Erik Denison knows firsthand how damaging homophobic language in sport can be.
As a kid in Canada, Dr Denison played many different sports, including rugby, soccer, and hockey.
Then in year 9 he was outed as gay.
A few of the dominant players on his school soccer team started making jokes at his expense, and others on the team didn’t defend him.
He was ostracised and left the team, but the verbal and physical abuse followed him to PE class.
“It was relentless,” he says.
He stopped playing sport altogether and his mental health plummeted to the point where he was suicidal.
Now Dr Denison works as a research fellow at Monash University’s BehaviourWorks, looking into stopping these harmful behaviours.
He has found what happened to him as a kid is still happening to children today.
Dr Denison says abusive language in sport is dangerous for young athletes.
“There is no question it’s prevalent at all levels of sport, and there is no question it is harmful,” he says.
“The sport industry itself has issued a statement confirming that homophobic, sexist, and racist language increases the risk that young people will experience poor mental health, including self-harm and suicide.”
The 2016 consensus statement from the International Olympic Committee also found the presence of psychological abuse can be a “gateway” to physical and sexual abuse.
While it is clear abusive language is used at sporting clubs and that it is incredibly harmful, what has been harder to establish is how to stop it.
Education not enough
Dr Denison recently worked with every rugby union team in Victoria to find out if hearing from a professional athlete about the harm caused by homophobic language would change the behaviour of 16–20-year-old players.
Before the education session, almost half of the participants self-reported using homophobic slurs and 73 per cent said they had heard them from a teammate.
“Unfortunately, we found no changes to the frequent use of homophobic language by the teenage athletes in our study after the education session,” Dr Denison says.
“It actually went up in both groups.”
Dr Denison believes the education wasn’t effective because it wasn’t being backed up by club leaders on a day-to-day basis.
“The coaches, who are volunteers, were not enforcing policies that ban this very harmful language,” Dr Denison says.
“Studies consistently find sport leaders view ending discriminatory behaviours as optional, and a distraction from delivering their sport and winning games.”
To stop homophobic language and make clubs safe, Dr Denison says change needs to come from the top — from the (mostly) men who are running the clubs, and volunteering as coaches.
Call for men to embrace message too
Research has shown pride rounds help reduce homophobic language at sporting clubs.
Last year, Ocean Grove cricketer Jen Walsh OAM helped put together a pride cup for all six women’s teams in her league.
“Coming from Chicago, a major metro area with a pretty thriving queer scene, I found regional Victoria a hard place to be out,” she says.
“We definitely faced homophobia when we moved here in 2007, with people yelling stuff at us on the street.”
When the day of the cup came on February 20 last year, it was a great success.
Her women’s team at the Collendina Cricket Club wore specially made pride jerseys for the cup, and has continued wearing them this season.
She hoped the rest of the club would pick up her initiative and run with it. However, there were no moves for the men’s team to also be involved in a pride cup or even a pride game.
While a rainbow flag is flown when the women play on Sundays, the flag is not flown when the men play on Saturdays.
After being one of the primary organisers of the pride cup, Ms Walsh says she didn’t have the time or energy to organise it again in 2023.
No-one else planned the event, so there will be no pride cup in the Barwon Women’s Cricket Competition this year.
There was a pride round, but Ms Walsh says it didn’t seem to get as much engagement.
“We need more support from allies, and from the men’s club around queer inclusion,” Ms Walsh says.
“To see the men’s team in rainbow jerseys would have sent a really strong message that we don’t tolerate homophobia at our club.”
Passionate volunteers needed
The founder of the Collendina Cobras, Leigh Norquay, had hoped the women’s team would keep carrying the pride baton.
Mr Norquay, who is also on the club’s committee, says the response to the pride cup was “fantastic” and he is “happy for it to go on”.
When asked why the entire club hadn’t embraced the idea of a pride game or a pride cup, Mr Norquay says it hadn’t been suggested or really considered.
“Unless you are gay or mix with those circles, we are not faced with it every day,” he says.
“You’d need a really passionate volunteer to organise it.”
The club is 35 years old and has more than 200 players — most of them juniors.
Mr Norquay says he does not know of any openly gay male players in the club’s history.
With generational change and the inclusion of more women in the club, Mr Norquay says he believes homophobic language was not used as much, but there is still stigma.
Being a pride ally in sport
Dr Denison says Ms Walsh’s experience highlights the challenge of getting those who do not personally experience discrimination involved in pride initiatives.
Where there is progress, Dr Denison says it is usually left up to a few “champions of change”.
“For it to be effective it needs to be coming from all the leaders of the club,” he says.
He wants councils, which often run sporting facilities and fund local clubs, to step in and help clubs comply with child safety standards.
Dr Denison says they can do this by introducing “safe sports officers” to attend training and matches, and help drive positive change — as recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
If clubs do not take meaningful action, he says councils could shift their focus to compliance, and prevent groups from using facilities or withdrawing funding.
“Councils are legally and morally responsible to take action to protect children from harmful behaviour in current facilities,” he says.
Dr Denison says making sports safe is essential for leagues to survive and thrive.
“The number one reason boys leave sport is social reasons — when they don’t enjoy the team environment,” he says.
“We want every kid to play sport and that’s why we are trying to fix the problems.”
The Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) will not say whether councils support the introduction of child safety officers, but say “there is no place for homophobia in our community”.
“That’s why Victorian councils are working hard to support diverse, inclusive, and safe environments and to stamp out homophobia,” MAV president Cr David Clark says.
“This includes diversity training and providing resources to help support sporting clubs who are more often than not run by volunteers.”
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