In this shocking and tear-inducing documentary with the BBC, Tom Daley’s Illegal To Be Me illuminates the homophobic laws and sentiments still present throughout the Commonwealth.
TW: Mentions of self-harm, homophobic violence and rape.
Homophobia in the Commonwealth
With the Commonwealth Games 2022 still fresh in our minds, there is no better time to talk about homophobic attitudes in some of the member states. The Commonwealth is home to a third of the world’s population and is comprised of 56 member states. In over half of these states, it is illegal to be gay. Shockingly, in three you could even be sentenced to death.
Surely that is enough to say that the Commonwealth does not respect LGBTQIA+ communities.
In the documentary, Daley meets with athletes to learn more about the experiences of being a gay athlete and being gay in homophobic communities more broadly. Daley found that fear of verbal assault and physical violence is a part of the everyday experience of being gay.
Illegal To Be Me explored the reasons why athletes choose not to come out and why it seems that there aren’t many LGBTQIA+ athletes competing in major sporting events.
Athletes conceal their sexuality for various reasons. They fear the consequences that coming out may have on their careers. They may lose sponsorships, lose support from sport federations and so on. The fear of violence also contributes to athletes not coming out. In the documentary many athletes, such as Jamaican swimmer Michael Gunning, recall receiving death threats and online abuse for being gay. Others told stories of their friends being physically assaulted and even killed for who they love.
An anonymous Pakistani cricketeer told Daley about her experiences being a gay athlete. She shared that she often sat alone when travelling with the team and was essentially socially excluded. Moreover, she told Daley about the common experiences of gay people in Pakistan, which include self-harm and drug-use to cope with homophobia.
Why is the Commonwealth so homophobic?
Besides the current experiences of LGBTQIA+ athletes, Daley also explored the origins of homophobia in the Commonwealth. He found that homophobia was strongly linked to Britain’s colonial era.
To illustrate, homophobia in Jamaica is partly as a result of the slave trade. Same-sex sex was prohibited by the Brits in Jamaica as it wasn’t productive; it did not produce children to be sold to labour. What’s more, same-sex sex was punished severely. The punishment included being raped by the white slave owner. Essentially, this sexual trauma contributed to a negative association with homosexuality. It is seen as a loss of power and a violation of sorts.
Watch the documentary here to learn about this in more detail.
What did interviewing LGBT+ athletes achieve?
Daley’s main aim throughout the documentary was to get the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) to take LGBTQIA+ rights seriously.
His initial idea was to ask the CGF to ban countries from hosting the games if they have anti-LGBT+ laws. However, many athletes disagreed with Daley and thought this would only cause problems. For instance, one athlete thought this would make countries more resentful towards LGBTQIA+ people as they would blame them for taking this opportunity away from their country.
Through his conversations with many athletes, Daley drafted a manifesto to present to the CGF in order to inspire them to take action. In the manifesto Daley stressed the importance of displaying pride flags in the event to show solidarity with LGBTQIA+ people.
Thankfully, Daley achieved this! If you saw the opening ceremony of the games you would have seen that the Queen’s baton relay ended with Daley running alongside pride flag bearers. This was an excellent display of support for the LGBTQIA+ community and Daley has been praised for this moment.
Daley hopes that this display of solidarity will encourage other major sporting events to embrace the LGBT+ community in the same way. This is especially important currently as the 2022 FIFA World Cup is set to take place in Qatar, a country with anti-LGBT+ laws.
The Future of The Commonwealth Games
For this year’s games the CGF introduced the Commonwealth Sport Pride Network which aimed to provide a safe space for LGBT+ athletes, coaches, allies and so on.
Of course this was a great introduction and it was very welcomed too. On the other hand, the CGF must be careful not to make this another contribution to the rainbow-washing done by many other organisations. In the documentary Daley questioned the CGF’s approach to LGBT+ inclusion to ensure that they were aware of how their initiatives may be deemed as rainbow-washing.
By the next Commonwealth Games it would be great to see other major sporting events doing what was done for this year’s games. This can be easily done in four years! It solely depends on sports federations wanting to support the LGBT+ community.
A Final Note
I highly recommend watching the documentary if you are yet to. Illegal To Be Me provides a great way of understanding the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ people in societies that do not accept them. The summary provided in this article does not do justice to all of the issues covered in the documentary.
Watching the documentary made me realise too how privileged I am in comparison to LGBTQIA+ individuals around the world. In all honesty, I shed many tears watching the documentary. Mostly sad tears but a few happy ones.