At last - The Premier League ditch Stonewall

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www.gbnews.com/sport/football/premier-league-ditches-rainbow-laces-stonewall

Thanks.

Take note, Newcastle United!

They're replacing stonewall with their own in house group and their own rainbow laces crap that will take over from the current bs in February for lgbtq + history month 🙄
Gift token for the telegraph article
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a786b09ff6ddd0d5

Thanks, another one bites the dust Stonewall. I wonder how many partnerships they are down to and who will ne the last one standing.

That will be the Scottish government

I'll see your ScotGov and raise you Welsh Govt - unless they lose the next election to Reform. What a choice ...

Back of the net!

Another revenue source lost. Stonewall edging towards relegation?

Let’s hope the FA go light on the “T”. It always seemed nutty to be promoting trans-inclusion whilst trying to develop the women’s game commercially. They will have realised that biological men on the pitch with women is not popular.

Well I hope so. How many more young girls do they plan to ban for making the point that men don’t belong on women’s teams? None, I hope.

I think the Premier League are doing the right thing, Their focus has been on trying to resolve the issue of gay men being accepted in football. It's been a difficult path. I expect they are wanting to target their support of LGBTQ+ and this might be difficult under the Stonewall banner which has yet to equalise it's support of all categories rather than their total focus on Trans. TIM's do not want to play in men's football and TIF's wont be up to the required standard without taking testosterone which is drug use.

Don't think this issue has any impact on anything other than Stonewall's income. Now Stonewall have had to step back from some of their TWAW ideologies, I would not want to see them fold. They did great work for gay people over the years. They lost their way, but they might be able to remedy

Another consequence of Stonewall’s overreach. I hope that the FA develops some sensible initiatives for tackling homophobia, alongside proper support for women’s football at all levels as a single sex sport (which of course should be fully trans inclusive, for all females not taking performance enhancing drugs such as testosterone regardless of ‘identity’).

bbc report
Premier League ends partnership with Stonewall https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cm2vkgelrwwo

Even without the trans furore this makes sense. I do not think that any organization should really need to keep on diversity consultants permanently. It is fine to have people come in and help out with their expertise as a one off but certainly an organization the size of the premier league needs to be able to keep its own house in order.

I agree and I hope there will be a greater and more diverse marketplace for consulting, based on being fair to everyone and balancing the rights of different PCs.

Given how few openly gay players the premier league has, I feel that the partnership between themselves and Stonewall has achieved very little to date in really changing attitudes in the sport, the media and the football fan public. It looks like little more than virtue signalling.

I look forward to this changing with the new direction and await with anticipation when it will welcome it's first transwoman player.

I'm not holding my breath.

Imagine if Stonewall had not got obsessed with genderwoo and had instead thrown its strength behind homophobia and toxic masculinity in men's sport, especially elite football.

Yes, in economic terms, Stonewall has just cashed in on a monopoly position, no wonder it has become corrupt.

Beowulfa I think this sums it up perfectly.

As far as I know, there is still no out gay male football player in the upper, well-publicised leagues. Homophobic abuse is commonplace on the terraces, as is sexist abuse - the two go together, a bad player is not manly enough so he must be a ..... and therefore he is called a ..... .

This contrasts with rugby, where there have been a number of high-profile players and officials - including the wonderful NIgel Owen, of 'I'm straighter than than throw-in' fame.
[I also liked his “I don’t think we’ve met before, but I’m the referee.” and to two players who were pushing and shoving “If you want to cwtch, do it after the match.”
Even if Stonewall wasn't Stonewall, on a purely pragmatic level it doesn't seem to have shifted the dial away from homophobia in men's football, and the inclusion of the T in LGBT has alienated people who have been challenging homophobia in football for decades.

As far as I'm aware English rugby union has only had one openly gay player ad that's Sam Stanley, who barely played a top flight match in his career. That's compared with two openly gay league footballers so far.

That's not to say football's record is anywhere near good on this matter, but let's not pretend that rugby union is any better.

Agreed @MarieDeGournay. There is one (1) out gay male player in men’s professional football in the UK, and certainly none in the Premier League. In 2025, that’s insane.

I wouldn’t particularly blame Stonewall for not getting that changed - homophobia about men runs very deep in this country. But I’d certainly like to see organisations taking this issue properly to their Boards and grassroots, rather than paying an external organisation to rainbow wash their presentation.

I think the relative ease with which gay officials [there are more of them than players, admittedly] have been accepted at the highest levels in men's rugby is noteworthy and it does seem to be different in football.
But I'm not hugely invested in defending the reputation of either rugby or football , I'm not much of a fan of either, and we can probably agree on this, Aphrodite89 - that men's sport has a long way to go to tackle homophobia, and Stonewall haven't helped much .

I just on a whim had a quick look at the front page of stonewall's (mobile) website, I was struck that all the photos on it appeared to be of 'LGB' people, & none of the headlines obviously exclusively applying to the 'T'... say 18 months ago I'm sure it'd have been very trans heavy, right, has the tide turned a little even for them?