Chair of the LGBTQ+ Community in Cricket Network and Head of Sustainability at Surrey CCC, Emily Iveson-Pritchard, shares information about an upcoming event at The Kia Oval.
Happy Pride Month everyone!
As we approach the end of this month of celebration and protest, we are also approaching some exciting events taking place at Surrey County Cricket Club.
For this Pride Month the club is building on last year’s successes of our inaugural Pride Game. Last year myself, Ewen Macleod, now chair of Proud Surrey, and Paul Mooney, Heritage and Ticketing Executive at SCCC, talked to staff members about our personal experiences at members of the LGBTQ+ community. This event was attended by over 70% of all full-time staff and was so well receive we went bigger this year.
This year, on 26 June, we are hosting an LGBTQ+ Inclusion in Sport Panel, bringing together voices from both in and out of sport to talk about the importance of inclusion.
This two-hour event will be a mix of panel discussion and questions from the audience, designed to touch on key issues for the LGBTQ+ community. It is open to all, our members, our staff, our sponsors, and any individual inside and outside cricket that would like to attend. We hope that this will be an opportunity for people to come together to learn about and engage with the continued struggles faced by the LGBTQ+ community when it comes to just enjoying sport.
The panel event on 26 June will be followed by members of Proud Surrey, and staff from Surrey County Cricket Club, walking with the ECB, Graces CC and Unicorns CC at the Pride in London match on 1 July.
The week will then culminate in the second Annual Pride game at The Kia Oval between Surrey CCC and Essex CCC, in the same week the ECB and the wider game mark Rainbow Laces for the sixth year.
We hope to utilize this game to help educate our guests as well as raising money for a locally based national charity, LGBT Hero - a national health and wellbeing Charity for every member of the LGBTQ+ community.
If you are interested in attending any of these events, please feel free to contact me at Surrey County Cricket Club at emily.pritchard@kiaoval.com.
Please read ahead with caution. Trigger warning: mention of suicidal thoughts.
While these events are fantastic to help celebrate Pride Month with gay abandon (pun intended), we also need to remember that this month is also about protest and safety.
In the UK we are currently seeing an alarming rise in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. Only this week I saw a video of a UK-based public figure burning the pride flag, which was being supported by people of all ages.
Although I have experienced homophobia face-to-face before, seeing this vitriol online for myself made me feel slightly unsafe. Death threats, genocidal comments and the belief that I should be illegal is never going to lead to positive feelings, but I am lucky.
I am at genderfluid lesbian in their early thirties who feels comfortable enough at work to start being properly myself, I feel supported by my wife and my friends and my family so I can partly brush away these feelings. But imagine if I wasn’t.
Imagine, if I was still a young person questioning my sexuality and my gender identity. Imagine if I didn’t feel like I had a support system and I felt alone. Imagine, I went online to find my peers and the adults that are meant to protect me are wishing for my death. It is no wonder that 68% of LGBTQ+ young people have contemplated suicide.
It is this reason that even small moments matter in support of the LGBTQ+ community. It is for this reason that events across the country, including the ones taking place in cricket, are so important to continue to celebrate and protest for the LGBTQ+ community both in Pride Month and beyond. It is not an exaggeration to say that positive pride events save lives.