Whether it’s a popped-up collar, a clean V-neck cut or a boxy boyfriend fit, there’s gender euphoria to be found in football shirts. 

WORDS BY ZOYA RAZA-SHEIKH
IN COLLABORATION WITH VERSUS
HEADER DESIGN BY JACK ROWE

Growing up, men’s football was all over the telly. My older brother was a massive Manchester United fan and would watch every game he could, sometimes I’d even watch with him. I loved seeing the players beeline across the pitch, socks pulled up over their calves, sweat-soaked shirts hugging their chests. I would examine their bodies and think: “Why don’t football shirts look like that on me?”

Gender isn’t easy to figure out. The world we live in primarily operates in a binary manner. Men, women. Straight, gay. They’re still very much considered the default – even more so in football, a sport that’s deeply rooted in old-school views of masculinity. So, it might seem odd that football shirts have provided me with an avenue to experiment with my own gender. Or is it? 

Back then, watching those games with my brother, I didn’t quite know how to describe the feelings I felt as I sat captivated by the slick movements of Louis Saha, Wayne Rooney and Paul Scholes. But now, I’d call it gender envy. There’s no right way when it comes to figuring out your identity and where you fit in a world obsessed with labelling people as simply one thing or another. But for some reason, football shirts have always helped me on my gender journey. 

Shirts have become a core part of my gender expression – I feel more at ease with who I am when I wear them. They provide me with a level of comfort and breathability, both literally and metaphorically. It might seem somewhat trivial, distilling something so big as gender into a brightly-coloured 80s-inspired football shirt. But often it’s the small, everyday things that help us to make sense of the emotions we’ve struggled for so long to engage with – let alone make sense of. 

There’s an unquestionable euphoria in football fashion. Whether you want to call it ‘blokecore’ or ‘ladcore’, the revival of retro kits undoubtedly pulls on iconic British fashion that flooded the streets and terraces throughout the 80s and 90s. Today, both football die-hards and casual matchgoers are experimenting with kits – something we’ve also seen bleed onto the catwalk in recent years (will there ever be a better collaboration than Wales Bonner x Jamaica?). And while the blokecore trend might feel gendered, the style isn’t. It’s a lens of fashion that has been an escape, a place where I can find synergy between my outward presentation and internal feelings. 

Finding sanctity in football shirts was an unexpected port of call, one that caught me by surprise, even as a long-time football fan. Yet I can’t shake the gender-affirming sense of self I find wearing my beige Barcelona 2004-05 shirt. As your identity shifts – whether it’s labels, pronouns, or something bigger – there’s a want to create cohesiveness in how you feel and fashion is the easiest way to signify who you are. From pairing oversized baggy blue-wash denim jeans with a bright yellow 2010-13 Arsenal away number, to matching chunky silver rings with my crisp white Real Madrid top. In football shirts, for me at least, there’s no immediate call to dress femme, instead, you can play around with presentation. This level of openness has given me the freedom to pick and choose what feels best. A feeling I’ve not always experienced in either my surroundings or myself. 

How the Women’s Super League became the pinnacle of UK sapphic culture

As a South Asian baby masc, I’m used to comments of all kinds: ones to do with race, gender, sexuality, you name it. You learn to acclimatise (not always quickly) to the soft racism or how your eyebrow slit, thin silver chain or vocal joy for Chappell Roan can make people feel a bit uncomfortable. “It’s a bit much”, I’ve been told. The level of prejudice – and sometimes even abuse – I’ve experienced over the years for trying to feel at home in my own skin, is perhaps why I’ve never watched a men’s football match in person. 

We’ve all seen and heard stories about how homophobic and racist the men’s game is. Watching Manchester United’s first team with my brother might have been my football entry point but it’s the women’s game that’s welcomed me for who I am. I’ve found women’s football to be a space that’s more inclusive of diverse identities than most – I’d even go so far as to say that I’ve found a community. Being queer in women’s football, both for the players and the fans, isn’t the exception; if anything it’s celebrated. The camaraderie of the women’s game feels more like home for me because I don’t experience the same level of interrogation for wearing my oversized “men’s” shirts and gender-fluid fits.

Many of us spend years following our favourite players from club to club as they evolve with their teams. And while I can’t pull off striking Ballon d’Or-worthy shots like Aitana Bonmatí, I can empathise with growing through motions of change. In a way, through shirts, I do the same. 

Each one brings a different feeling – a sense of home and comfort for a different reason. Sometimes it’s an affirming colour choice or even a modest boxy cut that brings an unexplained feeling of ease for me. Football traditionally hasn’t been a space welcoming of people like me – those who don’t conform to gender norms. So, perhaps there’s some irony in me gaining as much comfort in shirts as I do. But if they help me get to grips with this beast called gender, then it looks like I’ll need to make more space in my wardrobe. 

You can read Zoya’s article on gender and football fashion at Versus here. 

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From seeking out your sporty gf to scouting the WAGS of the women’s game, the football gays and theys have found their pride and place in the stands of the women’s football queer community.

WORDS BY ZOYA RAZA-SHEIKH
HEADER DESIGN BY ANISA CLEAVER

There’s no place like the Emirates Stadium for an Arsenal women’s game. Gunners and Pride flags run alongside the pitch and red and white jacquard scarves fill the stands as fan-led chants take over: “We’ve got McCabe, Katie McCabe – I just don’t think you understand!” 

It’s a special atmosphere; one of like-minded football fanatics eager to support their favourite sport, but also there’s something different to the men’s league. Here, in the throngs of Gooners donning the pink and baby blue Stella McCartney kit, there’s an honorary team of LGBTQIA+ spectators, the queer football cognoscenti, rooting for their favourite North London ballers. From the choice of vibrant shirts to the in-the-stand convos about which player is dating who, women’s football really is sapphic culture in motion.

There’s a running joke that you’ll find your WLW other half at an Arsenal match. Paula Akpan, 30, is a long-time supporter of the women’s Arsenal team and has found a community in the sapphic culture and drama of the sport. “Once you are part of those sapphic circles [of women’s football] everything is very open [to interpretation] and feels like an inside joke that everyone is in on, even the Arnold Clarke Cup [an international women’s football tournament] has a whole reputation of being the lesbian cup!” Whether it’s the WSL (a league which replaced the FA women’s premiere league national division) or the many tournaments that surround it – like the Arnold Clarke Cup – the queerness on the pitch and in the stands makes these spaces integral for the sporty lesbians. 

Why do sapphics love the WSL? 

For many sapphic fans, football is bigger than a sport; it’s a community that offers queer visibility, player rivalries (whether against exes or current girlfriends) and, of course, tournament titles to fight for. Matches are more than cheering for your team in a heated club clash, they are an environment where the players’ real-life queer identity is expressed on the pitch. And, yes, this does include the heated exchanges between formerly dating players or backing your new celeb football couple.

So, whether you’re heading to Meadow Park or Emirates Stadium, there’s a few things to look out for when scanning for your queer, sporty clique: a flock of colourful football shirts paired with boyfriend baggy jeans and worn-in dad caps, sapphics holding hands and the classic (and very iconic) Arsenal’s rainbow-studded ‘Love Is Love’ scarf. This openly and unapologetically queer scene is part of what makes the WSL so unique. “I’m always overwhelmed with how many out-and-out queers, specifically sapphics, I see at these games,” Paula says. “When I’m at the Emirates, for example, watching Arsenal women, I’m surprised at how many couples feel comfortable out in public [and] that has, ultimately, become an acceptable avenue for sapphic culture.”

What’s next for the women’s game? 

Women’s football is gaining and unprecedented number of fans and selling out stadiums, with the Arsenal Women’s derby match against Spurs selling over 60,000 tickets . So, as the fan focus on the women’s game continues to grow, where does that leave the game itself? After all, increased visibility isn’t without its complications.

As the women’s game continues to grow, greater responsibility is needed to protect the players and the game. “We’ve identified women’s football is hitting a real tipping point, especially as popularity and interest go exponentially through the roof,” Paula says. “The sapphic speculation [over the sexuality of players and their partners] has greater ramifications for players who aren’t sapphic or aren’t interested in publicly sharing that part of their lives.” 

 

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It should go without saying: nobody deserves to be outed or pressured to speak up about who they are before they are ready to, no matter what their job is. Without fan accountability, we risk jeopardising the progressive atmosphere of the game. Players may feel less comfortable speaking about their connection to the LGBTQIA+ community while allowing speculation like this to go unchecked can breed unhealthy parasocial relationships between fans and their favourite players.

Why LGBTQIA+ representation on the pitch matters

While the WSL is a UK-based tournament, the football fever surrounding the competition has even reached overseas. Women’s sports content creator “coach” Jackie J, has become a go-to online commentator, with over 400k followers, for sapphic news in sports – including the WSL. 

“Queer people grow up with less representation in the media [which] creates this desire to simply see yourself in others, especially superstars – women’s football has a plethora of queer superstars! It’s amazing,” the 21-year-old says. When it comes to women’s sports, the game is generally more LGBTQIA+ inclusive – a huge selling point for communities and, now, the sports industry.

Today, we’re seeing LGBTQIA+ fans make up a visible presence among the supporters of women’s sports. As a result, sporting industries are recognising an opportunity to market to a new demographic, a move which will aid the investment in the game. In time, this will support the expansion and investment within football leagues (such as women’s only pro football stadiums and improvements to player welfare) as audiences and interest continue to grow which will, hopefully, guarantee an inclusive future for the sport. “Recently, loving women’s soccer has really become one of those tells [of a queer identity],” Jackie adds. 

Katie Davenport, 26, from Manchester has been interested in the women’s game after the 2015 World Cup. A combination of masc-looking players, who she read as queer, and a genuine interest in the sport started off her football fever. Now, she watches matches regularly and even collects WSL stickers. “It’s almost like walking around with a pride flag round your shoulders, that only other gays can see,” Katie notes, discussing the queer connotations of women’s football. “It’s if you know, you know, vibes!”

Similarly, football fan Naomi Goldenfield, 25, is pleased to see the women’s game getting more attention, from match coverage to even the inner-community chatter about player’s dating lives. “You see the likes of David and Victoria Beckham and other football couples getting attention from those not into football. My dad even tells me about the dating lives of Man City men’s players,” she says. “I think it is normal for people to be interested in the lives of players they like and the queer players in sports allow queer people to have their representation.”

 

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How WSL players are bringing Pride to the pitch 

So, when you’re next at Arsenal’s Emirates, don’t be surprised when you see skipper Kim Little wearing a rainbow captain armband. In fact, many of the Arsenal squad’s LGBTQIA+ allies (Lotte Wubben-Moy) and publicly out players (Katie McCabe, Beth Mead, Vivianne Miedema) have been vocal about their support for the community. It doesn’t end there, either. The club have their own club-recognised gay supporters group too, and with inclusivity broadening in the game, Arsenal players are also proud of the change coming to the sport.

“I feel a lot of pride being part of a club that has such a genuine connection to the queer community. As a team we really value it – it’s a precious relationship and one that we’ll continue to nurture and protect,” says captain Kim Little. “It’s incredibly important for the game to be a safe space for all, and it feels good that there’s that authenticity across the Arsenal family and in the WSL more broadly.”

Football is a game open to all, and that’s a sentiment that Kim (and Arsenal) want to continue to uphold. “I’m so glad to hear that people feel at home here. Through our actions, we want people from the LGBTQIA+ community to know that this is a club for them – we represent our supporters, whatever their background, and we strive to increase visibility and be as inclusive as possible.” Making a home within sport may seem like a small feat, but women have overcome institutional and cultural barriers to embrace the game as it is. 

 

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What’s next for the WSL?

A lot has changed in recent years. There were days when women were banned from having a kickabout. In 1921, the FA put an end to women playing professional football, deeming it as “unsuitable”. Now, things are hugely different but, still, sexist attitudes towards the women’s games (and women in sports) persist. So are we surprised it has taken until very recently for women’s football teams to start selling out stadiums?

But there has been undeniable and, hugely remarkable, progress in recent years. The change of attitude towards the women’s game has allowed fans to confidently come together and celebrate a sport they love. With this rise in numbers has come an ever-emboldened queer contingent in the stand – and women’s football has become a sport that we can proudly enjoy and attend with our shirts and our pride flags on full display. It’s an atmosphere that encourages players to talk about their relationships too, whether that’s Alex Scott or Beth Mead, bringing a more inclusive atmosphere to the sport. 

That’s not to say though that women’s football is from perfect. There are pitch quality issues, scheduling problems, and player welfare concerns too. Despite the sport’s queer-friendly atmosphere, there are other areas where they are less than representative and teams like Arsenal and The Lionesses have been criticised for their lack of racial diversity. Individual players, like Lioness Jess Carter, have also spoken up over the sport’s lack of diversity – an area where the women’s sport is visibly trailing behind their male counterparts.

While, no doubt, the footballing infrastructure needs some work to build out a country-wide pipeline of talent from all backgrounds, women’s football has, fortunately, reached a stage where it’s embracing its queer audience. 

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GAY TIMES joined Arsenal’s Jen Beattie and grassroots football club Wonderkid FC at Hackney’s Mabley Green to commemorate LGBTQ+ History Month and to find out how football is building an inclusive community.

WORDS BY PAULA AKPAN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID PRICE

Coaches barking instructions, darting footballers crying for the ball, and scattered applause from onlookers provide the soundtrack to our evening spent at Hackney’s Mabley Green. Here, under the unforgiving glare of floodlights, Arsenal staff are gathered for a special training session. Not too long after, we’re joined by a host of Wonderkid FC footballers  – a local grassroots LGBTQ+ inclusive football club of women and non-binary players – decked out in their signature all-black kit, who begin their training by nimbly threading balls through cones.

As a young girl camped around a TV blaring Match Of The Day with my dad and brothers in the early-mid 2000s, women and non-binary players tearing up the televised pitch in place of men sat well beyond my imagination. Little did I know that women’s football in the UK had long existed and, crucially, had long been popular, with the oft-cited example of a sell-out Boxing Day women’s match in 1920 – a crowd of 53,000 watched on from inside Liverpool’s Goodison Park. 

A year later, on 5 December 1921, the English FA formally banned women’s football which was, at this time, primarily played by women working in WWI munitions factories. Their reasoning? So-called medical experts asserted that football could damage women’s ability to reproduce. The sport was ‘quite unsuitable for females’ and the ban wouldn’t be overturned until 1971.

Fast forward to the 2020s and women’s football is now described as the fastest-growing sport in the UK. A flurry of broadcast deals with Sky Sports and BBC, record-breaking match attendances, and a trophy-clinching Euro 2022 for England’s Lionesses have underscored the sport’s revival, alongside independently organised pub jaunts for fans of women’s football, grassroots tournaments, screenings, parties and the like. The Arnold Clark Cup and Conti Cup have become staple sporting events, the fixtures appearing in and around the top-flight Women’s Super League schedule. According to the FA, the period between September to December 2022 saw a 12.5% rise nationally in registered female players, while June to December saw a 5% increase in female-affiliated clubs.

The explosive interest in women’s football, however, builds upon a wealth of local grassroots teams like London’s Hackney Laces, Bristol’s Banana FC and Manchester’s Rain On Me FC, some of which had been set up prior to the Lionesses’ impressive 2019 World Cup campaign, other amateur teams capitalised on the wave of popularity to set up or hugely expand their teams. And, for clubs like Wonderkid FC, inclusivity is baked into their teams and overarching ethos. As the players continue warming up on the East Hackney pitch, every now and then, you can spot the words “BE YOURSELF” emblazoned on the back of their training shirts.

Established in 2016, Wonderkid FC’s beginnings stem from a mistake. That year saw the release of an anticipated short film by Rhys Chapman. The film, Wonderkid, follows a gay professional footballer trying to find his footing in an environment where hypermasculinity and homophobia reign supreme, from the training ground to the pitch. Following the film’s acclaimed release, the Wonderkid project received a tweet which mistook them for an actual football team and invited them to play in a tournament. “We took that opportunity to start a football team because I had a load of mates who wanted to get back into football,” Maria Sihaloho, one of the club’s founders, explains. A call-out was swiftly made, a tournament team assembled, and the rest was history. “We had such a great time and it’s kind of continued since then.”  It’s a space they describe as for “whoever doesn’t feel safe within football” and thanks to the reliable medium of word-of-mouth, the club has only continued to grow and bring more people into the fold, boasting a varied age range and players with all manner of day jobs and professions.

The kind of community-centred football Wonderkid FC plays and advocates for has caught the attention of many, including top-flight team Arsenal whose Emirates Stadium sits five stops away from Mabley Green. And it’s why, for this East London evening session, they’re joined by a player for the Arsenal Women’s team. Jen Beattie, a defender with 143 Scottish caps under her belt, cuts a striking figure and it’s little wonder that one of the Wonderkid players nervously titters when later marked by Beattie during a training exercise.

It’s a ‘one club’ mentality, no matter what background you’re from

For the queer professional player, engaging with a team like Wonderkid FC just made sense. “It’s a local London club which is something that Arsenal really values and we love what they’re doing,” Beattie explains. Talk of the Wonderkid film, and the way it confronted abuse and homophobia in football, had made its way to Arsenal HQ  and, in the defender’s opinion, “it was a no-brainer for us to get involved.”

💬 "It's so important to remember what people have done to get us here."

For LGBTQ+ History Month, @jbeattie91 teamed up with Wonderkid FC to share what it means to find an inclusive community through football 🏳️‍🌈

— Arsenal Women (@ArsenalWFC) February 27, 2023

She goes on to explain the different ways that Arsenal staff and professional footballers have been supported by the club, including the establishment of Gay Gooners, Arsenal’s official supporters’ group for LGBTQ+ fans back in 2013. This February marks 10 years of Gay Gooners’ meet-ups before home fixtures, group trips to away games, regular social events, an annual presence at London Pride and directly liaising with the club on anti-LGBTQ+ football discrimination in football. Additionally, it’s in fact Arsenal’s LGBTQ+ staff network that organised the meeting between themselves and Wonderkid. “[The LGBTQ+ community insights] are coming from experience and I think that something that Arsenal really value,” adds Beattie. “It’s a ‘one club’ mentality, no matter what background you’re from.”

The campaigning and community-centred work being done by clubs at every level is heartening but it takes place against a backdrop of stasis when it comes to globally supporting and celebrating queer footballers and fans. Ahead of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, the captains of seven European teams – England, Wales, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Denmark – had planned to sport ‘OneLove’ armbands, featuring a rainbow flag, in protest against Qatar’s anti-LGBTQ+ legislature: for example, under Qatari law, ‘sexual acts between people of the same sex’ are illegal and can incur the death penalty for Muslim men in Sharia courts, and a person in a ‘same-sex couple’ is considered to be unfit to be a guardian. 

Following FIFA’s threats to impose sanctions, like getting booked or forced off the pitch, on players wearing the armbands, the seven nations confirmed they would not wear the armband. Feelings of betrayal cut across queer groups and organisations, both within and beyond the footballing world. LGBTQ+ fan network Pride in Football voiced the frustration of many on Twitter: “Countries, teams and players are happy to defend LGBTQ+ people until they themselves are at risk. LGBTQ+ Qataris face a bigger punishment than just a yellow card. The gestures and the activism ended quite easily at the thought of reprimand.”

I wanted to represent and, you know, make it a safe place for everyone

When we ask her how the LGBTQ+ campaigning sits alongside what happened in Qatar, Beattie answers with a rueful smile. “So much progress has been made but there’s still so much work to do.” Chatting to GAY TIMES pitchside, the Gunner smiles as she reflects on her own international appearances: “I’ve not captained Scotland many times, but the one opportunity I did have, I was straight over to the rainbow armband. I wanted to represent and, you know, make it a safe place for everyone.”

Beattie’s response is unsurprising, especially considering the sheer breadth of visibly LGBTQ+ footballers in the Women’s Super League, let alone other divisions. The likes of Arsenal and Brighton & Hove Albion have seen couples in their squads, while inter-team romances abound. A queer presence in football has long been evident and, despite the possible scope for discrimination, abuse and malignment whether as a player, staff member or fan, the beautiful game still calls us.

But rather than depending on clubs and international bodies to build more hospitable spaces, players have flocked to grassroots teams that reflect their values, needs and communities; where certain gestures may falter and crumble under the first sign of pressure, local players depend on themselves and one another to carve the spaces they want to be a part of.  Hackney Womens Football Club – established in 1986 and often referred to as the ‘first gay women’s football club’ – joins Wonderkid FC, Stonewall FC, Romance FC, Babe City FC, Baesianz FC and excellently-named Ex-Girlfriend FC as just a few of these necessary emergent spaces. Meanwhile, football commentary and analysis from a queer lens (with a healthy dose of memes) are provided by collectives like Studs, This Fan Girl and Huns FC. To say that it’s an exciting time to be a queer babe who loves football is a woeful understatement.

The Wonderkid players and Beattie end their training session sitting in a circle on the well-trodden grass of the Green. Together, they discuss their hopes for the future of football and the joys and challenges faced by grassroots players today, including a lack of pitch availability and ensuring training sessions take place in hours when players can safely get to and from the pitch. The obstacles are widespread and, speaking to the BBC, Helen Hardy, from Manchester Laces, also notes that harassment and abuse from onlookers stubbornly remain: “All the experiences of abuse I’ve had have been post-Euros. We’ve trained on the same pitch for two years, but now there are comments from men walking behind the pitch – ‘go on darlin’ put it in the top corner, show us what you’re made of.’”

Unfortunately, queer women and non-binary footballers aren’t strangers to occupying the margins of the public’s imagination. And after the Wonderkid team is presented with Arsenal pride t-shirts and a personalised Arsenal replica shirt for the team (one player remarks on how the merch will incur the wrath of their Spurs-supporting family member), together we traipse to Homerton’s The Adam and Eve pub. A regular haunt for the local team, you can’t escape the irony: 20-odd queer folks sitting under the beer garden lights of a pub named after a biblical couple routinely invoked against LGBTQ+ communities. But this is what we do from the margins; we bend, break, occupy and rebuild spaces until they’re fit to hold us, whether it’s a spot for pints and burgers or the entire footballing landscape.

Watch Arsenal’s Jen Beattie team up with grassroots team Wonderkid FC below.

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“It is somehow a taboo subject…”

Arsenal’s Héctor Bellerín has opened up about homophobia in the football industry in a new interview

Speaking with The Times, the defender spoke about the possibility of current players coming out, in which he states: “I don’t know if football is ready for that yet.”

“I’m having conversations with Gay Gooners and sometimes they go to an Arsenal pub and they’ll have issues with other Arsenal fans because they’re wearing a Gay Gooners scarf or something. Which, to me, is crazy. We’re all part of the same family,” he continued.

Bellerín has been a longstanding ally for the LGBTQ+ community, having worked with Arsenal’s LGBTQ+ support group, Gay Gooners.

He has also supported the Stonewall and the Premier League’s Rainbow Laces campaign.

“It is somehow a taboo subject. We can have talks in the dressing room about all this stuff, but I’ve never heard of anyone [being gay].

“No one’s ever heard of anyone. I would say if there was someone who knew someone, they will keep it quiet anyway. For the sake of that person, like, trying to protect them.” he explains.

Over the years some of the industry’s biggest players have showcased their support of the LGBTQ+ community.

Last week, 800 German footballers pledged their support for LGBTQ+ players in the German football magazine 11Freunde.

“It’s now 2021 – and still there is not a single openly gay football professional in the men’s game in Germany.

“Nobody should be cajoled into coming out. It’s a free and individual choice. But it’s our aim that everybody who decides to take this step can be certain of our fill support,”  read the joint statement.

In a 2018 interview with Le Figaro, forward Oliver Girioud discussed his support for the LGBTQ+ community, stating: “When I joined Montpellier, I got involved in the fight for tolerance and was on the cover of [French gay magazine], Tetu. At Arsenal, when asked, I wore rainbow laces in support of the gay community.”

The fight for LGBTQ+ equality in football is still ongoing!

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