Latest news with #LGBTQ+HistoryMonth
Scottish Sun
08-08-2025
- Sport
- Scottish Sun
Premier League ‘DITCHES rainbow laces after ending partnership with LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall and to launch own campaign'
The FA and another major sports league has made the same decision PREM DECISION Premier League 'DITCHES rainbow laces after ending partnership with LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall and to launch own campaign' Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) THE Premier League has reportedly terminated its partnership with Stonewall, bringing an end to rainbow laces and armbands. The league had been partnering with the LGBTQ+ charity for eight years, campaigning for inclusivity in football and beyond. 4 The Premier League has terminated its partnership with Stonewall, bringing an end to rainbow laces and armbands Credit: Getty 4 Marc Guehi wrote a religious message on his rainbow armband last season Credit: PA However, the Telegraph has now reported that Prem chiefs have brought that relationship to an end amid plans to launch new LGBTQ+ inclusion initiatives. England's top flight is thought to be planning to launch a new campaign of its own to coincide with February's LGBTQ+ History Month. It is reported that both The FA and Premiership Rugby are severing ties with Stonewall too. Campaigns featuring rainbow laces and armbands had caused controversy across the Premier League in recent seasons. Crystal Palace captain Marc Guehi - a devout Christian - was warned by the FA after writing a religious message on his rainbow armband last year. While Ipswich Town skipper Sam Morsy - a practising Muslim - also refused to wear a rainbow armband during the same period but was not issued a warning. The news of the Premier League's decision to part ways with Stonewall comes after the league's captains agreed for players to continue taking the knee against racism and all forms of discrimination. The decision was made during a meeting between all 20 club captains. 4 LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall have partnered the Premier League for eight years with their rainbow laces and rainbow armband campaign Credit: Getty 4 Sam Morsy refused to wear the rainbow armband last term Credit: Alamy BEST FREE BETS AND BETTING SIGN UP OFFERS Following the end of its partnership with the league, a Stonewall Spokesperson said: "Rainbow Laces has helped improve LGBTQ+ inclusion, acceptance and participation in sport at all levels, whether player, participant or fan. "Rainbow Laces has helped to significantly shift the dial and while it can still prove difficult for elite players themselves to be openly LGBTQ+ on the pitch, there are now some role models. "At the grass-roots level it is easier to participate and as a fan the LGBTQ+ community has increasingly felt more accepted."
Yahoo
08-08-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Rugby joins FA and Premier League in ditching Stonewall
The Football Association has joined the Premier League in ending its partnership with Stonewall and the charity's Rainbow Laces campaign. It can also be revealed that Premiership Rugby has stopped promoting the campaign amid plans by both to launch new LGBTQ+ inclusion initiatives. Telegraph Sport reported on Thursday how the Premier League had terminated its eight-year partnership with Stonewall and had ditched rainbow armbands. The world's richest league plans to launch a new campaign to coincide with February's LGBTQ+ History Month. The FA is said to have ended its own partnership with Stonewall as part of a wider move away from single campaign moments that have had a questionable impact on the fight against bigotry within football. Telegraph Sport has been told Premiership Rugby is close to naming a charity partner, with which it will work on future LGBTQ+ initiatives. News that the Premier League had terminated its own partnership with Stonewall emerged on the same day Premier League captains agreed for players to continue taking the knee this season. The decisions over two symbols which have become plagued by controversy were made during a meeting of the 20 club captains. The Premier League had already ended an eight-year partnership with Stonewall, which launched its Rainbow Laces campaign back in 2013. Telegraph Sport has been told the decision was taken amid the growth of in-house expertise within the league and its clubs. The Premier League, FA and Premiership Rugby have become the latest major organisations to sever ties with Stonewall amid its advocacy for gender ideology that was undermined by this year's Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of a woman under the Equality Act. The FA responded to that ruling by banning transgender women from women's football, a decision the charity denounced for being made 'too soon, before the implications of the Supreme Court's ruling has been worked through by lawyers and politicians or before statutory guidance has been issued'. It added: 'It is incredibly disappointing as several of them have been long term and vocal supporters of our Rainbow Laces campaign, advocating for inclusion in sport for all ages and at all levels.' The Premier League's ditching of rainbow armbands comes eight months after Mark Guehi, the England defender, Crystal Palace captain and devout Christian, wrote 'I love Jesus' and 'Jesus loves you' on his in consecutive matches. Guehi did so in breach of FA kit rules and he was issued with a reminder of his responsibility to follow them. Ipswich Town skipper and Muslim Sam Morsy also refused to wear a rainbow armband during the same period but received no such reminder, which saw the FA accused of creating a 'two-tier mess'. Club captains agreed on Thursday that the armband would no longer be used to promote specific campaigns and would feature only the Premier League logo. A Stonewall spokesperson said: 'Rainbow Laces has helped improve LGBTQ+ inclusion, acceptance and participation in sport at all levels, whether player, participant or fan. Rainbow Laces has helped to significantly shift the dial and while it can still prove difficult for elite players themselves to be openly LGBTQ+ on the pitch, there are now some role models; at the grass-roots level it is easier to participate and as a fan the LGBTQ+ community has increasingly felt more accepted.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Osceola County delays Pulse tribute groundbreaking to October
Osceola County has released a statement on the delay to the groundbreaking of the Pulse tribute from artist JEFRË. The county believes that with the upcoming final tour of Pulse nightclub from survivors, the groundbreaking should be delayed so visitors do not need to choose between the two events. The county announced it will move the groundbreaking ceremony to October, which is LGBTQ+ History Month. Out of respect, the groundbreaking at Brownie Wise Park is postponed to October during LGBTQ+ History Month where we look forward to welcoming the victims' families and survivors along the shore of Lake Toho to celebrate our community-led efforts coming into view. Osceola County Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
Telegraph
26-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Can plants be queer? Modish nonsense hits Chelsea
Visitors to the Chelsea Physic Garden (CPG) may be taken aback to find, amidst the shrubbery, a garish sign announcing that the garden is 'celebrating LGBTQ+ History Month' with its 'A Dash of Lavender' programme. The sign insists, perhaps pre-empting the lay visitor's instinctive reaction that human sexuality is irrelevant to botany, that there are 'cultural links between the LGBTQ+ community and flowering plants'. Among the events held as part of the programme have been a 'Psychedelic Queer Nature Inspired Printmaking Workshop', open only to 'LGBTQ+ people' (so much for being inclusive), and another workshop called 'Myths, Mosses & Monsters: Queer Ecology After Dark' which supposedly enables visitors to explore 'one of London's most bewitching garden [sic] by night, venturing through the lens of queer ecology'. What exactly is meant by the latter is not explained, though there is a mind-boggling reference to having a 'frolic in the rarest fronds'. The absurd annual programme, dating back to 2022, was birthed by 'Queer Botany', which is 'an ecocritical project that studies and affirms connections between queerness and nature'. In the past few years Queer Botany has been spreading its tentacles far and wide and playing its role in 'queering' institutions such as the Wellcome Trust, the National Trust and Kew Gardens: names which will surprise no readers here. A flavour of the level of insight and scientific rigour offered by Queer Botany is provided by a video it produced to explain A Dash of Lavender, which asserts that 'Lavender has perfect flowers, also known as androgynous or bisexual flowers' and adding that 'lavender represents the blurring between the masculine and feminine binary'. Queer Botany invites people to make a PayPal donation to further its activities which 'will show the receiver of the donation as Sixto-Juan Zavala, the founder'. For the past two years, A Dash of Lavender has been curated by a young man named Connor Butler (formerly Head of Learning at the CPG), who specialises in 'Queer Ecology' walks and has recently run them for the Royal Parks, the London Wetland Centre and the Garden Museum, among many other well-known institutions including of course the CPG itself. The CPG's website states that 'On Friday's and Sunday's [sic] throughout February our tour guides will be delivering special Dash of Lavender tours to delve deeper into queer ecology'. It seems odd that for four years running the Trustees have been unbothered by the spending of time, energy and resources on such irrelevant activities. Perhaps it is time for the Charity Commission – sadly seemingly reticent to get involved whenever more well-known institutions are straying from their original purposes – to put a foot down. Politicised Plants, a 2021 report I co-authored with the horticultural expert Ursula Buchan for Policy Exchange, decried Kew Garden's forays into non-scientific and indeed politicised activities, noting that Kew's statutory duties all relate to the science of plants. The same applies to the CPG, the charitable objects of which centre around promoting 'the study of botany'. If, somehow, the Chelsea Physic Garden's activities are deemed to be staying within the organisation's remit, then might I suggest that another month of the year is dedicated to parasitic plants, with possible human comparisons being the activists who infiltrate flourishing, august institutions and slowly but determinedly choke them to death.
