Crystal Palace goalkeepers Jack Butland Chloe Morgan have thrown their weight behind the Rainbow Laces campaign to promote LGBT+-inclusion in football.
The pair of shot stoppers came together in support of the initiative by filming a conversation they had about LGBT+-inclusion within both the men and women’s game.
One of the key issues they focused on was how to transfer the inclusivity of women’s football across to men’s.
Here are some of the key things Butland and Morgan spoke about, which you can watch in the below video.
Especially at Palace I’ve always felt so welcomed and so comfortable in my own skin, which has been absolutely massive for me. The position would be completely different if you didn’t feel comfortable bringing your full self to training and matches.
I think it’s been a personally important thing for me to be openly out and proud and to be able to support any colleagues and teammates who wanted to share.
I’ve always felt so welcomed and so comfortable in my own skin, which has been absolutely massive.
—Chloe Morgan
What do you feel the reason for how has the women’s game helped players like yourself to be a part of the LGBTQ+ community?
It’s definitely a unique facet of the women’s game that there are so many openly out gay players. It’s become such a comfortable sphere for openly gay players and also fans.
I think I’ve always felt it’s been a safe space for me and I’ve loved being part of the community. Looking back at some of the reasons why that’s been the case: women’s football has come from quite humble beginnings. I think at the start we were all facing inequality and discrimination and there’s more of an acceptance from players and fans from all different walks of life to be a part of this community.
How would you feel if a teammate of yours came out? What do you think the response would be from yourself and from teammates and the club?
I think it would be an absolute gamechanger and a massive, massive mark in the men’s game. I think we’d be extremely supportive. I think we get this idea, perhaps from the outside, that we wouldn’t be open to that or wouldn’t welcome that.
I look around the changing room and we’re so diverse anyway, you would welcome it. I would actually be quite privileged if that was to happen here.
I would actually be quite privileged if [a male player was to come out] here.
—Jack Butland
But how we get to that point, what we need to do in the men’s game at the minute, I’m not quite sure... I think it needs to be difficult conversations that have to happen to allow people to feel comfortable enough in our environment – like you guys do in yours – to be able to do that.
If it was another player from another team I think there would be people go out of their way to say: ‘Proud of you. Appreciate and respect what you’ve done, what you’ve made as a choice and we’re here to support you.’ But we don’t seem to have got to that stage just yet. Difficult conversations need to happen to get to that point.
How important do you think it is to hear from footballers like yourself speaking out in support of LGBTQ+ issues?
Even me as a supporter of the whole – we sometimes find it a taboo subject or an awkward subject to talk about and it’s really not. It’s such a massive group, massive following and massive importance in our everyday life.
For a lot of people it becomes that: ‘I don’t want to, I don’t want to lean towards that – can I avoid speaking about that?’ It’s about being unselfish. It’s about being unselfish and about understanding that I’m me, I’m the way I am and others are the way they are. No one is right, no one is wrong, we’re just all together. I think supporting and being a part of that and speaking up is huge.
It doesn’t take a lot. Like this, just having a conversation about it and starting a trend, starting a conversation to be followed to give people a bit of oomph themselves to go and speak about it.
Hopefully that leads the way for more and more people of all ways and all members of the LGBTQ+ community to open up and be themselves. No more so than in the men’s game.