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.

How about a thread where we can share some pics of how we've made our homes "our own"?

Do you have an unique or quirky decor items?  Something that expresses your humor or style?

Share the descriptions or pictures here.

The downtown skyline is reflected in Lake Eola downtown, on Jan. 6, 2021, in Orlando, Fla.

“You often think of LGBTQ people in large cities like San Francisco, but we’re everywhere."

ORLANDO, Fla. ”” Once known for singer Anita Bryant’s anti-gay rights campaign and a ban on gay and lesbian adoptions, Florida is now home to two metro areas with among the highest concentrations of gay and lesbian coupled households in the U.S., according to a new report released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Orlando and Miami had the fourth and sixth highest percentages respectively of same-sex coupled households in the U.S., according to the report released this week using data from the bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey.

San Francisco, Portland and Seattle topped the list. Austin was No. 5 and Boston came in at No. 7. But they were joined in the top 10 by some unexpected metro areas like Baltimore, Denver and Phoenix. Noticeably absent were three of the nation’s largest metros: New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Though they have some of the nation’s most visible LGBTQ communities, the vastness of their metro areas dilutes the concentration.

The appearance of these metros on the list shows that tolerance isn’t limited to large coastal cities, gay rights advocates said.

“You often think of LGBTQ people in large cities like San Francisco, but we’re everywhere,” said Jeremy LaMaster, executive director of FreeState Justice, a Baltimore-based LGBTQ advocacy organization for Maryland.

The report focused on same-sex couples, both married and unmarried, and not gays and lesbians who are single. About 1.5 percent of all coupled households nationwide were same sex. The cities on the top 10 list ranged in concentration from San Francisco’s 2.8 percent to Baltimore’s 2 percent.

In the District of Columbia, which was categorized along with states in the report, 7.1 percent of coupled households were same sex.

In Florida, acceptance of LGBTQ communities has been driven at the local level, with passage of human rights ordinances, fast-growing populations from all over the world and gay-friendly companies from the hospitality and entertainment industries, said Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, an LGBTQ advocacy group.

While Orlando already had a visible gay community with out elected officials and workforces like Disney World with large numbers of gays and lesbians, the collective grief from the massacre at the gay Pulse nightclub in 2016 helped push that acceptance into more conservative corners of civic life such as local churches.

“Miami is a port city and Orlando is the epicenter of amusement parks and hospitality, so it makes perfect sense,” Smith said of the high concentrations of same sex households. “The cities have led the way for sure, rebuilding Florida’s image from a really hateful history.”

That history stretches back to the 1970s. That’s when Bryant, an early-1960s pop singer and brand ambassador for the Florida Citrus Commission, headed a campaign that led to the repeal of an ordinance in Miami-Dade County prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in one of the earliest organized fights against gay rights. Florida also was the last state in the U.S. to end its ban on gay and lesbian adoption when a court ruled it violated equal protection rights in 2010.

Austin, Orlando and Phoenix have been among the metropolitan areas with the largest population growth in recent years.

Phoenix’s general meritocracy, which comes from being a relatively young community with a constant influx of new arrivals, has made it welcoming to gay and lesbians, said Angela Hughey, president of ONE Community, a business coalition that advocates for inclusion and equality.

“It’s a very broad city and we are in every neighborhood,” Hughey said Thursday.

In Baltimore, residents have had an appreciation for a camp aesthetic that now would overlap with queer culture. A favorite son, after all, is filmmaker John Waters, and the city celebrates the unconventional, as evidenced by the annual HONFest where celebrants sport beehive hairdos and cat-eye sunglasses. The city also has a vibrant vogue ball scene.

“Part of me feels like I need to give a shout-out to John Waters,” said LaMaster, referring to the filmmaker behind cult movies made in Baltimore, such as “Pink Flamingos” and “Hairspray.” “But it’s not just John Waters. There is a rich heritage and history that can be found here.”

LaMaster, who lived in New York City before moving to Baltimore, said the Maryland city lacked the visible gay scene found in a neighborhood like Chelsea in New York City. But Baltimore made sense for same sex couples wanting to set up households in a state that has been a leader in laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as allowing second-parent adoptions, he said.

“The work isn’t done. That’s my takeaway,” La Master said. “Even though there has been tremendous progress, I think there’s always room for improvement.”

Twilight’s Kiss, 2021

“To survive, they’ve had to ignore who they are,” says director Ray Yeung about the elderly gay men of Hong Kong, the subject of his latest film, Twilight’s Kiss.

For a long time, the future was inconceivable for gay men. Even before the Aids pandemic, social stigma led to the pathologisation and criminalisation of the global community. Gay men lived in the shadows of society, maintaining their veneer of heteronormative stability by marrying straight women at great cost to themselves and their families.

This idea of hiding one’s identity might seem like a distant memory to today’s self-actualised youth. Still, we purposefully leave behind our forebears to carry their trauma alone. “Their sadness and shame” are the story Yeung wants to tell. He says, “We wouldn’t be where we are today without what these men have gone through. They need to be seen.”

Twilight’s Kiss was first introduced as Suk Suk ”“ Cantonese for “uncle”, both in the familial sense and as an honorific for older men ”“ at the 24th Busan International Film Festival. It is Yeung’s best film yet, a meaningful and refreshing portrayal of the inconveniences of ageing and romance, starring two elderly, closeted gay men. Relationships between older people are a topic rarely examined in the youth-oriented genre of LGBTQ+ films. “Investors don’t see the marketability and commercial value of old bodies, especially in the context of gay films. It’s all about hot young men. There is a lot of ageism in the gay scene,” says Yeung.

Twilight’s Kiss, 2021
Twilight’s Kiss, 2021(Film still)
And he’s right. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen any film, gay or straight, that focused on senior romance. When it’s portrayed, it’s usually about an older man lusting over a younger one. Or it’s about an elderly couple who met during their youth and are lifelong partners. Twilight’s Kiss instead imagines two men already in their formative years and getting another chance at love. “Two men, at peace with their age and bodies, hoping to find their soulmates,” says Yeung.

Inspired by Professor Travis Kong’s Oral Histories of Older Gay Men in Hong Kong, the story follows Pak (Tai Bo), a gruff grandfather who swam to Hong Kong during the Cultural Revolution and toiled for years as a taxi driver. After his kids grow up and move away, he starts cruising and eventually crosses paths with a soft-spoken romantic named Hoi (Ben Yuen). Hoi suggests the two “become friends first”, but Pak brusquely rejects the offer, saying, “another time, then”. After a second chance meeting, the two men start opening up, commiserating about being stifled by their families and swapping stories about their granddaughters. Pak’s wife Ching (long-time stage actress Patra Au), perpetually bothered by life, senses that Pak has been led astray. Hoi, on the other hand, is beholden to his strict, humourless, religious son, who has replaced him as the patriarch of the family.

Nevertheless, Pak and Hoi fall into a clandestine, risky love affair. Intimate moments of caring and kindness are thoughtfully directed as the two men go on dates, strolling through wet markets and seeking refuge in a gay sauna. “I wanted to show that two old bodies are still attractive,” says Yeung, talking about the first time the two men sleep together. Afterwards, they talk about their struggles growing up during Hong Kong’s rapid modernisation, and Hoi says, “who hasn’t had it tough in our generation?” as Pak drifts away on his lap, a new beginning in their twilight years.

Yeung affectionately details his characters’ warmth and beauty, showing respect and appreciation for their age. In a lesser film, the nakedness and vulnerability of older people would be a spectacle only to highlight the lack of meaningful portrayals. In Yeung’s film, however, it insists that the genre’s lack of such depictions misses a crucial aspect of gay life.

Yeung looks beyond his main characters to include the perspectives of other older gay men in the community. Dior (Chu Wai-Keung), a sharp-tongued fashionista, dabbles in drag and social justice in the film. Like his character, Wai-Keung is a real-life advocate for the creation of LGBTQ+ nursing homes. In the movie, he reenacts his appearance at Hong Kong’s legislative council, pleading to allow gay elders to “live out [their] twilight years with dignity and freedom”.

“I was so touched by [Wai-Keung’s] speech that I had to include it into the film,” says Yeung. “These men came out 30 to 40 years ago and were rejected by their families and have been living alone. So, there is a real concern about what happens to them. If they go to a traditional nursing home, will they be discriminated against? Will they have to give up their cherished possessions ”“ love letters, or in Dior’s case, his gorgeous dresses? Will medical practitioners be sensitive to their needs? For many of these men, going to a nursing home means going back into the closet.”

The film has been a success on the festival circuit and bolstered the careers of its lead actors. (To the cast’s amusement, Au received a nomination for Best New Performer at the Hong Kong Film Awards ”“ “new,” despite her big cinematic break coming at 66 years of age.) Beyond its success, Twilight’s Kiss is remarkable because it dares to examine some of the most underrepresented lives within a marginalised community. And, in the Chinese-speaking world, gay representation is still sorely lacking (LGBTQ+ content being suppressed in China and Malaysia), and stories about the love between two grandparents are virtually non-existent.

One of the men Yeung interviewed for the film cried when he saw it. “He said he was overwhelmed,” says Yeung. “All the issues and anguish he bottled up for so long hit him when he saw it reflected on screen. He was very touched and happy the story was finally being told.”

The Australian government is considering legislation that would require platforms like Facebook and Google to pay news publishers a fee for the news content they distribute (and profit from) on their platform. Facebook has retaliated by blocking Australian users from seeing or sharing news on Facebook. Google has reached an agreement with the Australian government. Microsoft is applauding the proposal.

The Log Cabin Republicans thanked Donald Trump for “standing up for family” in a bizarre Presidents’ Day video littered with falsehoods

The gay Republican group, which claims to represent “LGBT conservative and allies” but rarely challenges rampant homophobia within the GOP, put out an odd love letter to Donald Trump to mark Presidents’ Day.

In the clip, figures including disgraced former journalist Chadwick Moore and self-described transphobe Arielle Scarcella lavish praise on Trump ”“ a man who vented about transgender soldiers getting “clipped”, stood silent as his administration gutted LGBT+ rights protections and argued in court that businesses should have the right to fire people for being gay.

Trump is praised for “standing up for our American ideals of family, freedom and liberty” by one participant, while others resort to gaslighting as they peddle a number of abject falsehoods.

The video claims that “one of the best things that he did was launch a global campaign to decriminalise homosexuality”, though there is no evidence to suggest any such campaign ever actually existed beyond a press release, while Trump left the position of international LGBT+ envoy sitting empty for his entire term.

The group suggests that Trump was the “the first pro-gay president when entering office”, a bizarre claim given he made no pledges on LGBT+ rights at all in 2016 or 2020 aside from his pledge to sign a proposed law to permit anti-LGBT+ discrimination on the grounds of religion.

A redesigned Claddagh ring targeting the gay community has proved a lifeline for a local jewellery business during lockdown.

The Pride Claddagh Ring is the brainchild of Niall McNelis, a Labour councillor who runs the Claddagh and Celtic Jewellery Shop on Quay Lane in the city.

The sterling silver piece features the traditional heart, crown and hands emblem of the Claddagh ring with six coloured stones inspired by the Gay Pride rainbow flag ”“ red representing life, orange for healing, yellow for the sun, green for nature, blue for harmony and violet for spirit.

During the marriage equality referendum, Cllr McNelis spotted a mural with two women embracing and one of them was wearing a Claddagh ring.

He had his workshop in Enniscrone in County Sligo come up with a stylish Claddagh redesign that would appeal to the LGBT+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community while doing justice to the iconic Galway symbol.

Since it was launched in December, the €55 Pride ring has been embraced worldwide, with orders flying in from as far as Australia, America, France, Germany and England.

Curious about who all has received the vaccine (and which one)? So I have received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine and my sister has got both of the Pfizer. I didn't have any adverse reactions to the first dose. My shoulder was a bit sore for a couple days where they did the injection and was a bit tired the next day and a bit cranky but that could have been more to do with not having enough sleep. I do hear that the 2nd dose is the one that makes you feel more run down.

There's also a lot of commotion about deaths caused from the vaccine of course the report I heard about did not give enough details other than it was those who were very old or terminally ill but didn't say which vaccine or the specifics. I do want my parents to get the vaccine but they're skeptical at best right now.

Campaigners say veterans should also get compensation for injustice they suffered and pensions restored.


Falklands veteran Joe Ousalice, 68, being given his medal for long service and good conduct by the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, on 22 January 2020

Thousands of British military personnel who were dismissed because they were homosexual will be able to have their service medals restored if they had been taken away when they were kicked out of the armed forces.

Gay rights campaigners welcomed the move as the “first step on a journey” but said that issues such as enduring criminal records, lost pension rights and still blemished service records now needed to be dealt with by the Ministry of Defence.

Gay men and lesbian women were banned from serving in the British military until 2000. About 200 to 250 were thrown out each year because of their sexuality, and frequently had their service medals removed.

In some instances, medals were physically ripped from a service person’s uniform after a conviction at court martial. Those found guilty of being homosexual sometimes went on to a serve a prison term, typically several months long.

Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, said the announcement “addresses a historic injustice”. He said that it was intended to demonstrate “the military is a positive place to work for all who chose to serve” and encouraged those who thought they were eligible to apply.

Last year, Joe Ousalice, 70, a Falklands veteran, was personally handed back his long service and good conduct medal by the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, which had been removed from him in 1993 after a court martial.

Ousalice, who is bisexual, had served 18 years as a communications officer in the Royal Navy before he was dismissed on charges that he maintains were fabricated. He won his medal back after he had launched a legal action, which led the MoD to apologise to him ”“ and to promise to review the wider situation.

“This is nowhere near enough,” Ousalice said. “Basically, when they take your medal from you, the medal effectively decrees what you get for your pension. By taking my medal and three good conduct badges that I had, my rank was cut. I had to wait until 60 before drawing a pension, whereas I could have got it immediately.”

Craig Jones, the joint chief executive of Fighting with Pride, a charity supporting LGBT+ veterans, described the move as the “first step on a journey” and said that he believed that ministers such as Mercer would go further.

“People’s lives were shattered by the ban. We need to look at giving people their commissions and warrants back, royal pardons of convictions, help with resettlement ”“ and, yes, there is an overwhelming case for compensation and the restoration of pensions,” Jones added.

The MoD said that the government was working “to examine and understand the wide ranging impact of pre-2000 practices in the armed forces”. That, the ministry said, would ensure that “beyond the return of medals, the impact of this historical wrong is acknowledged and appropriately addressed” although no further details were given.

Veterans who were kicked out before 2000 said they were victims of covert investigations, including secret filming, or repeated harassment by military police over several years in an attempt to prove they were gay.


Royal Air Force veteran David Bonney ® and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London after the Remembrance Sunday service last November

The last serviceman to be sent to prison for being homosexual was David Bonney, who was found guilty at a court martial in Cornwall in 1993. Bonney had joined the RAF aged 17 in 1987 and said he had “learned and accepted I was gay” when he served during the first Gulf war.

Bonney said he was subject to a two-year investigation after a copy of Gay Times had been found in his room. That included, he said, “bugging my room, having people follow me, placing officers outside the local gay bars to spy on people going in, using the local police stations to take my friends to, to interview them and altogether create terror and fear among my friends and associates”.

The court martial sentenced him to six months in prison, of which he served four including one month of solitary confinement, and left him with a criminal record ”“ although following an appeal his discharge was changed to honourable. He said he hoped the MoD would “amend and compensate for the injustice and effective bullying I experienced”.

Luke Pollard says he and his partner Sydney have "an amazing relationship"

Labour MP Luke Pollard is facing homophobic trolling on social media after posting a photo of himself and his boyfriend to mark Valentine’s Day.

Luke Pollard, an openly gay MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, took to social media on Sunday (14 February) to post a selfie with his partner.

He wrote: “Happy Valentine’s Day to my lovely boyfriend! X”

The post attracted dozens of homophobic responses from far-right trolls focussed on an apparent “age gap” between Pollard, 40, and his boyfriend, who appears to be in his mid-to-late 20s.

One comment branded Pollard a “dirty Labour nonce”, while another read: “He looks 12 years old, you should be locked up.”

Thankfully, plenty of people flooded the post with messages of support for Pollard, with many calling out the veiled homophobia and stressing that there’s absolutely nothing odd about a relationship between two consenting adults.

“Age gap” criticism is often targeted at gay men to perpetuate homophobic tropes, with many responses noting that prime minister Boris Johnson, 56, never faces similar abuse over his 32-year-old fiancée Carrie Symonds.