As a gay footballer, I am very aware of the status I have as a role model – even more so being a gay footballer with an equally high-profile partner in Pernille Harder, my Chelsea teammate.
We are keen to do something positive with this status and for this reason on Valentine’s Day we opened our Twitter accounts to messages from members of the LGBT community.
We’d both been looking for ways to give something back to the people who follow us, especially people who might be struggling, and we were really overwhelmed with the response we got.
We’d imagined we were going to chat to people for an hour or so but we spent more than two hours trying to answer as many people who’d sent us direct messages as we could.
Some people asked me questions about my experience of coming out and how to figure out whether you like boys or girls. Others spoke of their loneliness. More than one person said they’d never spoken before about being gay. Sometimes just telling somebody – anybody – can be the first step to accepting yourself.
In my case, I came out quite early to my parents and sister but even in a really accepting environment, it’s still a difficult time when you’re feeling like you’re not normal – it makes you feel lonely and insecure about yourself. Having someone there to tell you it is normal can mean so much.
I try to offer my own example to help others understand they are not alone in their experience as a lot of us go through this in our teens – this period of not knowing who you are is a natural process of trying to figure out yourself. It might not just be your teens either.
What really brought home to me that we were doing the right thing were the messages received from people 20 or 30 years older than us who said, “I wish this kind of support was there when I was struggling”.
In fact, the messages of appreciation we got from people thanking us were quite inspiring for me. When people tell you how much it means to see me and Pernille being open and being ourselves, it showed the help we can give as role models.
It brings home that what seems so normal to me – being open about my partner and my life – can help other people feel more secure about themselves. Because of this, I want to continue to engage more with people and help as much as I can to spread this message.
I should add that there were also some negative responses which, sadly, seems to be a sign of the times. We’ve seen plenty of criticism of social-media companies over online racist abuse of footballers and this was a reminder you get homophobic abuse too. That said, the people who responded negatively the other night were very much in the minority and all they did was give us another good reason to carry on wanting to share our message.
Personally, I would love to see footballers come together more visibly as we do have an opportunity to effect and inspire change, now more than ever, not only in sports but also across society.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3s9TjwN
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