It only takes one
Lightning doesn’t need to strike twice
They say lightning never strikes twice.
They say you can ride out the storm.
But what if it doesn’t need to strike twice, and what if there never is a storm?
Growing up gay and experiencing homophobia and hetronormativity can exhaust you every day. But it becomes more challenging when you find yourself in spaces where you don’t feel safe or where queer people don’t traditionally have a home.
Sporting clubs can be such a space for many in the LGBTQ+ community.
Staying involved in sports and finding a home, whether a sport or club or league, takes time. But even when you do find camaraderie and friendship, your whole perspective can change in an instant, as quickly as lightning strikes. Confidence and belonging takes a long time to build but can be dissolved in an instant. For an LGBTQ+ person, this can lead quickly to a sense of alienation, a feeling of being let down and ultimately the place where you felt safe becoming unsafe and unwelcoming in the blink of an eye. It is through these experiences, these lightning strikes, that people can be lost to sports.
This idea has been brought into sharp focus since starting discussions with other LGBTQ+ cricket fans in the region. The enthusiasm from so many people to create an inclusive cricket team for season 2021, however it might look, has been really encouraging.
In these discussions, you hear other experiences and why for some, lightning doesn’t need to strike twice, to walk away from the game. For me, it wasn’t one incident, but a build-up of pressure that resulted in me walking away from the game and it was only the release of another pressure build up a few years back that has kept me playing.
These experiences and conversations have changed my thinking, and I now appreciate even more the importance of inclusive spaces for the community to participate in sports. This can be achieved in the mainstream sporting environment, but for some, it will be better achieved, at least at first, in dedicated LGBTQ+ teams and clubs.
I’m not sure what 2021 will bring for the team, where we will play, who our opponents will be or how many games we will play. Still, I know we need to build an environment that makes cricket a sport that the community can get involved in and which can start to change perceptions, behaviour and views of those around us.
