A training session pre-Covid

Village Manchester FC, Manchester's gay and inclusive football club, have returned to training and competitive fixtures in line with the government's roadmap of easing restrictions.

The club are celebrating their 25th anniversary in 2021 - they were formed to give gay and bi men a safe, welcoming place to play and support football.

They now welcome transgender players, and have attracted an increasing number of straight allies attracted by the club's inclusive ethos.

There are four teams covering the full range of abilities. The first and second teams compete in the Lancashire and Cheshire League on Saturday afternoons, whilst the third and fourth teams play in the Manchester Amateur Sunday Football League on Sunday mornings.

They also compete in the national Gay Football Supporters’ Network (GFSN) Cup, which is made up of LGBTQ+ teams from around the country.

The club made it to 2020's Cup final before the first lockdown, which will be played as soon as travel restrictions are lifted.

Training for new players is on Wednesdays at 7pm at Trinity Sports Centre, close to the University of Manchester and MMU.

New players are welcome and anyone interested should read the information and complete the short form here.

April 1 marks 20 years to the day since the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage. Since that momentous day, 20.000 gay and lesbian couples have gotten married.

World’s first same-sex wedding in the Netherlands
At midnight on April 1, 2001, then-mayor Job Cohen married three gay couples and one lesbian couple in a joint ceremony at the City Hall in Amsterdam. Up until that point, same-sex couples could only enter into a registered partnership.



Of the 20.000 married same-sex couples in the Netherlands today, approximately 2.500 of them were married in 2001. Anne-Marie Thus and Helène Faasen were the first lesbian couple to be married, and are celebrating their 20th anniversary on Thursday. “We love eachother,” says Thus, who now lives together with her wife in Maastricht.

Amsterdam home to the most gay couples
Date released by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) has revealed that, perhaps unsurprisingly, Amsterdam is home to the most same-sex couples: 45 out of 1.000 married couples in the capital are same-sex couples, compared to a national average of 17 out of 1.000.

Since 2015, registered partnerships have become increasingly popular amongst both same-sex and heterosexual couples. Over the last five years, 44 percent of gay couples and 39 percent of lesbian couples have opted for partnerships over marriage. Researchers also looked into divorce rates among homosexual couples, and found that lesbian couples are more likely to divorce than gay or straight couples.

He isn’t the first gay celebrity to flip homophobia on its head—he’s just the best person for the job.



I was in fourth grade when I found out about gay people. My family had driven to Provincetown, Massachusetts, for a day trip, and as we walked down the street, I watched shirtless men holding hands and kissing. Suddenly, it felt like the hurricane in my head that’d been picking up speed for months had quieted; everything clicked into place. I felt, for the first time, not alone and not insane.

I didn’t have the words at the time, but that didn’t matter because my male middle school classmates did. It was only months after Provincetown that they started calling me gay, pointing out the way I talked (“gay”), walked (“gay”), sat (“gay”), and more or less just existed (“gay!!!!”). The word and its synonyms—“homo,” “fruity,” and “faggy” choice among them—became my waking nightmare. I started correcting my behavior and amending my taste, hoping it’d stop the onslaught. Instead, I retreated even further into the closet. I was only 11. Twelve years would pass before I could call myself by their names.

There’s no bigger thrill as a member of the alphabet mafia than to see someone vocalizing and externalizing their queerness in bright, bold strokes.

I’m one of the lucky ones—the only physical harm I faced at the hands of my (assumed) sexuality came when I was pelted in the stomach with a dodgeball at 14 and threatened by a group of high schoolers with lacrosse sticks when I was 15. But not everyone has that luxury. It’s a gay blessing to be able to spend decades unpacking childhood trauma, big or small, instead of falling victim to it. It’s a shared language we lucky ones speak, and the strongest of our ranks can channel that persecution into power—which is why there’s no bigger thrill as a member of the alphabet mafia than to see someone vocalizing and externalizing their queerness in bright, bold strokes.

Someone like Lil Nas X.

The 21-year-old star proved that we don’t make progress by only preaching to the choir when he shook up the music industry with “Old Town Road,” a 2019 chart-topping and Grammy-winning sensation that appealed to country fans, hip-hop obsessives, parents, and children (even though the track is about “lean and adultery,” something he’s not shy to admit).

His new single “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” is a tongue-in-cheek track that flips fire and brimstone into art and profit. Predictably, it’s earned a truly ridiculous amount of pearl clutching from conservatives who claim he’s poisoning his young fans with images of him grinding on Satan. But Lil Nas X has always shown who he really is: He came out as gay months after “Old Town Road” dropped, although it seems like fired-up right-wing Twitter abusers (Candace Owens and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem among them) missed the memo.

In the “Montero” music video, the singer pole dances his way to hell and gives the devil a lusty lap dance before usurping his throne, a literal and laugh-out-loud reclamation of the eternal damnation we’re told to prepare for if we “choose” to lead our lives as gay people. It’s gleeful, it’s glorious, and it’s very, very gay—and it’s been pissing off mommy bloggers and Christmas Christians for almost a week.



The conservative and religious outrage that followed the release was immediate, red-faced, racist, and predictable, playing perfectly into the media-savvy entertainer’s expectations. None of the backlash acknowledged the genius of flipping decades of homophobia on its head. “They will say I’m pushing an agenda,” Lil Nas X wrote when the song dropped. “The truth is, I am: the agenda to make people stay the fuck out of other people’s lives and stop dictating who they should be.” His note ends with a promise: “Sending you love from the future.”

Now that the pandemic is over we can go back to our regularly scheduled program. 

CNN Boulder reporting


       

Conor McDermott-Mostowy competed for Team USA at the World Championships. He’s found acceptance in speed skating.


2021 U.S. champion. He hopes his story and presence in speed skating help other people.

Conor McDermott-Mostowy is a speed skater on the rise.

After a strong performance representing the United States at the 2021 World Championships in February, and then following up with a double-title-winning performance at the U.S. Championships last week, he’s nearing the top of his game.

Having only started in long track a few years ago after a few somewhat disappointing years in short track, his success this season hasn’t been a shocker, it’s simply been “somewhat unexpected.”

Yet here he is, having finished the most rewarding season of his career and now taking aim at the Olympic Games.

Through all of it — the years toiling in short track, multiple Junior World Teams and representing Team USA — McDermott-Mostowy has never hidden being gay from his fellow speed skaters.

Coming from a supportive family and community in the Washington, D.C., area, he’s never felt the need to keep his true self a secret. Yet he’s also never been one to wear a rainbow flag on his sleeve.

Somewhat uncomfortable with starting a conversation with people about him being gay — where do you start? — he’s instead been happy to answer any questions, just be who he is, and always figured that if a reporter asked him about it, he’d tell the truth.

So when Outsports reached out to him on Instagram a few weeks ago after he followed our account, his casual approach to his personal life came through: “I’d be happy to chat about it.”

Now he’s sharing his story as an elite world-class athlete — who just happens to be gay — for the first time.

Busting the stereotypes of a gay athlete
While acceptance has abounded in his family and speed skating network, the aura of sports and the misconceptions of gay athletes have in part held him back from being more fully “out” in the open.

He’s never, for example, posted something on Instagram that would tell a fellow athlete that he’s gay. Instead, subtle nods — some face sparkles and tagging men’s swimwear designer Parke and Ronen, popular with gay men — did the talking.

The idea of gay men not being athletic or good at sports has sat with McDermott-Mostowy for years and kept him from being more — for lack of a better term — proactively out.

“I think I’ve kind of always had that at the back of my mind,” he tells me from his apartment in Salt Lake City, on the latest episode of the Five Rings To Rule Them All podcast. “I don’t want to talk about being gay, because there’s a stereotype that gay guys aren’t athletic, and I don’t want that to be held against me or used to justify a bad result.

“I’ve been uncomfortable with that. But I feel like at this point, no one can say anything.”

The Pope has decreed that the Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex unions because God "cannot bless sin".

The Vatican's orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a formal response to a question about whether Catholic clergy can bless gay unions.

The answer, contained in a two-page explanation published in seven languages and approved by Pope Francis, was "negative".

The decree distinguished between the church's welcoming and blessing of gay people, which it upheld, but not their unions since any such sacramental recognition could be confused with marriage.

The note immediately disheartened advocates for gay Catholics and threw a spanner in the debate within the German church, which has been at the forefront of opening discussion on issues such as the church's teaching on homosexuality.

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for greater acceptance of gays in the church, predicted the Vatican position will be ignored, including by some Catholic clergy.

He said: "Catholic people recognise the holiness of the love between committed same-sex couples and recognise this love as divinely inspired and divinely supported and thus meets the standard to be blessed."

The Vatican holds that homosexual people must be treated with dignity and respect, but that gay sex is "intrinsically disordered".

Catholic teaching holds that marriage between a man and woman is part of God's plan and is intended for the sake of creating new life.

Since gay unions are not intended to be part of that plan, they cannot be blessed by the church, the document said.

"The presence in such relationships of positive elements, which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated, cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator's plan," the response said.

"God does not and cannot bless sin: He blesses sinful man, so that he may recognise that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed by him," it said.

Francis has endorsed providing gay couples with legal protections in same-sex unions, but that is in reference to the civil sphere, not within the church.

His comments were made during an interview with a Mexican television station, Televisa, in 2019, but were cut by the Vatican until they appeared in a documentary last year.

While the documentary fudged the context, Francis was referring to the position he took when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires and Argentina's MPs were considering approving gay marriage, which he and the Catholic Church opposed.

Then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio instead supported providing legal protections for gay people in stable unions through a so-called "law of civil cohabitation".

Francis told Televisa: "Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God."

Speaking of families with gay children, he said: "You can't kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered."

In the new document and an accompanying unsigned article, the Vatican said questions had been raised about whether the church should bless same-sex unions in a sacramental way in recent years, and after Francis had insisted on the need to better welcome and accompany gay people in the church.

In the article, the Vatican stressed the "fundamental and decisive distinction" between gay individuals and gay unions, noting that "the negative judgment on the blessing of unions of persons of the same sex does not imply a judgment on persons".

But it explained the rationale for forbidding a blessing of such unions, noting that any union that involves sexual activity outside of marriage cannot be blessed because it is not in a state of grace, or "ordered to both receive and express the good that is pronounced and given by the blessing".

Metropolitan Mercurius of Rostov and Novocherkassk denies that he knew the former priest was gay.

A gay, Russian former priest who fled to Holland after coming out has claimed that homophobic clergy sleep with their superiors for promotions.

Alexander Usatov was a Russian orthodox priest in the Rostov and Novocherkassk diocese until he quit his position around a year ago.

At the time he wrote an opinion piece for Snob, explaining that he had lost his faith, and that the “belief in an anthropomorphic heavenly being, who is angry and takes revenge on people” had become “alien and unpleasant” to him.

But he has now revealed that he was forced to leave the church, and even fled the country, because he is gay and was being harassed and bullied by colleagues and superiors.

This week he wrote another piece published by Snob, in which he said that he fled to the Netherlands with the help of LGBT+ activists in the EU.

The former priest wrote: “I am gay and have never felt safe in the Russian orthodox church, and in recent years I have become the object of persecution by the Metropolitan and his entourage, who knew about my orientation.”

He said he had come out to Metropolitan Mercurius, whose secular name is Igor Ivanov, the head of the Rostov and Novocherkassk diocese, which he soon came to “regret”.

Usatov claimed that it was common for priests in the Russian orthodox church to sleep with higher-ranking church leaders for promotion.

He wrote: “Gays in the Russian orthodox church are in a dual situation.

“On the one hand, everyone knows about the existence of the gay lobby and the opportunity to make an easy career after going through the bishop’s bed.

“On the other hand, the most active parishioners of the church are ardent homophobes, and by relying on them, the church is building out of itself a stronghold of traditional sexual morality.”

Usatov said that another priest, who he claims was sleeping with other men, because aware of his sexuality after he came out and wrote a “denunciation” of him.

He said: “He didn’t like the fact that I was talking with the guys he had an eye on, and out of jealousy, he began to spread false rumours about me, scare the Metropolitan, and even write denunciations… I think he was intimidated by the possibility of his own exposure.”

Usatov was accused of “support for [political opposition leader] Navalny, propaganda of opposition ideas and LGBT+ campaigning among young people”.

He was fired, and eventually the former priest became so fearful of the repercussions that he fled the country.

A spokesperson for Metropolitan Mercurius has denied that the leader ever knew that Usatov was gay, insisting that if it had, he would have lost his job “long ago”.

He added: “A homosexual priest would have long been asked to remove the cross if he was unable to put on his pants.”

Despite all he has been through, the gay former priest is settling into life in the Netherlands, and said he is enjoying being able to be his true self, “which I was deprived of for all 30 years of being in the church”.

Usatov added: “People who tried to harm me, on the contrary, helped me to free myself and find a new, more fulfilling life.

“I do not hold grudges against them, now my thoughts are occupied with tulips, mills and scientific ideas.”

The Golden Age superhero comes out in Infinite Frontier #0

Alan Scott, the original superhero in the DC Universe to take the name The Green Lantern, is finally coming out in the comics’ mainstream continuity.

First introduced in 1940, the original version of Scott was straight and over the years, got married to two different women and even had kids. In 2012, an alternate universe version of the character was introduced into the DC Universe who was gay and had never married a woman. This will be the first time that the Golden Age version of the character is confirmed as gay.

Scott comes out in the comics in Infinite Frontier #0, written by out comics writer James Tynion IV, where he tells his twin children, Jade and Obsidian, that he’s gay. “Back in an earlier time I kept a part of myself hidden from my friends and peers,” he tells them. “I even let myself get married a few times to women I did love with all my mind, but I did that knowing there was something about myself I was hiding away.”

“I’m gay," he continues, “I let a few of the boys in the [Justice] Society know back in the day, and I’ve had a good deal of… friends over the years.”

“How incredibly brave of Alan," Wonder Woman responds.

This news comes ahead of an upcoming Green Lantern animated series coming to HBO Max, developed by Love, Simon and Arrow creator Greg Berlanti. Berlanti has called the show “the biggest DC show ever made.”

Scott is set to be one of the main characters of the 10-episode show, which is being written by Seth Grahame-Smith (The Lego Batman Movie) and Arrow co-creator Marc Guggenheim. The show will “span several decades” and “focus on two stories about Green Lanterns on Earth,” as well as stories in outer space according to HBO Max Head of Original Content Sarah Aubrey. The show will also feature other Green Lanterns like Jessica Cruz, Simon Baz, Guy Gardner, Sinestro, and Killowag.

The show has already confirmed that Scott would be gay, "true to the comics."

George Takei is helping one gay man fulfil his dream of going to space

George Takei is backing one man’s bid to complete his Star Trek legacy and become the first ever openly gay man in outer space.

Takei was firmly in the closet while he played the USS Enterprise‘s intergalactic helmsman, so he’s now living vicariously through Jon Carmichael, a gay astrophotographer who’s hoping to make it to the stars.

Carmichael is fighting to be one of four crew members aboard the Inspiration4, the first all-civilian space mission – and he has Sulu’s full support.

“First gay man to go to space? I certainly can relate to that dream!” Takei tweeted to his 3.2 million followers.

“Jon’s story is truly inspired. To my LGBTQs and allies, can we make this young man’s day with a RT barrage? Let’s give it maximum warp and help send Jon on that mission!”


Star Trek star George Takei


Photographer Jon Carmichael

The Kings Cross Steelers played at the Bingham Cup in 2018 in Amsterdam, the last time the event pas played due to COVID-19, and while they didn't place, a sense of community was ever-present.

When Eammon Ashton-Atkinson, an Australian television reporter, decided to film his rugby club as they went to the biannual Bingham Cup in 2018, he could never have imagined the positive reaction a documentary about it would receive.

The film Steelers is about London-based Kings Cross Steelers, the world's first gay rugby club and one of over 60 such sides world-wide. Although the stories in the film are related to the struggles of coming out, depression, and a history of bullying for being gay, they're are told in a way which wider audiences can empathise with.

"It's a story about a gay rugby club, but it's also a story about human struggle, and people using sport and their sense of community to help each other, which is universal," Ashton-Atkinson told ESPN.

"I've never done this before [made a documentary], I just knew there was a good story there to be told, but I didn't really expect such a great reaction and I was surprised that allies in the straight community really connect with the film."

The film, released in late 2020 in Australia, also highlights the challenges women in the rugby world face, through the team's then-director of rugby Nic Evans. The former Wales international explains the frustration of being underestimated and overlooked in her coaching because she is a woman coaching a men's team.

"She's got a certificate for the highest coaching level, and since she left the Steelers she's been consistently overlooked and not even shortlisted [for jobs] than men who are less qualified and less experienced than her, which is heart-breaking and disgusting," Ashton-Atkinson says.


Steelers: The world's first gay rugby clubWatch the trailer for 'Steelers' which tells the story of the people behind the world's first gay rugby club.

Though being gay in 2021 in western society is often unremarkable today, you don't have to go back very far to find traumatic stories. Ashton-Atkinson, now 34, vividly tells his story about being bullied at school.

"It's about that whiplash that a lot of LGBT people have where we are celebrated now, but 15-20 years ago we weren't. We've gone from having these horrible experiences which had left so many big scars to now just being like, 'Well everything is ok so you should just get on with it and be grateful,'" he explains.

"That whiplash is what caused me the depression because I grew up always being bullied everyday relentlessly, and that meant I struggled to form friendships and didn't know how.

"I became very insular and cut off from my family and so all those things took a long time to repair to the point where I join the club and for me that was the final healing I guess I needed from all those experiences."

But, if it's easier to come out now, then why do we need gay rugby clubs?

"People say, 'Shouldn't you just play for a straight team?' And I guess that's the whole point of the film," he says.

"We all need our community and a place where we can just be ourselves and in sport in particular there still is huge levels of toxic masculinity, so if I wanted to play at a straight club, I would have to question is it safe to come out? Will people treat me differently? Will things be said behind my back?

"That's a thought that does go through your mind, and while it's generally a positive there are still pockets of homophobia."

Steelers club chairman Matt Webb goes even further, telling ESPN: "I think that still ties in to the need for people to come together in the same community who have shared lived experiences. There's still a lot of trauma around the LGBT community in sport.

"I always come back to, 'Why do you need a London Scottish or London Irish team' -- people have a shared history, want to be around and with familiar people."


A scrum is a scrum is a scrum, no matter who you fancy off the field. Steelers film

- Mark Bingham: The rugby player and his legacy

The film itself almost didn't come out at all. Ashton-Atkinson forgot to back-up the 45-minute edit he had been working on for months when reformatting his computer. Frustrated, he threw the hard drive into a drawer for a year. Then, in 2019, Australia's Israel Folau spouted his infamous anti-gay comments on Instagram, saying "hell awaits" gay people.

Ashton-Atkinson opened the drawer and started the edit again from scratch, and turned it into the unconventional documentary it has become. "I thought, you know what, f--- you, I'm going to finish this film as a response to him, in a way."

What was his reaction when he first heard the Folau comments? With the expletives removed, he said: "So my first reaction was a massive eye roll... Why? Why do you need to say that even if you believe it? You're supposed to be a role model and, ok, if you hold those strong religious views the bible says you shouldn't have tattoos and you're covered in them...

"You're a sportsman, play sport and be a good role model -- people look up to you and we're talking about people's lives and mental health here. Not just some flippant throwaway comment, so yes you might be good at throwing and kicking a ball but that doesn't give you the right to invalidate people for who they are.

"With being gay, you don't think that I grew up desperately wanting to change my sexuality, like, wishing the gay away? I remember I would say to myself, 'You have to think about girls', you know, 'Go on dates with them and you'll eventually just grow to like that' and it was awful."

The birth of the Steelers

In classic London style in 1995, a group of blokes sat around a table with a pint in a Kings Cross pub and drew up the plans. Since one of the original six was a fan of Pittsburgh's NFL team, the Kings Cross Steelers was born.

But it wasn't plain sailing. Letters were sent to 120 clubs asking for games, and most didn't get back to them. They were dubbed in the tabloids as 'Harlequeens,' there was homophobic comments, and a fear over contracting HIV and AIDS. A 'what happens if they start bleeding on the pitch?' attitude.

"For those of us who grew up when it wasn't ok to be gay, just really before the internet was common, there was huge stigma. You had Margaret Thatcher's Section 28 [a law brought in the UK by a Conservative government from 1988-2003 to the "prohibit the promotion of homosexuality"], misconceptions about the HIV virus," Ashton-Atkinson explains.

"For those guys who were setting up that team in 1995, they were real trailblazers because they were going out to different teams in Essex week-in-week out smashing down stereotypes one game of rugby at a time and from what I heard, these men in Essex, they had never met an openly gay man before, let alone an openly gay sportsman.

"For them to just pretty much realise, 'Hey, we're pretty much the same as you'. I think that's the best advocacy they could have done and it's people like that that we owe a lot of thanks to because they're the ones who made it easier for us to come out now."


The Kings Cross Steelers was the first all-inclusive gay rugby club in the world, and there have since been 60 other such teams formed worldwide. Steelers film

Webb says a lot of the aforementioned attitudes have gone. However, "There are still issues with homophobia and homophobic language being used on the pitch.

"And one of the things we've been working on with Harlequins and Monash University is that a lot of that isn't actually homophobia, it's the culture of clubs, the challenges of languages not being followed through.

"People using the same words because they want to look big and impressive, or prove their masculinity. There still is that toxic masculinity in sport and in a game where it's tolerant but not fully inclusive."

In February last year Harlequins became the first team to host a professional Pride game. This month they launched a LGBTQ+ supporters association to provide an inclusive space for fans.

The film blends the stereotypes of 'traditional' macho rugby for 80 minutes, verses becoming drag queens a few hours later. The club atmosphere allows people to be who they want to be without holding back. It's a heart-warming mix of humour, then empathy, as the pangs of suffering it took for individuals to get there tug on the heartstrings.

"It shows what rugby should be and can be -- it can be about that masculine butch side on the pitch where you have to be aggressive and ready to protect your body and your teammates on the line, but it doesn't mean you can't also talk about the mental health issues that come alongside being a young adult in this world," Webb says.

"The ability to juxtapose that with drag and the fact there is still misogyny and poor treatment of women in the sport. Highlighting those is important but seeing the successes as well that people can overcome it and seeing that the benefits are there if people put the work in to get to it."

Originally, he wasn't going to include his own story in the film. But: "If there's going to be a random Aussie voice in this film about a British club I need to explain who I am. And if I need to explain who I am, then I need to tell my story.

"So I didn't want to make it about me but I thought there might be more power if there's a first-person story so you're seeing the club through my eyes."

With negatives come the positives. In short, the club changed his life, he met his husband John there, and his band of brothers. "For the first time in my life I felt like I'd found a place where I belong, I could be fully myself and I've never had so many friends before. The best moments of my life were in that rugby club."

"Sports people have so much influence, they are like modern day gladiators and young kids do look up to them. We have so many allies like James Haskell who is in the film, you couldn't ask for better. That's the flip side when people come out and support the community that means a lot," he says.

Steelers is available to watch in the UK as part of the Glasgow Film Festival from Feb. 26- March 1.