Rainbow laces

[namechanger563]

I'm seeing the Rainbow laces campaign promoted on social media again. I feel the last 12 months has seen a really important shift in women's football and many male football fans feel positive towards women's football when they were previously indifferent or negative.

When professional football clubs are promoting rainbow laces, they are saying they don't care about women's football. It's not about inclusion if it excludes women from the women's game.

Are there any handy resources that spell out Stonewalls approach to Trans inclusion and that they want to make the WSL mixed sex?

When professional football clubs are promoting rainbow laces, they are saying they don't care about women's football. It's not about inclusion if it excludes women from the women's game.

I don't think it's that simple. Football is one of the few areas of public life that is still very homophobic. Most people supporting the campaign won't have a clue about SW's position on women's sport and will just think they are opposing homophobia.

For now, sadly, we need to be careful that we are making clear, nuanced arguments and not just opposing everything Stonewall do as a reflex. They take every opportunity to paint GC Feminism as homophobic.

Eh? Rainbow laces started in 2013, long before Stonewall became a trans rights organisation.

We regularly see female footballers (who are predominantly gay) wear rainbow armbands.

Surely the women in the women's team know though? That their sport is under threat and a stonewall backed campaign is not helpful to them long term. It feels like cognitive dissonance to get behind rainbow laces when I know Stonewall don't support women's football.

I don't expect many men to support it either now, after the way Jordan Henderson has been criticised and booed for playing in Saudi Arabia. For any player now to support any anti-homophobia initiative, he will need to be quite sure he'll never want to accept the life changing money on offer when they reach the end of their career. It didn't used to cost a male player anything to stand up for gay rights, but now it's too risky to their public profile in the long term. It feels like a backwards move.

Yes. It was a really good campaign that has done a lot of good. But now supporting a Stonewall campaign feels to me as though I'm supporting their policy of trans inclusion in women's sport. I can't separate the two.