Hit Me Up

12 Dec 2024

Ian Pearson-Brown founder of Pride in Tennis talks inclusion of LGBTQ+ in British Tennis (with full transcript)

Sexuality, Society & Culture, Sports & Recreation

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Host Demetra Giannakopoulos talks with Ian Pearson-Brown founder of Pride In Tennis, an organisation dedicated to LGBTQ+ inclusion in British Tennis. Ian who is a tennis coach and played tennis from when he was a child, speaks about starting the inclusion road via football (soccer) and how he has come full circle from joining in homophobic chants as a younger man, to standing on a tennis court with top ten players and talking to packed crowds about the importance of inclusion of LGBTQ+ community in tennis.

Socials: @prideintennis

FULL TRANSCRIPT

General: (Over fast paced dance music with a strong beat) Anyone for tennis? You’re listening to Hit Me Up with Demetra Giannakopoulos on Joy 94.9.

Host Demetra Giannakopoulos (DG): Our guest today is Ian Pearson-Brown, who is the founder and currently the Clubs and Venues Network officer for Pride in Tennis, which promotes LGBTQ plus participation in British tennis and is the 2024 winner of the LTA President’s Award for Outstanding Achievement and Innovation in Diversity and Inclusion. Ian, welcome to Hit Me Up.

IPB: Good morning.

DG: Now you’re good morning because you’re calling from London. Is that correct?

IPB: Close enough. I’m from Newcastle which is in the north of the UK. So yes, I’m aware it’s evening for you at the moment over there isn’t it?

DG: It is indeed. Please tell us about Pride in Tennis.

IPB: So, I’ve worked, in tennis as a tennis coach for, my most of my adult life. I was, a very sport smart kid. Loves my football with my tennis, and I was I realized when I was 13 that I was gay. I had huge issues with that. I found it very difficult to get into my head that I didn’t believe you could play sport and be gay, for a multitude of reasons. Partly the lack of role models, partly the internal barriers inside my head because I felt I had to choose between the two.

I developed a lot of mental health problems, including, depression, anxiety. It led on to some attempts to take my own life, and it also linked to the fact that I couldn’t accept that I was gay because I was heavily into sport. So if I had to choose between the two, I chose sport. I threw myself into a career as a tennis coach.

I was, 30 when I finally came out in the sports space. When I did come out, all of the things that I thought might go wrong, I thought parents might take the kids away from my coaching sessions. I thought my teammates might stop talking to me. None of those things happened of course. And then I realized that tennis is not a homophobic sport.

However, we never seem to talk about this subject. We never seem to talk about the lack of representation in, tennis, but particularly in men’s tennis, for LGBTQ plus people. I wanted to do something, as a volunteer to be able to change the narrative, namely to make sure that no young LGBT person would go through the experiences that I went through as a young queer athlete.

So I approached the LTA about ten years ago, and I’m going to be kind to them and say they were not ready for the conversation (laughter). So I did a bit of voluntary work in football instead, in soccer. I’m a dedicated Newcastle United fan and helped to found the LGBT fans group United with Pride. And I became a United as One ambassador for the club, and still work as a diversity and inclusion consultant for the club, which of course, is a major Premier League club.

And I learned a lot about, LGBTQ plus inclusion in sport. And I took that experience back to tennis at a time more recently, when the LTA were ready for that conversation, and we launched together Pride in Tennis out of the LTA National Tennis Centre in February 2022. I’ve been doing a lot of prep work for it. From there it just exploded. So tennis in the UK was a long way behind this conversation compared to other sports. And I would say in the last two and a half years, we’ve really pushed ahead as an industry leader. Now we’ve got regular visibility days in most major events, as during the grass court season, like Queens ad Eastbourne, we went something called Friday Pride Day.

We do the same when we host a Davis Cup or a Billie-Jean King Cup event. So we’ve done that, wheelchair National championships as well. So on a Friday Pride Day, we get a lot of visibility going, a lot of conversation around the subject. LGBTQ plus people in tennis. And, we also launched something, which we believe is quite groundbreaking, called the Rally Allies Training program, which gives all grassroots tennis venues access to, free LGBTQ plus awareness training, and also free resources pack, which allows their venue to then do some activation around the topic. And brings us to where we are today.

DG: Yeah, I mean, that’s a lot of initiatives that Pride in Tennis is undertaking that you have helped to found. Can I come back to the Friday Pride Day? Can you describe what that is and what happens on that day? Because it’s part of significant lead up tournaments to Wimbledon.

IPB: Every Friday of major events. We make sure that everybody who’s attending knows it’s Friday Pride Day. So we encourage them to wear bright colours or do a rainbow themed dress when they when they come and people do it. It’s it’s wonderful to see how many people in the crowd to actually, notice that and engage in that. Pride in Tennis would usually have a stall of some description where we’ll be able to give out information, but also, give out rainbow laces, rainbow sweatbands, we sell them, to raise money for the LTA’s Charitable Foundation.

We do some on court activity as well. We’ve got that progress flag flying above every, sort of centre court. We do a bit of media on court, we do a coin toss, we talk about the theme of the day and why it’s important. Some of the, the ball kids will wear the rainbow sweatbands as well. Hoardings around the site will have a rainbow theme to them to use the umpire’s chair sponsor will get involved. So there’s something visible on camera and, we’ll get some media coverage around that as well. So there’s, there’s quite a few different things going on during the day, both in terms of interacting with the crowd, but also, getting the, the exposure for the rainbow colours to a national audience.

DG: Wonderful. And you mentioned Rally Allies-Rally alleys (laughter)

IPB: That’s a tough one. Yeah, I know with the name…

DG: (laughter) I love it. But how does that work? Because it does sound like an amazing initiative.

IPB: So it’s a in its current form we do live sort of zoom workshops where any tennis volunteer, any coach, any official, anyone who helps to run grassroots tennis, at any level, whether it be a small club or a park court or whether it’s like a major national centre, anyone who’s involved in that can come on to the, the workshop, get some some basic ideas on why LGBTQ plus visibility is important. We talk about inclusive language. We talk about how to deal with homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. We talk about what the barriers are. In tennis, which at times can be quite subtle but doesn’t make them any less impactful. And we talk about, the simple solutions to the complex issues. So for example, I know you asked me what my pronouns were before, which are he/him, I talk about, you know, people who are willing to put their pronouns at the end of their email signature in the social media bios, and it doesn’t do any harm.

It doesn’t make any difference to the first hundred people who you email. However, that 101st person who happens to be questioning their gender identity will find it much more comfortable to deal with you. If they’ve seen that you’re willing to share your pronouns with them. And that’s what an ally is. It’s just somebody who’s willing to, show outwardly their support of as the LGBTQ plus community.

And then you could immediately feel more comfortable when you’re dealing with them in that official capacity. And we apply those, principles to grassroots tennis. And, we’ve had around 140 grassroots venues so far, with representatives coming through the program at all of those venues, then receive a resources pack. And that includes something, some things to address the venue.

So that includes a rainbow flag, some rainbow bunting and a charter for the notice board with the inclusive values and rules. Something that the professionals of the club can wear, whether that be the team captain or, the coach or the receptionist at the staff at the entrance to the place. There’s things like rainbow sweatbands, or rainbow places and things.

If they want to do an event where they can have giveaways, we’ve got stickers and we’ve, we’ve actually managed to make a rainbow, dampener, shock absorber for racquets, which, believe it or not, don’t currently exist and you can’t buy them on the internet. We have to make bespoke so give all the, think of all the different types of shock absorbers, of dampers in the world.

You’ve got so many different types and colours and shapes and sizes, and nobody has ever thought to make a rainbow one before.

DG: I’m surprised by that.

IPB: Yeah, we’ve got something that money can’t buy. So. Yeah. Quite proud of that one. (laughter). So, Yeah, it’s, like I say, they all get the packs and then they’ll do some activation on the back of it, whether that be a rainbow tournament to celebrate their existing LGBTQ plus members.

They’re all dressed up in different colours, or whether that be doing an open day, which target markets people from their local pride or their local LGBT social group.

DG: Can I come back to you talking about you first became involved with Newcastle United Pride supporter group and then you approached the LTA. I’m quite surprised that a team sport would be ahead of tennis for some reason. I can’t even explain to you why. Why was a team sport, ahead of a sport such as tennis that has had prominent LGBT or particular lesbian, tennis players for a long part of its history?

IPB: Yes. So it’s a fairly simple answer that one. There is are a lot more problems with homophobia in football. It’s the locker room mentality, fans. Instead, gyms, tend to do homophobic chanting because it’s, a very sort of, tribal atmosphere quite often. So, they can, you know, shout things at the referee or the players or at the opposition fans that could be, teams, homophobic and, so, so football culturally, historically has a problem with LGBTQ plus inclusion and representation. That’s highlighted in Australia by, Josh Cavallo, who came out. And then obviously this received some levels of of homophobic abuse for doing so. Despite the fact that, you know, largely he’s been he’s been well accepted. So there was there was large problems in football. So football was on a first basis in which the, rainbow laces campaign existed. There was active work being done, campaigns being done to try and reduce, homophobia in a similar way that, there was lots of campaigns to actively, reduce racism in the game, which unfortunately still rears its ugly head now and again.

So there was a lot of activation going on. Also, football in the UK is huge. It’s easily the biggest sport, has easily the most money involved with it. And obviously the Premier League is one of the biggest leagues in the world. So therefore they have a large you know, every club has a lot of staff and there was they could afford to have diversity and inclusion offices.

That’s what of another reason why football was it’s got the infrastructure to be able to to do that tennis of course is you know, if you if you think of the crowds of Wimbledon, the very different to a, you know, sort of raging soccer fans screaming at each other. So it’s, it’s much more respectful so you don’t get the chanting that can be discriminatory in tennis.

With tennis, it’s different because it’s just an area that’s never talked about. It’s almost like a taboo subject at times, with the exception of obviously, Billie-Jean King in Martina Navratilova being those, those pioneers, of LGBTQ plus representation, but of course, in the history of the game, there’s never been a male player come out whilst compete.

DG: The genteelness of tennis may have created an atmosphere of suppressed homophobia.

IPB: Yes. To an extent, I think it’s just the barriers in tennis are a lot more subtle. Yeah. I will say they are reduced as well. So in the UK, certainly tennis is a very queer friendly sport overall. When we’ve looked at the demographics of tennis players in the UK, LGBTQ plus people are overrepresented compared to the general population, which is one of the few sports which it is.

However, we still do have issues. We have a lack of representation in coaches, in volunteers and in, of course, professional players as well. So there’s under-representations there. But in terms of, playing tennis, LGBTQ people do like those individual sports or social sports. That’s a good thing because one of the reasons why LGBTQ plus representation is important is we have a number of health inequalities in the UK when it comes to people who, are queer.

If you are LGBTQ plus in the UK, you are less likely to be physically active and you are significantly more likely to have a long term mental health problem. So getting access to sport is really important from those two perspectives. But of course, it’s also a space where you’re more likely to discriminate against and if you’re heterosexual. So for those reasons, we need to make sure we are still, working at that until those health inequalities are, redressed and reduced.

DG: I mean, I’m a big, big advocate for sport, not just from the physical point of view, but community and connecting. And that’s one of the things this show about Hit Me Up is about is really celebrating the community of tennis in particular. But you know, translates to all sports. I want to come back to the Pride Day initiative.

It’s great that there are organizations and tournaments that do that. Are there any other initiatives that are undertaken to address any underlying discrimination that may exist, or barriers that might exist to welcoming the LGBT community to sport and to make an environment feel safe? For example, for the elite players the male players.

IPB: Players, we will, leave rainbow laces for the players to wear if they wish to. And some do, some don’t. Usually they’ll put them on their bag rather than wear them as laces because that obviously professional players are quite fussy, understandably, about what they wear. And you know, so that when they’re competing. So, we don’t expect players necessary to wear, you know, one of our rainbow sweatbands or something like that.

As it happens, we have had some players do that. I’ll see Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid, the wheelchair pro players. I’ve seen multi Grand Slam winning players. They wore them in their finals. For the the national wheelchair finals last year, which is fantastic representation as allies. Liam Broady wore rainbow laces during the Australian Open of course, when he played Nick Kyrigos in the night match in 2022 as well.

And he is he’s done media and and this we released videos of him talking about him as an ally because particularly in men’s tennis, it’s important we do that because there is already representation in women’s tennis. Although I will say there’s still under representation of women’s tennis is a myth that, oh, if you’re a, successful talent female tennis player (DG laughter), somehow that makes you automatically a lesbian.

It obviously it does. And in fact, I think we’ve only got to maybe three in the top 100 at the moment who are out and, that’s, that’s, you know, if we take LGBTQ, plus representation is around somewhere between 7 and 10% of the population, then obviously that’s still an underrepresentation currently. So, you know, we’ve had some fantastic invisible pioneers, but I wouldn’t say we were overrepresented in the women’s game.

So there is still active and of course, LGBTQ plus women still have their own issues and barriers. Obviously Dasha Kasatkina as a as a Russian born player, she has her own challenges, you know, although she seems to be dealing with them exceptionally well. I have to say.

DG: Yes. Absolute, very brave and courageous, given Russia’s very anti-LGBTQ stance. It’s a very brave person. Let’s come back to your, it sounds like almost lifelong enjoyment of tennis. What do you think tennis has taught you?

IPB: Tennis was my safe space for a long time. It was my bubble. It was the thing which kept me alive. So, I played from age nine. I was a coach from age 16 and a volunteer committee member for eight from aged 18, all at the same venue. This venue, I still do those three things, down the road from me.

When I was going through my mental health challenges, as a teenager, as a young adult, tennis or coaching, either of them, playing or coaching, they were the places where I was able to get a mental health release. I was able to escape my problems, my challenges. I felt, yeah. So I don’t underestimate how much tennis really saved my life from the dark times.

And I understand, more than most, how important access to sport is for people who have mental health issues and certainly issues around questioning the sexuality and gender identity, it’s important that they get access to fresh air and exercise. You know, the stats around mental health problems for LGBTQ people in the UK is shocking. You know, if you’re a gay man, is seven times more likely to want to take your own life than a heterosexual man.

If you’re a, a queer youth, you are still seven times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than, if you are a heterosexual youth. If you’re a transgender person, you are 1 in 3 will make multiple attempts on taking their own lives. This year. It’s shocking. And I say that I always say that, you know, all of the work that I’ve done thus far, I want to do in the future, if it saves one young queer person’s life from, you know, from wanting to take their own life by just making them be able to feel more comfortable in their own skin, in the environment that they exist in with me, then it’s absolutely worth doing.

DG: It’s quite devastating. These statistics are, they are and these people are suffering. I wonder whether tennis or any sport that has a wonderfully inclusive approach contact organizations who may be, you know, first responders to, people who are considering suicide or have, you know, severe mental health issues, not even severe mental health issues, just wanting to find a community and come and, come and play tennis.

I love I love my team, I love my club, I love the people I play with. And the fact that, you know, being out really makes a difference.

IPB: But we have, we have, spaces in the UK. We call them a stepping stone clubs. So we obviously have around 140, I think I said, at Rally Allies venues, but we also have about 20 LGBTQ plus safe spaces. So these are kind of clubs or sessions that are run by LGBTQ plus people for LGBTQ plus people and, straight allies to come to.

And they are specifically marketed as LGBTQ plus friendly. So, for example, we have the ones in Cardiff called the Cardiff Baseliners, as we have ones in Newcastle, my home town called the Geordie Grand Slammers. We have several in London, including the South London Smashers. And I’m going to mention them specifically because, they’re founder, told us when we launched a the tale of when we launched this space and started doing work in that space that, one point to, someone who was transgender came up and said, you know, if I didn’t if you hadn’t made this space for me, I don’t think I’d be here, because I was really having a lot of mental health problems and tennis’s really helped the safe space you’ve created and been able to connect with other queer people. That’s really helped. So that that’s a really powerful message, to show. And I know for a fact that there are many queer people who will attend these sessions and, you know, drive 30 miles past a local tennis club to come into those inclusive sessions and made me do an additional to the regular tennis sessions.

But the reason we call them stepping stones is because for some people, it’s reintroducing them to sport after they’ve had bad experiences, either as kids in school, you know, in that school PE, which is a very difficult space when you’re LGBT Plus, at times. These people who may have been switched off to sport where helping them switch them back on, we get them involved, we get them, you know, we give them a little bit of coaching, a little bit of help, a little bit of social tennis.

They get involved and hopefully they then have a bit more confidence to go into their own local tennis club as a mainstream club and be able to exist as their authentic selves in that space in the same way. So that’s why the stepping stone groups, we don’t expect them to stay forever. We hope they sort of fly the nest.

And, and that’s the, the function that those clubs perform. And like I say, we’re trying to grow network in the UK all the time. We want to see one of those in every major city in the UK. I believe they have, similar things going on in Australia as well.

DG: Oh, fantastic. I need to check that out because I’m not familiar with the ones in Australia. I need to track them down.

IPB: I think that I know that the GLTA here, the International Tennis organization – the Gay Lesbian Tennis Alliance is does a lot of work, in, in Australia. They that host several, sort of major, international, queer tennis events, including the Glam Slam in Australia. Yes. That right.

DG: Yes. Yes, that’s absolutely correct during the Australian Open and in fact, I think the finals are within Melbourne Park grounds during the second week of the Australian Open, which is extraordinary. And similarly, fly the progress flag and, massive celebration of the LGBTQ plus community. So it’s very, very visible. It’s a wonderful initiative. And, you know, as a lifelong tennis fan, I know that I feel my heart skips a beat, when I see the progress flag at that at the Australian Open.

You know, you, on the one hand, you, you know, you don’t seek validation outside of yourself, but it’s nice to be included. You know, I think that’s so important for us.

IPB: Well, my journey has gone full circle, where I was desperately trying to hide my sexuality and to the point that, you know, lying about having a girlfriend and, you know, joining in with homophobic chants when I was a kid towards the opposition because I wanted to fit in. I felt obviously at that in football. I felt, you know, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t, you know, accidentally revealing myself, thinking I’m the only gay person in the stadium of 50,000 people, you know?

So going from that to talking on court during a Davis Cup with Stan Wawrinka one one side and Andy Murray on the other around queer visibility and, you know, dressed just with a, sort of rainbow cap on and, and, Pride in Tennis, t shirt. It’s, you know, a major stadium which had about 5000 people in it.

That’s quite a change from how I was when I was a younger person. And of course, my mental health as an older person is much better now. I was always I became a much better tennis coach when I, when I came out, you know, I was a much better coach in my 30s than I was in my 20s, because I was able to get that monkey off my back, help my, my mental health.

And, you know, I’m a typical example of as every queer athlete who ever, ever come out, they’ve always done better when they’ve performed as their authentic selves. So if we want queer tennis coaches, volunteers, professional players, whatever level the game play, if you want to play your best, you’ve got to be you’ve got to do it as your authentic self, and we’ve got to make sure we’re making the environment right to allow people to be able to do that, because unfortunately, it’s still not the case at the moment.

Otherwise we’d have male role models who are LGBTQ Plus, it’s not just tennis, though. There’s never been a golfer. There’s never been a cricketer, there’s never been a, there’s been one rugby person. There’s there’s been a handful of footballers. There are more queer people who are openly gay in countries where it is illegal to be gay than there is in the modern sporting Western world of men’s sport.

It’s bizarre that in 2024, this is still the case.

DG: I think that the organisations it’s up to the organisations to make a safe space for their LGBT players. I mean, similarly, now in Australia, one of the preeminent sports is Australian rules football. There’s not one gay player. You know, we I’m sure they exist.

Ian who is your favorite tennis player and what are your favourite tennis player?

IPB: Well, I’m British, so, it for me, it has to be Andy Murray. I loved, watching his career. I admire his tenacity so much. I was as a young player myself, I was obviously quite an angry individual. (laughter) So I had this habit of sort of barking out loud and throwing away my anger, but I was using it as a sort of like a mental skill to help me play my game.

I always played better when I was kind of fired up and angry, even though kind of it was not socially acceptable within my own amateur level club. So when watching Andy Murray do it and actually really thriving by, you know, shouting at his box and such, I just connected with him so much in terms of what I like to do with, you know, I couldn’t do the Roger Federer thing of just staying composed the whole time, but I’ll tell whether I’m winning or losing (laughter).

I wear my heart on my sleeve. I’m very passionate tennis player. So to see him do what he does, you know, do to the edge, he’s done it. And you know, the fact that he had last year without hip surgery and still competing with a metal hip into his late 30s, is just a testament to the competitor that he is.

I’ve always told, says, obviously British people, we can’t be competitive for too reserved for that. You know, I was I was shunned as a player because I was too competitive. And I’m like, how can you be too competitive? It’s such a British thing to say. No other country is like this, you know, it’s, it’s all got to be social tennis.

No, I’ve taken this sport to compete and to win. (laughter) Andy Murray completely embodies, it’s it’s probably an English thing that we don’t do that and elsewhere is, the Scots do seem to do it much better.

DG: Well, Andy Murray also amazing. Of course. And certainly his support for women and is well known a legend for correcting journalists, forgetting about women’s tennis. So.

IPB: Oh, we did an interview once for a prominent LGBTQ plus magazine. So he’s a he’s an ally to the community as well. You know, he talked openly about, you know, they ask him daft questions, like, if you were gay, who would you who would you fancy on the tour? And, and of course, he said Feliciano Lopez was immediate the answer. So, yeah, he talks about wanting to be, you know, Feliciano, his husband and such, like. So he’s he’s very comfortable and he’s very has very progressive values, which is fantastic, particularly as a father of three kids. It’s good to see in a, in a, in a male sports role model that he holds those values.

And that’s really helps. And of course he had Amelie Mauresmo as an openly, lesbian coach and one of the first men to have a woman, a female, coach him, whilst he was a professional player. So that’s great as well. And of course I wish him well on his new journey as a coach.

Just announced that he’s going to support Djokovic at the Australian Open.

DG: Oh, that’ll be interesting.

IPB: He’s going to be in Djokovic’s box in his corner as his coach. So, yeah, that’ll be very interesting.

DG: You give me a scoop there. I wasn’t aware that that was happening. But that’s going to be fascinating. We’ll wrap up the conversation. Is there anything else that you would like to talk about?

IPB: Just to say that, shout out to, Rowen D’Souza, who is, somebody who’s, a role model to me, somebody who’s inspires me to do what he has done to bring things like the Grand Slam to Australia. He’s somebody who mentored me in my early days of my needs to be patient with the governing bodies.

It takes a long time to change cultures within sport. And, he’s managed to do that in Australia brilliantly. You know, and I know part of it is because of the controversy surrounding, Margaret Court and the fact that, you know, she, she had very Christian values and, you know, whether the stadium should still be named after and such striking.

Of course, he’s managed to use that to make sure he gets everything you can out of Tennis Australia, so that they do lots and lots of work to positively promote LGBTQ plus inclusion and, Australia, absolutely lapping it up. And I love to see the Glam Slam, the over the top representation, all the drag queens, and and such like, and the rainbows.

And we don’t quite do it that way in the UK, unfortunately. We’ve, you know, we’ve managed to rainbow fans for the crowd and that’s about it. So we, we don’t head over to it. Of course the big you know, we still need to crack is Wimbledon the only, Grand Slam who hasn’t done a pride themed day yet, however.

But they have been doing a lot of, behind the scenes work. So they’ve been doing a lot of educational training. I’ve been talk. I’ve been doing some delivering to staff. So I’m hopeful that we see something, alongside the traditional colours of Wimbledon, of purple and green, that we see some sort of rainbow representation before too long.

DG: Here’s to that.

Ian, thank you very much for joining us on Hit Me Up on Joy 94.9.