Pride Month: England Under-23 Player, Bea Webber

As part of our Pride Month celebrations, we had a chat with England under-23 midfielder/attacker, Bea Webber, to get her thoughts on Pride Month, identity, and what it’s like to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community within lacrosse.

With June being Pride Month, Bea, who identifies as gay and uses the pronouns she/her, reflected on her views of pride celebrations and how her outlook has changed over the years, believing it’s more important than ever to keep holding Pride events all over the world.

“At first, I wrongly thought that celebrating Pride didn’t need to be such a big deal; I didn’t like the huge parades that drew attention to us as different and I was sceptical of the sincerity of shops, banks, and other businesses participating in Pride Month.

“This is likely due to my easy coming out in which I never really came out and instead just started dating girls instead of boys.

“I didn’t want my sexuality to be the defining feature of who I was, and I didn’t identify with the people I saw at Pride who felt proud in a way I didn’t yet.

“As my family and friends barely reacted when I came home with a girl, I didn’t think I needed Pride to feel accepted”.

However, after a negative experience with Bea’s girlfriend experiencing severe homophobia when she came out to her parents, it was around then that she understood and appreciated the importance and necessity of Pride.

“Pride demonstrates that homophobia and discrimination will not be tolerated in the public sphere; being in a Pride parade feels incredibly welcoming and exciting as people are unapologetically themselves and are surrounded by others who vehemently support them. The parade has a liberating effect that I would recommend everyone participates in if they can, regardless of sexuality.

“I am a firm believer of strength in numbers, so continued public support of the movement is paramount. Pride is about being brave for yourself and for others and working towards creating a more inclusive society within which we all have the possibility to thrive”.

In the lacrosse world, the 21 year-old Oxford University student and former Wycombe Abbey School pupil feels that seeing other players who identify as LGBTQ+ within the England women’s teams, she found it quite easy to be out as part of the England set-up.

“I’m pretty certain the first women I knew of who were gay were England lacrosse players or other female athletes.

“The first regular conversation I ever heard about two women dating, getting married, or having children was in a lacrosse context; the normality with which the girls spoke about the same sex relationships of older England players played a huge part in normalising being gay to myself as these were sportswomen I massively looked up to as a young lacrosse player.

“It was in my first year of university that I started to properly consider myself as gay both publicly and privately. The Oxford lacrosse team assumed I was straight after a few freshers’ week anecdotes about past boyfriends, which I likely resorted to as a means to fit in.

“I thought I was the only gay girl in the lacrosse team but it became obvious that in the tolerant and largely liberal university environment, no one really cared what gender you were interested in and frankly it wasn’t really anyone else’s business!

“And once I knew there were other girls who liked girls within the team, I never worried about it again. Being comfortable with being openly gay varies from situation to situation and, so far, I have experienced it as a developing process as opposed to a sort of ‘on-off’ switch”.

When it comes to receiving and experiencing homophobia within a sporting context, Bea acknowledges she’s been really lucky to not have the same difficult experiences that some people in the LGBTQ+ community have had.

“There was always the schoolgirl insult that if you were very sporty you were a lesbian but hopefully now, with increased visibility of some really badass gay sportswomen, the connotation won’t be seen as a negative in the future and sporting ability will lose its strange and somewhat unfounded connection to sexuality”.

If sport, and lacrosse in particular, is to make itself truly inclusive to people from the LGBTQ+ community, Bea thinks the same principles that we apply to wider life should be used and she acknowledges there’s still a lot of work to be done.

“Whilst UK society is becoming increasingly inclusive in many ways, it would be an injustice to assume the fight is anywhere near over.

“Whilst I am more than happy to tell people I’m gay and be relatively comfortable with my sexuality, I still fear holding my girlfriend’s hand in the street or kissing her in public as changes to laws haven’t necessarily penetrated wider society beyond the liberal student bubble.

Bea (#13) pictured with the England Under-23 Squad on the 2018 Japan tour.

“Helping LGBTQ+ people feel more comfortable on an institutional level will require consistency and persistency with public support of LGBTQ+ matters and the upholding of a zero-tolerance policy of discrimination or harassment amongst anyone associated with your group.

“On an inter-personal level, in my opinion, less is more in terms of bringing attention to someone’s homosexuality. Remember that we are all people before we are gay and we have massively diverse life experiences that may have had nothing to do with our sexuality and separate us on totally different lines. Whilst we band together to make ourselves stronger as ‘the LGBTQ+ community’, it is important to listen to individual experience and appreciate its variation.

“Also, making efforts to be more proactive as an ally, whether that be in discussing LGBTQ+ related news with friends and family, or perhaps resorting to Google before asking potentially uncomfortable questions to your LGBTQ+ friends.

“I am convinced most questions come from good and inquisitive intentions; however, a particular personal pet peeve for me is being asked if I am a lesbian or bi-sexual or any other label that requires an accurate pinpointing of something that is considerably more abstract and complex.

“We are all just people trying to live our lives freely and authentically and whilst labels are lifesavers for some they don’t fit right for other people. That might not bother any other LGBTQ+ people but again, we are all different!”

Pride Month: England Lacrosse Marketing Manager, Caroline Royle

As part of our Pride Month celebrations, we sat down (via Microsoft Teams, of course) with England Lacrosse Marketing Manager, Caroline Royle, and spoke to her about what it is like identifying as LGBTQ+ in daily life, the sporting world, and at England Lacrosse.

As a gay woman, Caroline stresses the importance for organisations, including England Lacrosse, to have diversity from grassroots right up to the boardroom.

“To really place inclusivity at the heart of an organisation, it has to be a thread-through business strategy. But if everyone who is developing that strategy looks the same and experiences and interacts with society in a similar way, then their thoughts and opinions are going to be fairly close to one another.

“I think any organisation is strengthened by their direction being influenced by many perspectives. You need that diversity of experience to really shape an inclusive strategy otherwise the organisation won’t be able to reflect society as a whole”.

Caroline, who has been out since the age of 15 and joined England Lacrosse 14 years ago, says the only time she’s had to hide her sexuality was when she graduated from university and got a full-time job.

“That need to conform to a corporate ideal, or at least my idea of a corporate ideal, didn't really sit well with who I was.

“I’ve always played sport so I’ve got a muscular body and I don’t feel comfortable in corporate clothes. That added to my feeling of not really fitting in.

“For me, I think a lot was tied into how I look; I’ve received more hostility towards my physique than my sexuality. Whether those things are connected in the mind of the person discriminating, I don’t know.

“I haven’t often experienced overt homophobia; it’s more the feeling of being on the outside. Not joining in conversations because it’s all about, “do you have a husband, boyfriend?”, “do you have kids?”; it’s not overt homophobia, it’s more to do with not joining in conversations because they’re all about an agreed societal way of being which you are not a part of.

“You have to be quite calculated in your conversations and how you are until you decide you’re going to come out. But even then you don’t just come out once, you have to come out every time someone says, “do you have a husband? Or similar”.

“Maybe because I’ve been out for so long and I’m so happy in my personal life, I’m always quite confident in demanding that acceptance and if someone isn’t accepting, I see it as their problem not mine”.

Caroline feels England Lacrosse has made significant strides throughout the years she has worked here to improve its record on inclusivity and diversity, but that the job is most certainly not done, with the need now for concrete action beyond just policies and platitudes.

“It helps to have inclusivity, diversity, and equality as part of our value set as an organisation but that can’t be enough to ensure people feel comfortable. It’s certainly not enough to ensure someone who is LGBTQ+ wouldn't be worried about going for a job at England Lacrosse and being out.

“The little disclaimer at the bottom of a job advert saying we don’t discriminate is not enough and we need to do everything we can to make sure we are doing enough.

“I honestly believe everyone who works at England Lacrosse, everyone on the leadership team, and everyone on the board, has a genuine desire to be inclusive and welcoming to whoever works for us and from my point of view I’ve always felt that but obviously there is much more to do.

“I think as an organisation we can educate and offer people opportunities to learn more about different groups and different minorities to ensure people are guarded against all forms of discrimination and we act appropriately when it happens”.

As a senior member of staff at England Lacrosse who grew up through the 90s, Caroline has also seen a real societal change in people's and organisations' attitudes towards LGBTQ+ representation.

“Undoubtedly, people’s and organisation’s attitudes have really changed. There’s so much content now that has gay people in it and not just your stereotypical gay male best friend or the lesbian in a lumberjack shirt.

“You can find content on TV and films etc. which show gay people and they don’t make their sexuality the pivotal point of the storyline, it just happens to be something and that’s so much different.

“I mean I’m old enough to remember the first lesbian kiss on Brookside and the uproar that that caused which is crazy, isn’t it? I remember it because when you’re younger and you’re gay you try to see role models and you latch onto whoever you can find.

“In a sporting context, the tennis player, Martina Navratilova, was ground-breaking, when you realise she was out and playing sport in the 1980s. Back then, she was a really good role model and she paved the way for the huge amount of women LGBTQ+ sporting role models we have today.

“So, yes, it has changed a lot. You’re not searching out role models anymore, they’re there to see, from a female perspective certainly”.

Caroline, who has earned post-graduate qualifications in Digital Marketing and Sponsorship in her time at England Lacrosse, doesn’t think the fight for equality, inclusivity, and diversity can be fought without the help of allies who are not part of the LGBTQ+ community.

“I think people just need to be proactive in calling people out when they make homophobic comments, whether it’s casual or overt.

“People should also educate themselves about the LGBTQ+ community, their struggles, and their history and ensure that when there is discrimination they stand up to it.

“It’s about having uncomfortable conversations. If someone uses a homophobic slur but doesn’t realise it’s offensive, which happens all the time, people should be able to say to them, “that’s offensive to me”, and have a conversation about why.

“Specifically within a workplace environment, it’s about ensuring the appropriate processes are in place and that we are always taking steps to ensure we are more diverse.

“Every person within England Lacrosse has a part to play to ensure we are doing the right things and that everything we do includes an inclusion or a diversity consideration”.