suici rate among the LGBT muny is far higher than the general populatn, pecially among young gay men and a lot of that is due to that ntuo prsure. “So that homophobic chant or ment might seem like banter but for an LGBT person that’s nstant, that’s another thg to al wh, then there’s another a few mut later, then you read somethg onle or the paper and that prsure builds and people start to thk ‘if people really hate me that much what’s the pot?

Lonels is an issue for LGBT people and when you are alone and you are alg wh that, n lead to bad thgs and that’s another one of the reasons we really need a muny like Gay Gooners. However, Carl is eager to pot out that the Gay Gooners is not somehow exotic nor are the members different om any other Arsenal fans.

THE GOLN GAYS TICKETS

While the assumptn persists that society gradually liberalis over time, Carl says that homophobia the stands is very much a live issue. “The ‘Chelsea rent boys’ chant has e to foc now and people always say ’s not homophobic but let’s be very clear, is.

It is beltlg gay people; nobody would ever highlight sex between heterosexual people as a reason to mock a player. ” (Brighton is one of the ci wh the hight gay populatn Bra and Brighton fans have long been targeted wh homophobic abe om opposg fans).

GAY GOONERS: AT THE FOREONT OF FAN CLN

By the time you read this, Arsenal will probably have tweeted about Gay Gooners and London Pri, the annual LGBT ftival central London.

Thanks to @arsenal for makg this statement and to @OfficialBHAFC and all their fans who reported homophobic abe. Lucy draws a parallel between the environment for trans people now to the one gay and lbian people experienced a few s ago. “I joed Gay Gooners around five years ago but really only properly got volved last year around Pri, ” Selena explas.

Selena says the number of gay women who both play and watch women’s football means that the explosn of the women’s game has led to a greater number of lbian members jog the GGs. “The way the women’s game has explod this year, we have been able to brg a lot of fans om there so a lot joed this year om the women’s game and now we have a really strong followg of Gay Gooners at the women’s gam gam home and away.

EXCLIVE! ARSEBLOG NEWS SPEAKS TO GAY GOONERS ON THEIR 5TH ANNIVERSARY

It’s amazg to have those gay rolemols on the pch and the stands and ’s probably even more amazg for younger gay female fans to really have the high-profile gay women reprentg their club, who are so open about . “I get why don’t happen bee there would probably be issu the stands but I really wish our gay male fans had some of that, those rolemols the game who are jt like them and out about .

I MISS THE ARSENAL BUT MOST OF ALL I MISS MY IENDS - SAYS GAY GOONERS' MPAIGN OFFICER GEE RICE

Gay women women’s football have always been there but the spotlight is probably more tense sce the Euros (last summer). Among the roughly 1000 profsnal male footballers the top four levels of the English league system, not a sgle one is openly gay.

' How n you expect one man, right the middle of this pch, surround by 60, 000 people, to put his hand up and say, 'Hey, I'm the gay one, ' when not a sgle other person has done so? The Gay Gooners, found 2012, were England's first gay soccer fan group, and they now number more than 600, makg them the largt such group anywhere the world.

Even as the UK has ma huge stris toward LGBT equaly recent s, sual homophobia has remaed part of soccer culture.