This weekend, Western Bulldogs fan Wil Stracke says, may finally rival the AFL grand final of 2016. On Sunday, she will marry her fiancee Lisa, while on Friday night, they will attend the inaugural AFLW Pride game at the Whitten Oval between their beloved Bulldogs and Carlton.
The occasion is especially significant for Stracke because she set up the club’s coterie group Bulldogs Pride with the explicit aim of making LGBTI fans feel safer at the football; something she can now see mirrored in the actions of her club and the AFLW competition.
“The pride game is super exciting,” Stracke tells Guardian Australia. “Lots of LGBTI people love footy, but footy hasn’t always loved us. The evidence from the men’s Pride games tells us that these kind of games make LGBTI people feel like they can speak up about homophobia and transphobia, it makes them feel more confident, and also creates a safer space.
“That’s why we set the group up, in part to be a safe space where we could go to the footy and just relax, and do what everybody else does – have an amazing or terrible time depending the result – and not have to worry about whether you’re going to have a good time or not because of all the rest.”
Stracke said she was astonished at how quickly the club embraced Bulldogs Pride – such that the group went from being a “collection of random strangers chatting on Messenger” to an official Bulldogs coterie group in the space of 12 months.
“It’s fantastic to be a member of a club where we have just been embraced. They [the Bulldogs] were unequivocally supportive during the marriage equality campaign, and now they’re involved in the Pride game. What that says to us as a group is that the club really walks the walk... and they see us as part of the Bulldogs family.”
Stracke attended the launch of the Pride game several weeks ago, and says it was an emotional experience hearing players talk so openly about their sexuality.
“I went along expecting the usual corporate talk about inclusiveness and diversity and promoting equality... but both Hannah Scott [Bulldogs player] and Bri Davey [Carlton captain] spoke about how important it was for them personally, as members of the LGBTI community, to feel like their clubs were backing them in.
“What struck me was that I’ve never heard an AFL player talk about the challenges that the LGBTI community face, and the fact that sport can be such a positive way to get the message out to LGBTI people that it’s OK, that they will have a place, and that footy is a welcoming space.”
Fiona Newton was also in the crowd at the launch, and as a member of JOY FM’s AFL radio program Chicks Talking Footy, has the honour of calling the game from the Whitten Oval. For Newton, listening to Scott and Davey solidified some of the key differences between the men’s and women’s AFL competitions when it comes to the politics of sexuality.
“The launch of the AFLW has been really significant, because of lot of the players are gay – I think the majority are,” she says. “Going from a men’s league where there’s not one player who is yet to say publicly that they are gay, to women turning up to the best and fairest with their female partners... it strikes me that this is much more personal, because they are talking about their families, their children, and running onto the ground celebrating who they are.”
Newton says the impact of this on the LGBTI community could not be overstated, particularly during season one given the timing of the marriage equality plebiscite.
“Look at Erin Phillips. For me, as a woman in a same-sex relationship with a child, our families were attacked during the plebiscite, and to have Erin normalise our family – she wasn’t doing any stunts, she just held her twins with the cup, and kissed her wife at the best and fairest – they’re just natural things you do, but that was significant for people like us to see on TV.”
Newton said she had also been struck by the difference between how open AFLW players are now about their sexuality, in comparison with women’s football in the past.
“When we [Chicks Talking Footy] talked to Debbie Lee, she spoke about how players in the ‘old days’ still really hid their sexuality, because they already had enough going against them being women in football, and they didn’t want an extra thing they had to combat.
“I didn’t realise that some of the women still struggle with their sexuality. Even Bec Goddard [Adelaide Crows coach] only recently went public about her relationship, and same with Katie Brennan [Bulldogs captain] being very private until Sam Lane’s book Roar came out and she spoke about her previous relationship.
“I think the women feel like they’re really breaking new ground playing professionally, and it’s another step again, so hopefully the Pride game helps those women who have struggled a bit.”
