August 2018, Wangaratta, Victoria, Australia
It's not often that issues around inclusion and diversity are featured as part of these discussions, let alone up first in the morning. So we'll see how that goes. But my work with Beyond Blue and the AFL around diversity and inclusion I wanna share how I came to be working in that space and a bit of my story to begin with. And that story begins in 1987, which is when Jason Dunstall kicked a record 16 goals in one match for Hawthorn. I was in my Mum's tummy at the time, and that was when my Mum and Dad decided that I would be called Jason. So even before I was born my story very much revolves around AFL football. I was raised in a house that lived and breathed the game. The most watched VHS in our house was the 1990 Collingwood grand final, which broke a 32 year premiership drought for the pies. And Dad also had a call of the game on a cassette tape that he would play on repeat when we were driving anywhere in the car or anything.
I grew up in a small town called Yarra Glen in the Yarra valley. And I played my first game of Aussie Rules football when I was five years old. I was thrown straight into the under tens, mostly to help make up numbers. So it would be a few years before I got a kick in a game. But as I got older, I got taller and faster and stronger and managed to take home the best and fairest at Yarra Glen growing up playing footy -- by under sixteens, I was playing inter-league for the Yarra Rangers and got as far as being drafted to train with the Eastern Rangers who play in the TAC cup, which is sort of considered that step before AFL football.
I made a decision though that I didn't wanna pursue a career in AFL, but while I was studying and living in the city, I got a call from my old club, Yarra Glen, who invited me to come back and continue playing my senior football there. And I was really happy to do that, because you know, I'd play junior football with a lot of the guys, Mum and dad would feed me after football practise, which was a great deal as a uni student, but there were two very distinct phases to my football journey. One being before I came out, and one being after.
I was 12 years old, when I first figured out that I was gay. And at the time I thought that this was the worst possible thing that I could be. The word gay was constantly used to mean bad or stupid or disgusting.
And when I figured out that that was me or what other people might think about me, it crushed me. I made a promise to myself that I would never act on these feelings — that I would go through life, marry a woman, have kids and a family and do all the things that society expects I should do. And no one should ever know about who I really was. I was worried that my family would be disappointed in me. I was worried that my friends would discard me. And so I spent a couple of years trying not to be gay, hoping that it would be something that could go away. And after fighting and hiding and self-loathing for a couple of years, when I was 15 years old, I started to think maybe it would just be easier if I didn't exist.
I thought about taking my own life. I thought that would be easier than dealing with the shame or the embarrassment that would come from anyone finding out about my sexuality. Luckily I found the courage to reach out to a friend and I spoke to a girl who didn't go to my high school, so it felt like a safer bet in case she didn't react well, but when her reaction was positive, that was the start for me on my journey towards self acceptance. I kind of came to the realisation that if I only live one time, I may as well do what makes me happy. I may as well be the person that I am and not worry so much about what other people are gonna think about me.
But in the end, most people didn't think less of me. My friends accepted me, my family accepted me, but the football club felt like the one place that I would never be accepted. Homophobic language, words, like faggot and poofter and homo were all considered part of the game, whether it was coming from over the fence, if it was coming from the opposition, or even my own teammates.
And I went to great lengths in that environment to hide my sexuality while I was playing footy, I didn't want any of them to figure it out. And what that looks like to give you an idea was I would second guess everything that I said or did — I wouldn't get involved in conversations about relationships or what I was doing on the weekend out of fear that they might figure it out. And I even went to the extent of creating a separate Facebook list, so that just my teammates wouldn't see photos I was tagged in, places I was checked into or what my relationship status was. And it probably limited the kinds of friendships and bonds that I could have developed with my teammates growing up. Cause I was always hiding a big part of my life.
But I had made a promise to myself that if I ever got asked about it, that I wouldn't lie. Lying hadn't gone so well in the past when it came to making up stories about girls, firstly, I had no idea what I was talking about. And secondly, it's exhausting to maintain fabricated stories with all the follow up questions that come the next week. But I would use words like they and them instead of he or she to, you know, try and get around it while also being truthful.
And I can remember really clearly the first time that it came up in conversation with one of my teammates, I was 22 years old. We were in the club rooms after training one night and one of my teammates had broken up with his girlfriend. And because I knew both of them, I asked him what had happened and how he was doing. And after a bit of back and forward, he put it back onto me and he said, "oh, what about you, Bally? Aren't you seeing someone at the moment? And I said, yeah, "I'm seeing someone". And my teammate said, "well, what's his name?"
And my heart started beating really fast. I thought maybe he was testing me. And I just said, "his name is James". And my teammate said, "well, has he come to any football matches yet?' And I said, 'no, he hasn't'. He goes, 'oh, we should bring him down. It'd be really great to meet him'.
And this just felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. And one by one conversations like this kept happening in my football club where my teammates would reach out to me to say, 'we know that you're gay. It's not a big deal to us'. It turned out after 10 years, there was only so much that I could hide, but all the fears that I had in my head about how my teammates were gonna react to me, weren't realised. Part of me felt silly for thinking that I'd had to hide it for so long. But I also came to the realisation that a lot of the homophobic language, a lot of the homophobic behaviour coming from my teammates growing up wasn't necessarily coming from a place of hatred towards me or towards people who were gay, but rather it was coming from a place of ignorance, and not understanding the impact that that could be having on one of their own teammates.
And at that point in my football journey, I'd never felt more part of the football club than I had in my whole life because I could be my whole self in that environment. I could talk about anything. I played better as a result, the homophobic language faded from my teammates vocabulary. And it made me think about the fact that there are no openly gay AFL players, male AFL players, in the history of the sport. And also learning that young people who are same sex attracted are up to six times more likely to contemplate suicide when compared to the rest of the community.
And it made me think about when I was young and struggling to come to terms with who I was, especially in that footy environment, if I had have known of such thing as a gay footballer, if I had have known that he could be out to his teammates and that it wouldn't be a big deal, well that would've made a really big difference to me. And so that was my motivation to share my story a number of years ago. And at the same time, I started a campaign calling on the AFL to do more to tackle homophobia.
Now, before I did that, I thought it was important to talk to my football club. You know, it's football is a team sport, unlike individual sports like swimming or diving. And I didn't wanna politicise my football club. I didn't wanna speak on behalf of anyone in that environment if they didn't feel comfortable with that. And I didn't wanna distract us from playing footy, which is what we were all there to do. But when I approached the club with this idea, to my surprise, they told me to go for it. And they said, we know this is something you are passionate about. We know that you and the other guys can handle any extra attention and we'll support you no matter what.
And so it was with their blessing that my story was published in The Sunday Age, back in 2012. And the photo that they used in the piece was me in the change rooms, tying up my footy boots. And one of my teammates was actually also photographed in the piece. And he said on that day that his Mum called him up to say that she was so proud that his photo was in the paper and it wasn't for breaking the law.
It was the way that my teammates responded on this day that meant more to me than anything else. I didn't know if the story would get much extra media pick, cos I'm just a country footy player and I'd never played AFL at the elite level. But in the absence of any elite players talking about this issue, my story filled a void and sure enough, all four television networks rocked up to football training and they wanted to get some interviews.
And they also wanted to interview my teammates. Now I hadn't briefed them on that and they hadn't done any media training and nor had I, by the way, but I remember feeling incredibly proud when one of my teammates put up his hand and he's like, yep, no worries, Bally, I'll talk to the press. And he strutted out in front of the media scrum, said some of the most perfect cliches that I couldn't have written better for him.
He's like, oh, you know, when we cross that line we're all one team you know, I think a lot of other blokes out there could probably take a leaf out of Bally's book. You know, at Yarra Glen, we support Jase 110%. I also got interviewed on that day on 3AW. and I was thrown a question that was precluded with a statement. He said, look, this is gonna sound like a bonehaded question, but it's probably a question on the minds of a lot of our listeners As a gay man in a football changing room, have you noticed a difference with how straight people react to you? And I started off. I said, 'well, you know, I guess gay or straight, you have to respect each other in that environment.' But after I came out, I did have a bunch of my teammates who wanted to know who I thought the best looking player on the team was. And they were off that it wasn't them! So I don't know, maybe they've gone outta their way to not treat me differently, but you know, meant a lot that they haven't. And up until that question, actually, it wasn't something I'd ever thought about.
What happened next was I, I got invited to lead Pride March in Melbourne — which was a real honour, but the heroes of that story again were my teammates from Yarra Glen who came and marched by my side. And I was also joined by AFL players, Daniel Jackson, and Brock McLean who became the first AFL players to ever take in this event. Daniel Jackson was an ambassador for Headspace at the time and Brock McClean had a gay sister. And I thought this was a really significant moment for Melbourne and Victoria to have not only people who were straight, but to have footy boys march in a gay pride march, it broke down a lot of stereotypes. And I think in a way it gave permission to other people in our society, especially young men, to know that saying no to homophobia doesn't make you less of a man. In fact, it means that you're a good bloke. It means that you're prepared to stick up for your mates no matter who they are. And I think those are the kind of values that anyone could really get behind. And up until this day, I hadn't been one to wave the rainbow flag. I didn't necessarily understand the history of pride and its importance within the LGBTI community. But I really came to understand on this day that the reason that the gay community celebrate pride is because pride , t's the opposite of shame and shame was what I felt when I was 12 years old and figured out that I was gay. Shame is what so many LGBTIi people have been made to feel for generations just because of who they are, because of attitude in society, because of discriminatory laws.
So that's why we celebrate pride. So we can tell people to be proud of who they are as opposed to ashamed of who they are. And so that we can build community and resilience in the face of that discrimination and isolation.
Next I got invited by the AFL Players Association to speak to AFL draftees at their induction camp. And I basically shared my story with them, kinda like what I've done with you guys here today. And the biggest takeout for the AFL players was the, the impact that homophobic language had had on me when I was a young footballer. And so the AFLPA took it upon themselves to start a social media campaign where some of the biggest names in the AFL took a pledge that they wouldn't use homophobic language, to raise awareness of the damaging impacts that it has both within sport and the rest of the community, and to encourage other people to also take that pledge.
The campaign was called Footy for IDAHO — IDAHO being international day against homophobia, which is on May 17 each year. It's now called IDAHOBIT, which is international day against homophobia, transphobia. And apologies that we keep adding letters onto the end of our acronym every year. But I think we've reached saturation point now. Every year we've had more people get involved, including AFL industry types and the most recent iterations saw an AFL and an AFLW player from every team talk about why they supported marriage equality in the lead up to that campaign that we had last year.
Now in 2015, some research came out that kind of showed that my story wasn't an isolated one. It was called Out on the Fields and it found that 80% of people had experienced homophobia in sport. And the impact that this was having is that almost nine out of 10 young gay people who played sport felt like they needed to be in the closet, or they stopped playing sport usually around the age of 15 or 16. It also found that up to 75% of gay spectators didn't even feel safe or comfortable attending a sporting event. And when you think about high levels of homophobia in the sporting environment, it's important to look at what the impact of homophobia is on a person's mental health. And so we know that LGBTI people experience much higher rates of depression and anxiety. Up to six times higher rates of attempted suicide, as I mentioned earlier, and that the impact is mostly experienced by young people in those formative years, coming to terms with who they are. It's important to acknowledge that it's not being gay or bi or trans that leads to negative mental health outcomes, but rather it's the discrimination, the attitudes in society, the rejection by family that leads to these outcomes.
But when you think about health and mental health, when it comes to sport, there's a lot of research that backs up that it can be a really great thing for a person's health and wellbeing. There's some research out of Latrobe Uni found that people involved in sporting clubs have higher levels of physical health on average, higher levels of mental health, and also feel more socially connected — being part of a community that comes, especially in a regional area of being involved in a sport. So to be excluded from sport or to feel like you can't be yourself within the sporting environment, that just further compounds the negative health outcomes that this community experience, because they're missing out on all of the positive aspects that can come from engagement in that.
And so back in 2014, in response to this, in response to my coming out my teammates at Yarra Glen came up with the idea to hold a Pride Cup. So we wanted to theme one of our games around celebrating diversity and inclusion so that every player, official and supporter in our area knew that they didn't have to choose between being themselves and playing the game that they loved.
So we painted our 50 metre line rainbow, international symbol for LGBTI pride. We got a sponsor on board to create rainbow jumpers that were made for both of the teams. And we presented the Pride Cup to the winning team, which of course was Yarra Glen. We're a football netball club in Yarra Glen, so our, the netball girls were very much involved with rainbow bibs and a rainbow flag flying over the netball court. We also worked with the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission to create the first ever education programmes, specifically designed for players and coaches to help them challenge homophobia so that more LGBTI people can access the health and wellbeing benefits of community sport.
The whole town of Yarra Glen got on board. These rainbow panels were made by the local men's shed commissioned by the local chamber of commerce in Yarra Glen, and were displayed in the shop fronts of Yarra Glen on the weekend of the Pride Cup. We got national media coverage and the crowd was four times the size of a normal game of country footy— many people who attended were members of the LGBTI community, who said that they felt welcome for the first time at a country footy game.
And for those of you, oh, I've left my phone down there, but my favourite moment of this day, I just wanna read for you. I got approached in the lead up to this game by a local church minister who wanted to say a few words at the game and my first reaction to that was 'no'. But, when she sent me what she wanted to say I couldn't say no. And so I just wanna read for you what she said leading the crowd in a moment'S silence before the Pride Cup on that day, she said:
'This is a time of silence to remember those same sex, attracted young people, some whose names we know who have taken their own lives or continue to live lives in fear and humiliation, because they have not felt loved, accepted and acknowledged for who they are. A time of silence to admit that we have said and done things out of our own ignorance, deliberately or not, that have hurt people, and to ask for and accept forgiveness from each other and for ourselves. A time of silence to commit ourselves to moving forward in love, acknowledging that there is a rainbow of different expressions of gender and sexuality, and that everyone has a right to feel safe, respected, and affirmed on all of the fields and the courts of our lives."
And I often like to read that, especially when I'm speaking at a religious school because — I'm not a person of faith and I can't speak from any authority in that matter —but I think it's so powerful to hear people of faith saying affirmative things about sexuality, cuz they have been a large part of the problem for the past many generations.
And so our, our event got a notice by the AFL and the number of AFL teams. And it was the St KIlda football club that got in contact with us, wanting to take the game to the national level. And so in 2016 we saw the 50 metre line at Etihad stadium painted rainbow and the rainbow incorporated into the players for both Sydney and St Kilda. And they really paid homage to the fact that this was something that came from the grassroots. My teammates in their rainbow jumper formed a guard of honour when the St Kilda players ran out onto the ground. And I got my face on the cover of the footy record <laugh> And the story leading into the game that really stuck with me, does everyone know this photo, this image, Nicky Winmar? So Nicky, who many years ago, took this very iconic stand against racism in the game as an indigenous player, he'd copped a lot of abuse.
Sometimes indigenous players would be spat on as they were coming outta the race onto the ground. At one point, it got all too much for Nicky Winmar , a photographer snapped him taking this, I guess, you know, in an act of defiance to say, I'm proud of who I am. And it really marked a turning point in the conversation about racism within the game of football.
And so in the lead into the pride game, not a lot of people knew that Nicky Winmar had a gay son. And so on the front page of the Herald Sun, in all of the, news, it was Nicky Winmar talking about his love for his gay son, as someone who respected and admired within the football world, someone who had taken that iconic stand against racism to come out and say that tackling homophobia is the next frontier to making this game inclusive and welcoming for everyone was a really powerful story. And what I wanna share for you now is a couple of videos just to give you an idea of, you know, what, what that night looked like. The first one is a package that we put together for the live channel seven broadcast. And the second one is a highlights package from the actual game itself put together by the AFL
Tonight's St Kilda versus Sydney pride game is about belonging and showing everyone that they are welcome at the football.
We want everyone to feel included and welcome in this great game of ours. That's what the pride game is all about. Sadly research shows that many members of the LGBTIQ community, do not feel safe or welcome watching the footy. Most have experienced homophobia at sporting events and don't feel they can be their true selves at sporting clubs.
Growing up, the footy club felt like the one place that I would never be accepted. Homophobic language was routinely used on the field and in the stands. And it left me scared to be myself.
It's a horrible fact, but same sex attracted Australians experience, much higher rates of depression and attempted suicide as a result of the isolation they face simply for being who they are. At St Kilda we believe communities thrive when people belong and we wanna play our part to help.
Tonight's pride game means so much. It will help save lives by sending a powerful message of inclusion. We are standing up and saying, there is no place for homophobia and the damage it causes
Tonight is a historic opportunity for the football community to celebrate diversity and inclusion. Welcome to the AFL's first ever pride game.
In watching those highlights in the middle of a conversation that I had with the CEO of St Kilda, Matt Finnis, in the lead up to the game where he asked about that symbolism of the rainbow. And his question was like, is it possible to overdo it? And obviously I said, no. And I said, if you imagine, when you're walking down the street and if you see someone wearing your footy team's colours — if that's St. Kilda or Collingwood or Hawthorn, or whoever, you know, that instant feeling of recognition of belonging, of being part of a community. So to LGBTI people, that's what the rainbow represents. And for that symbol of belonging and acceptance and inclusion to be splashed across an AFL game or a country footy match for that matter, it's a message of inclusion coming from a place where historically we have expected or experienced it the least. And that makes it incredibly powerful.
And on the night itself, I heard from so many people who watched the game — older members of the LGBTI community who, for them it was like this healing experience because it was a game that they'd loved and, and, and never thought that they would see this day. People who attended this game for the first time in a long time cuz they hadn't previously felt safe there, you know, to hold their partners hand in the grandstand atEtihad stadium, it was not something they'd ever thought that they'd be able to do. And it was earlier this year that we saw the, and I know this is a local Wangaratta girl in Darcy Vescio. But I want to touch for a moment about how homophobia also impacts on women in sport, but maybe from an opposite stereotype.
And what I first wanna say is that how great and important I think it is that we finally have an AFLW league. I think it's gonna go a long way for gender equality in our country because so much of people's lives in this country is viewed through the prism of sport and, for young girls to know that they can be AFL players too, and they can do all the same things that men can is, is really great. But also for the men to see women, not just as the WAGS and the canteen ladies and the mums in football, but as AFL players in their own, right, I think will have a tremendous transformative impact on, on the way in which gender is viewed in Australia.
And when it comes to the issue of sexualit, women experience the opposite stereotype when it comes to sport, the stereotype for men of course, is that gay men don't or can't play sport. The stereotype for women —if you play a rough contact sport like football, then you have to be a lesbian. Both are not true. There are very many gay men who play sport, including some gold medal Australian Olympians. There are very many straight women who play a rough sport like football and that's great. But both are equally damaging in terms of making people feel like they need to be in the closet. For many of the AFLW players who were gay when this game went national, a lot of them thought about, you know, the fact that they might have to go back into the closet. A lot of them deleted photos ofF their Instagram accounts of their partners. They were worried that this wouldn't be palatable for a national audience. Maybe parents wouldn't let their kids, their young girls play football if they knew that there were lesbians playing the game.
And so it's equally important for this pride message to be felt across both men's and women's sport. And we saw a real turning point with Erin Phillips, who was the standout player in AFLW, she won the best & fairest in the first year. And hopefully you've all seen this image before. It kind of went viral when it happened. It was this just moment of queer visibility. When Erin won the best & fairest, she was not someone who could really hide her sexuality cuz she was married and had twins. She played in the WNBA in America where it was legal to get married — at the time it wasn't in Australia. And so when she won that award, she not only gave her partner a kiss, which is a natural thing that you would do after that moment. But she got up on stage and she dedicated the award to her wife Tracy because when her wife Tracy was pregnant with twins, she said, yep, I will pack up and move to Australia so that you can pursue your goal of playing AFL.
And so this moment was a real watershed moment when it came to a lot of the other girls who were living in Australia at the time, where it was illegal for them to get married. So they didn't feel quite as comfortable in their own skin as Erin did. But when this moment happened and the sky didn't fall in, she didn't lose all of her sponsorship deals, no one really cared, it was the turning point for a lot of the other girls within AFLW to talk more openly about their own sexuality, which I think was a really great thing.
So five years on, since that first pride cup in Yarra Glen, this year there are about 11 of these events happening across Victoria and especially in regional areas like Sheppertan on Saturday and in Hamilton and Taralgan last weekend.
And what we've tapped into I think is that as the heart of regional communities, football clubs really have the power to transform attitudes and create ripple effects throughout their whole towns. And in Hamilton, like a lot of LGBTI people I knew who grew up there told me that they had a terrible time coming out, but when they came back for the Pride Cup, they felt accepted with these rainbow messages in every single shop window. No other event I think has put LGBTI people, their stories and allies on the front pages of regional papers, quite like these sporting matches. In Gippsland, even the local power station lit up their cooling towers with rainbow lights. We saw in Geelong a couple of weeks ago, Leopolds running through a crepe banner in rainbow And this is my favourite of the stories, because this is Melbourne Grammar who played in a pride game against Brighton Grammar for the second time this year, and I wanna tell a little bit of the backstory here, because the boys being at an all-boys conservative religious school, they naturally got a little bit of pushback. And so when they decided that they wanted to do this, the school said, well, we don't have a budget to pay for rainbow jumpers. So the boys went out and found a sponsor themselves to get the jumpers made. The school then said, well, you're not allowed to do any media about the event that that you're doing. And so in the week leading into the pride game the vice captain of the school he got up at assembly ,and he came out to his entire school and he talked about his twin brother, who was the captain of the football team who had led the other boys in creating this match. And they talked about how proud he felt of his brother and the football team for doing this. And the boys filmed the speech uploaded onto YouTube, then they're all on Sunrise the next day.
So you know, it's just amazing how much change we're seeing and how much of it is being led by young people. Now this is something that we came up with, the, with the Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, a bit of bystander stuff. And I just wanted to share with you some of the tools that we arm footballers when we go in and do education in football teams. And it's called the three Es. And when you think about it, the language is a really powerful thing. And if, when it comes to edit, educate, and echo —what these stand for is edit is firstly checking your own use of language, cuz it's the easiest thing that you can change. And editing that behaviour. Educate gets behind the why, because most people don't do it intentionally. Most people are not bad people and they don't want to cause harm. And if you can explain the damage that homophobic language causes, that's a really good first step towards changing that behaviour. And Echo is about backing someone else up. If they have the courage to speak out against homophobic language you know, we're not all quick or witty enough to have a good comeback in the moment. You know, if someone says, oh, that book is gay, you could say, well, what do you mean? Like is that book attracted to other books of the same sex or, you know but if someone has the courage to say that or, or stand up against it, backing them up is how you create culture change.
But far beyond not saying homophobic things, there's a lot more that we can be doing in that space. And for me, it's about being visible and proactive about celebrating diversity and inclusion. That's what the rainbow 50 metre line does within football clubs. That's what we all have the power to do in our own lives in different ways. And before I wrap up I wanna leave you with three of the biggest lessons that I've learned or leave you with three messages from the past few years campaigning and working in this space. And then I wanna show you a video which is our plan to take the Pride Cup nationally. So, the first message is the power of coming out. And so to anyone who might be gay or questioning their sexuality what I can offer you is a message of hope because as if it can be okay in country football, there's hope that it can be okay anywhere.
Don't be afraid to be who you are because you might be surprised how accepting other people can be, if you give them a chance, like what I've found with my teammates at Yarra Glen, and you might find that your coming out, could be the thing that transforms the attitudes of people around you, because people who know someone on a personal level, a family member, a friend, a work colleague who is gay are much less likely to hold misunderstood, stereotypical or discriminatory views towards them.
Thinking back to the times when I was wishing that I wasn't gay. I also want you to know that if I had a choice now I wouldn't change who I am. Being gay doesn't define me, but it is part of what makes me me, and I want you to know that I'm proud to be myself.
The second message is the power of allies. And I think clearly demonstrated by my teammates at Yarra Glen. To all of you in the room who are straight, I want you to know that the key to equality and the key to acceptance for LGBTI people absolutely is in your hands. We make up 10% or less of the population. It's up to the mums and the dads, the friends, the brothers and sisters, the colleagues, the football teammates of LGBTI people to speak up, to check their own use of language, to call out others and to be visible and proactive in celebrating inclusion for us to achieve change.
And the last message I wanna share is I think that the power of a personal story to change hearts and minds. I think the reason that I was able to cut through to the AFL when no one else could is cuz I had a story that the football world could relate to. They could see themselves in my teammates, in my dad, when I was sharing my story and they were able to understand what it was like. Maya Angelo once said that people will forget what you said, they'll forget what you did, but they'll always remember the way that you made them feel. A personal story is a way to allow other people to put themselves into your shoes so that you can build empathy. And so, you know, I'd like to encourage all of you through of the work that you're doing when it comes to, you know, ending violence against women, gender equality, to think about that use of storytelling and how you can use that to create the change that you wanna see in your communities. Now Pride Cup has done great things in Aussie rules, but we know that this is only the beginning and that there are more towns and more clubs out there who are ready for a Pride Cup and we are ready to bring it to them. So earlier this year we launched a new organisation, Pride Cup Australia. And we've got a new brand here because we're moving away from that football and netball because there are cricket clubs, there are rugby clubs, there are many other team sports that need this message. And so we working now to create resources and how to guides to empower more local clubs to do their own Pride Cup as well as the education that goes along with it. And so a few weeks ago at Etihad stadium on the third pride game between Sydney and St Kilda, we launched Pride Cup Australia on the big screen. And I wanna show for you now the video that we created for them to wrap up this morning,
